Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Licensing Requirements Regulatory Overview

Virtual-asset activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is prohibited, not unregulated: article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, amending Loi n° 22/068 du 27 décembre 2022, bans virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers outright, so operating a cryptocurrency exchange or a crypto custody business in the country is unlawful rather than merely unlicensed.

General Business Registration: Any entity operating in the DRC, regardless of its specific activity, would need to comply with general business registration requirements (e.g., registering with the Ministry of Commerce, obtaining a tax ID, etc.), but these are not specific to financial services or virtual assets.

A payment processor dealing exclusively in virtual assets may not operate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at all: article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers, so the absence of a dedicated licence reflects a ban rather than a permission.

Loi n° 20/017 du 25 novembre 2020 is the Congolese telecommunications and ICT statute, regulated by ARPTIC, and its own scope article excludes electronic money; payment services in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are governed by Loi n° 18/019 du 9 juillet 2018 relative aux systèmes de paiement et de règlement-titres, and fiat-to-crypto conversion is in any event prohibited by article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025.

Implication: A crypto payment processor that converts fiat to crypto or vice-versa, or handles fiat payments in general, might be interpreted by the BCC as falling under the scope of existing payment services regulation, requiring an authorization from the BCC. This would be decided on a case-by-case basis and is subject to interpretation given the lack of specific definitions for virtual assets within this law.

Crypto-only exchanges and custody businesses have no registration or licensing route in the Democratic Republic of the Congo because article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers; the Banque Centrale du Congo is the authority competent to detect and sanction providers operating in breach of that prohibition.

Payment-services and electronic-money licensing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo rests on Loi n° 18/019 du 9 juillet 2018 relative aux systèmes de paiement et de règlement-titres, whose article 108 provides that nobody may establish or operate a payment system or issue payment instruments without an agrément granted by the Banque Centrale du Congo; Loi n° 20/017 du 25 novembre 2020 is the telecommunications and ICT statute and confers no such power.

No virtual-asset capital requirement exists or can exist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activity outright; capital and prudential conditions for payment institutions and electronic-money issuers arise under Loi n° 18/019 du 9 juillet 2018, whose article 108 dossier includes capital adequacy, and not under the telecommunications statute Loi n° 20/017.

The general AML/CFT framework of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Loi n° 22/068 du 27 décembre 2022, which replaced Loi n° 04/016 du 19 juillet 2004, as amended by Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025; the amending law is crypto-specific, since its article 22 bis prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers in the country.

The Cellule Nationale des Renseignements Financiers (CENAREF) is the Congolese financial intelligence unit responsible for receiving, analysing and transmitting suspicious transaction reports on money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, and it is the central and sole structure for that purpose under Loi n° 22/068 du 27 décembre 2022.

Even in the absence of specific crypto regulations, any legitimate financial operation (or one seeking future legitimacy) should adhere to international AML/CFT best practices (e.g., FATF recommendations), including robust KYC procedures, transaction monitoring, and suspicious activity reporting. Failure to do so could lead to future legal issues or blacklisting.

Local Presence: General business laws would require any company operating in the DRC to have a registered local presence (e.g., a local office, local directors, registration with the relevant commercial registries).

No application process for a virtual-asset licence exists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and none can exist, because article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers outright rather than leaving them unregulated.

General Business Registration: The process would involve standard company formation procedures in the DRC:

Reservation of Company Name: With the Ministry of Justice.

Drafting of Articles of Association: Notarized by a public notary.

Registration with the Guichet Unique de Création d'Entreprise (GUCE): The One-Stop Shop for Business Creation, which coordinates registration with various authorities (commercial register, tax authorities, social security).

Obtaining a National Identification Number (NIN).

Obtaining a Tax Identification Number.

An applicant for a Congolese payment-services agrément files with the Banque Centrale du Congo under article 108 of Loi n° 18/019 du 9 juillet 2018, which requires a dossier covering the business plan, internal control, capital adequacy and operational safeguards and sets a sixty-day decision period; Loi n° 20/017 du 25 novembre 2020 is the telecommunications statute and opens no such application route, and no route of any kind exists for virtual-asset business, which article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits.

