Benin -- Regulatory Status Regulatory Overview

There is no de facto or de jure BCEAO ban on virtual-asset activity by banks, microfinance institutions or other regulated entities in Benin. No prohibitive instrument exists: BCEAO's own site search returns no communiqué, circular or note on crypto-actifs or monnaies virtuelles, and its regulatory indexes contain none. The only rule in force is the opposite of a ban — art. 58 of the loi uniforme of 31 March 2023, transposed verbatim as art. 58 of Benin's Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024, which subjects PSAV activity to prior agrément or authorisation by a competent authority that has not yet been designated. As of August 2026 the BCEAO position is exploratory, not prohibitive (Dakar conference, 8 May 2026).

Correct that Benin has no standalone framework regulating virtual assets as a market activity (GIABA's 3rd Enhanced Follow-Up Report of May 2025 rates Benin Non-Compliant on R.15). But it is wrong that virtual assets enjoy 'no formal recognition' at national level: Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024 defines actif virtuel (art. 2(2)) and prestataire de services d'actifs virtuels (art. 2(44)), makes PSAV assujettis (art. 3), imposes 10-year record retention (art. 23) and requires prior agrément for PSAV activity (art. 58). What is missing is a designated competent authority, licensing procedure and consumer-protection regime — so the activity is recognised in AML/CFT law but unsupervised in practice.

AML/CFT Focus: Where there is any regulatory touchpoint at the national level, it typically falls under existing Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT) frameworks, which have been updated to include "virtual assets" as part of reportable activities.

The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) is the primary monetary authority for the eight WAEMU member states, including Benin, and is responsible for issuing the common currency, conducting monetary policy, and regulating and supervising banks and other credit institutions. However, supervision of capital markets and certain non‑bank financial market activities is carried out by separate WAEMU institutions such as the Regional Council for Public Savings and Financial Markets (CREPMF)/AMF‑UMOA, so the BCEAO is not the sole supervisor of the entire financial sector.

The regulatory status in Benin is highly dynamic, with frequent changes in local regulations, public contracts, and statistical reporting.

Role: General oversight of national economic and financial policy, including implementing WAEMU/BCEAO directives and national financial laws.

Website: Ministry of Economy and Finance, Benin

Role: Benin's body responsible for combating money laundering and terrorist financing. It plays a role in tracking suspicious transactions, which could include virtual asset-related activities if defined under national AML/CFT laws.

CENTIF-Bénin operates its own official website at centif.bj, which is not routed through the Ministry of Finance and does publish full legislation: a dedicated 'Lois & Règlements' section hosts the PDF of Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024, décret 2019-046 (autorité de gel), décret 2019-047 (CTN), the arrêté fixing the DOS model and the relevant Journaux Officiels, alongside STR forms, the national and UN targeted-sanctions lists and the 2025 annual activity report.

No such BCEAO communiqués or circulars can be located. Full-text site searches on bceao.int for « crypto-actifs » and « monnaies virtuelles » each return exactly one item — the 8 May 2026 Dakar conference announcement — and the press-release listing through August 2026 contains no crypto item other than that conference. BCEAO's regulatory indexes for payment systems and banking contain no instrument on virtual assets. The claim's own hedge ('specific circular numbers and public URLs are often hard to pinpoint') is the tell: the instruments are unciteable because they do not exist.

The first half is correct: crypto-assets have no legal-tender status in the UEMOA — legal tender is the FCFA, and Loi n° 2024-01 art. 2(2) defines actif virtuel expressly by exclusion of digitised fiat currencies and regulated financial assets, while BCEAO's e-money instrument (Instruction n° 008-05-2015) covers only FCFA-denominated monnaie électronique. The second half overstates: no published BCEAO warning to financial institutions about money-laundering, consumer-protection or financial-stability risks of crypto is retrievable on bceao.int. BCEAO's only located public engagement on the subject is the 8 May 2026 conference, whose themes include stablecoins, regulation and financial integrity.

Reference: Look for Press Releases or Official Statements on the BCEAO website under "Publications" or "Communiqués de Presse" over recent years regarding virtual assets. For example, a common reference points to circulars from around 2018-2019 that solidified the prohibitive stance.