Banque Centrale du Congo (BCC) (Central Bank of Congo)

The Banque Centrale du Congo is the primary financial regulator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the authority competent to detect and sanction virtual-asset service providers operating in breach of the statutory prohibition; it has issued public warnings on cryptocurrency, including an avis au public on the illegal collection of public savings through a purported cryptocurrency, naming World Cryptocurrency Exchange Incorporated, Standard Capital and Rathe Investissement Group and invoking article 19 of Loi n° 003/2002 du 2 février 2002.

Note: You would need to monitor their press releases and official communications for any updates or specific warnings regarding virtual assets. Direct links to specific warnings might be hard to maintain as they get archived.

Law No. 20/017 of 25 November 2020 on the regulation of payment services:

Loi n° 20/017 du 25 novembre 2020 governs telecommunications and information and communication technologies and establishes ARPTIC as sector regulator, expressly excluding electronic money from its scope; the key Congolese legislation for payment service providers is Loi n° 18/019 du 9 juillet 2018 relative aux systèmes de paiement et de règlement-titres, administered by the Banque Centrale du Congo.

Availability: Official legal texts in the DRC are often published in the "Journal Officiel" and may not always be easily accessible online through a direct, stable URL without specialized legal databases. You would typically need to consult a local legal firm for the full text.

Law No. 04/016 of 19 July 2004 relating to the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism (as amended):

Loi n° 04/016 du 19 juillet 2004 was replaced as the general AML/CFT framework of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Loi n° 22/068 du 27 décembre 2022, which was itself amended and supplemented by Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025; the 2025 amendment carries the article 22 bis prohibition of virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers.

Availability: Similar to Law No. 20/017, usually found in the Journal Officiel.

The Financial Intelligence Unit responsible for AML/CFT enforcement.

The host cenaref.gouv.cd does not exist: it fails to resolve in DNS, so it is neither an official domain in maintenance nor one with a certificate fault; CENAREF publishes at cenaref.org, and the Banque Centrale du Congo publishes at bcc.cd while the Direction Générale des Impôts publishes at dgi.gouv.cd.

A gold-backed token marketed as the Sovereign Gold Reserve Token entered pre-sale in February 2026, issued by the AXIS-PFF foundation co-managed by the Fonds Social de la Republique democratique du Congo and the private partner Phoenix Capital rather than by the Congolese state itself; the Banque Centrale du Congo has published no instrument recognising the token, and article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers throughout the DRC.

Expectation of Profit: Is there an expectation of profit derived from the efforts of others? (This broadly aligns with the "expectation of profit" prong of Howey, but without the "common enterprise" and "from the efforts of others" specific structure).

Investment Tokens/Security Tokens: Tokens that represent equity in a company, a share of profits, debt instruments, or other traditional financial assets.

Tokens promising returns or dividends: If a token's primary value proposition is a guaranteed or expected financial return derived from the issuer's efforts or a common enterprise.

Tokens used for fundraising: Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) or other token sales where the primary purpose is to raise capital for a project in exchange for an expectation of future value or returns.

Virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers are prohibited in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, which amends Loi n° 22/068 du 27 decembre 2022; the question of registering a token offering with the Banque Centrale du Congo therefore no longer arises, and the DRC has never had a securities regulator or a public-offering registration regime.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has no token-offering registration regime from which exemptions could be granted, and since 1 July 2025 article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers outright, leaving no small-offering or token-type carve-out.

Crypto exchanges are not merely unlicensed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers, so no exchange can lawfully serve the DRC and none can be licensed by the Banque Centrale du Congo or any other authority.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has no market-abuse, insider-dealing, disclosure or investor-protection rules for traded tokens and no securities regulator to make them, and since 1 July 2025 article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 prohibits virtual-asset activities outright, so no lawful secondary market exists to regulate.

The BCC has repeatedly issued warnings regarding cryptocurrencies. While finding the direct, dated official communiqué on their website can be challenging due to how some African central banks archive their press releases, the stance is widely reported in national and international financial news.

Content: These communiqués typically state that virtual currencies are not legal tender in the DRC, are not recognized as financial instruments, and present significant risks (volatility, fraud, money laundering, lack of consumer protection). They advise the public to exercise extreme caution and warn against their use.

Relevant news/references about Congo - Kinshasa licensing and economic developments exist, with multiple publicly accessible external sources (e.g., Reuters, Bloomberg) available as of April 2026.

While not a direct BCC URL, many news articles cite the BCC's stance. For example, articles from Reuters, Agence France-Presse, or local DRC news outlets frequently report on the BCC's cautionary statements regarding crypto.

General BCC Website (for institutional context, but specific crypto communiqué might not be easily navigable): https://www.bcc.cd/

Loi n° 003/2002 du 02 fevrier 2002 relative a l'activite et au controle des etablissements de credit governs credit institutions rather than financial institutions generally, and it has been superseded as the operative banking statute by Loi n° 22/069 du 27 decembre 2022 relative a l'activite et au controle des etablissements de credit, under which agrements granted on the basis of the 2002 law are preserved; neither text mentions virtual assets, and article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 now prohibits virtual-asset activity outright.

No Congolese anti-money-laundering law numbered 18/007 and dated 2 May 2018 exists; the DRC AML/CFT chain runs from Loi n° 04/016 du 19 juillet 2004 portant lutte contre le blanchiment des capitaux et le financement du terrorisme, replaced by Loi n° 22/068 du 27 decembre 2022, itself amended and supplemented by Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, whose article 22 bis prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers.

URL (Example of a legal resource for DRC laws - might require subscription or direct search for the law text): https://www.leganet.cd/ (Legal database for DRC)

Supervised Congolese credit institutions are barred from virtual-asset dealings by article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, which prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers as a matter of statute rather than by any central-bank directive; the Banque Centrale du Congo's prudential-regulation register contains no instruction on virtual assets, and its published position consists of public warnings, notably the avis au public on illegal savings collection through a purported cryptocurrency and the alert of 2 July 2020.

Individuals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are no longer in an unregulated space: article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, amending Loi n° 22/068 du 27 decembre 2022, prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers in the DRC, making the country one of the few African states with an express statutory prohibition rather than a regulatory gap.

Banque Centrale du Congo (BCC) (Central Bank of Congo)

Role: The BCC is responsible for monetary policy, financial stability, and the oversight and regulation of the banking sector and other financial institutions in the DRC.

No Banque Centrale du Congo instrument numbered Communique N° 001/2022 relatif aux monnaies virtuelles exists; the BCC's published virtual-currency material consists of the avis au public on the illegal collection of public savings through a purported cryptocurrency, indexed by the BCC at 09 novembre 2018, and the communique d'alerte of 2 juillet 2020 on the proliferation of online platforms offering virtual-asset services.

The content attributed to a Banque Centrale du Congo Communique N° 001/2022 comes from no such instrument; the BCC's actual position is set out in its avis au public on illegal savings collection through a purported cryptocurrency, which states that 'la circulation de la crypto monnaie n'est pas encore reconnue en Republique Democratique du Congo' and invokes article 19 of Loi n° 003/2002, and in the alert of 2 juillet 2020 stating that crypto-monnaies, bitcoins et autres monnaies virtuelles are neither regulated nor authorised to operate in the DRC.

No Banque Centrale du Congo communique bars supervised banks, microfinance institutions or payment service providers from virtual-asset activity; the BCC prudential-regulation register contains no virtual-asset instruction, and the operative bar is statutory, at article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025, which prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers in the DRC generally.

URL: While direct PDF links to older communiqués on the BCC website can be challenging to maintain, information about this and similar directives is typically found in their official press release or communiqué sections.

A general link to the BCC's official website: Banque Centrale du Congo

(Note: You would typically navigate the 'Publications' or 'Actualités' sections to find communiqués, though specific direct links often change.)

The Democratic Republic of the Congo enacted an express prohibition on 1 July 2025: article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048, amending Loi n° 22/068 du 27 decembre 2022, prohibits virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers in the DRC, so the position that no explicit law makes crypto trading unlawful no longer holds.

Congolese financial institutions are barred from trading or facilitating trade in cryptocurrencies by article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 rather than by any Banque Centrale du Congo Communique N° 001/2022, an instrument that does not exist in the BCC's notice index or prudential-regulation register.

No cryptocurrency exchange is licensed or regulated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and platforms reachable by Congolese users operate not merely outside a regulatory framework but against an express statutory prohibition, article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 barring virtual-asset activities and virtual-asset service providers.

Article 22 bis of Loi n° 25/048 du 1er juillet 2025 prohibits virtual-asset activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which reaches banks and payment providers processing virtual-asset transactions, but no Banque Centrale du Congo instruction requires supervised institutions to screen or block crypto-related payments and GABAC records no enforcement action against illegal virtual-asset service providers.