The transposition mechanism is correctly described, but the instrument is out of date and the characterisation is too weak. Since 31 March 2023 the regional instrument is the Loi uniforme LBC/FT/FP of the UMOA, which supersedes Directive n° 02/2015/CM/UEMOA. It does not merely flag 'new payment methods' as an area requiring vigilance: it defines actif virtuel (art. 2(2)) and PSAV (art. 2(51), expressly including custody and administration of virtual assets), makes PSAV assujettis (art. 3(c)), and imposes prior agrément (art. 58) with detailed requirements deferred to competent authorities (art. 59). Benin transposed it as Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024.

Directive n° 02/2015/CM/UEMOA is a real instrument but is no longer the operative regional AML/CFT text: it was superseded by the UMOA Loi uniforme LBC/FT/FP du 31 mars 2023, which Benin transposed by Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024 — the only AML/CFT law listed by CENTIF-Bénin. In Benin the 2024 law replaced Loi n° 2018-17 du 25 juillet 2018 (as amended by Loi n° 2020-25 du 2 septembre 2020). The 2015 Directive contained no virtual-asset provisions; virtual assets entered the regional framework only with the 2023 uniform law.

Reference: UEMOA Official Website (Legislation)

Benin's National Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing:

Benin's AML/CFT/CFP law is Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024 « relative à la lutte contre le blanchiment de capitaux, le financement du terrorisme et de la prolifération des armes de destruction massive en République du Bénin » (adopted 12 Jan 2024, promulgated 20 Feb 2024), which transposes the UMOA loi uniforme of 31 March 2023 and supersedes Loi n° 2018-17 du 25 juillet 2018 (as amended by Loi n° 2020-25 du 2 septembre 2020). There is no Beninese AML law numbered 2017-15: Loi n° 2017-15 du 10 août 2017 amends the code foncier et domanial (land tenure).

Benin's AML/CFT law is dated 20 February 2024 (Loi n° 2024-01, adopted by the Assemblée nationale on 12 January 2024). No 12 July 2017 AML law exists in Benin.

Benin's primary AML/CFT framework is Loi n° 2024-01 du 20 février 2024, which transposes the UMOA loi uniforme LBC/FT/FP du 31 mars 2023 (not the superseded Directive n° 02/2015/CM/UEMOA). It does not depend on interpretive stretching of 'new payment instruments': it expressly defines actif virtuel (art. 2(2)) and prestataire de services d'actifs virtuels (art. 2(44)), makes PSAV assujettis (art. 3), and requires prior agrément for PSAV activity (art. 58). Benin is a GIABA member, not a FATF member.

Reference: Typically found in the Journal Officiel de la République du Bénin or through legal databases. A direct public URL to the full text can be challenging to find, but its existence is documented.

No BCEAO directive prohibits banks from serving crypto businesses, and no such prohibition exists in Beninese law. What exists is a statutory authorisation requirement: Loi n° 2024-01 art. 58 forbids professional VASP activity without prior agrément/authorisation, but Benin has designated no competent authority and issued no licensing regime, so in practice no VASP can be licensed. BCEAO's own position as of 2026 is that crypto-assets are unregulated and under study (C-CRYPTO committee, Dakar conference of 8 May 2026), not banned.

Crypto Trading (Individuals): For individuals, the situation is a legal grey area.

There is no explicit national law in Benin that makes buying, selling, or holding cryptocurrencies illegal for individuals.

Crypto trading in Benin does take place outside any operational regulatory framework (art. 58 of Loi n° 2024-01 requires prior agrément but no competent authority has been designated). It is wrong to say there is 'no legal recourse': ordinary Beninese criminal law on escroquerie/abus de confiance and general civil and contract law remain available; what is absent is sector-specific supervision, investor-protection rules and any deposit/asset-segregation safeguard.

Individuals engaging in peer-to-peer (P2P) trading or using international exchanges (which might face difficulties with local bank transfers due to BCEAO restrictions) do so at their own risk.

BCEAO has publicly cautioned about crypto-assets — its Governor stated in July 2026 that crypto 'n'est pas une monnaie, n'est pas réglementé, donc soyez prudents', and BCEAO convened its 8 May 2026 Dakar conference and the C-CRYPTO drafting committee on that basis. No pattern of consistent, repeated warnings by Beninese national authorities (CENTIF-BJ, Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances, DGI) could be verified from reachable sources.