Stablecoin issuer / redeemer in Equatorial Guinea

A licensing regime for digital-asset services applies in Equatorial Guinea through directly applicable community law: article 144 of Règlement n° 01/22/CEMAC/UMAC/CM/COSUMAF du 21 juillet 2022 requires COSUMAF agrément as prestataire de services sur actifs numériques, and the Règlement Général COSUMAF du 23 mai 2023 supplies the framework, while no implementing instruction has been issued, no minimum capital is set and no agrément has been granted.

Licences for digital-asset services exist in CEMAC law and cover Equatorial Guinea: article 160 of Règlement n° 01/22/CEMAC/UMAC/CM/COSUMAF lists custody for third parties, purchase and sale against legal tender, platform operation, reception and transmission of orders, portfolio management, advice and placement, all subject to COSUMAF agrément, and no such agrément has yet been issued to any operator.

BEAC issued no Circular No. 001/GR/2022 of 29 June 2022 on the prohibition of crypto-assets; BEAC's register of Instructions, Circulaires et Règlements lists no 2022 crypto instrument, and the CEMAC measure of that period is Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022, binding supervised institutions only.

No CEMAC prohibition reaches the issuance, trading or holding of crypto-assets by any person: Décision COBAC D-2022/071 du 6 mai 2022 binds only institutions COBAC supervises, and Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024 instead treats virtual-asset service providers in Equatorial Guinea as regulated obliged entities subject to authorisation and AML/CFT duties.

Exchanges: Prohibited from operating.

Other VASPs: Any entity dealing with virtual assets in a professional capacity.

Virtual-asset service providers operating in Equatorial Guinea carry AML/CFT obligations directly under Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024: article 6 lists them among the obliged entities, article 42 requires prior authorisation and the transmission of originator and beneficiary information above 500 000 FCFA for occasional transactions, and article 39 sets a ten-year record-retention period, while no CEMAC text fixes a minimum capital for PSAN.

Règlement n° 02/18/CEMAC/UMAC/CM governs foreign exchange and cannot classify a stablecoin as electronic money; electronic money in the CEMAC is governed by Règlement n° 04/18/CEMAC/UMAC/COBAC du 21 décembre 2018 on payment services, and a digitally issued token in Equatorial Guinea otherwise falls to the jeton numérique regime of COSUMAF rather than to the e-money regime.

Article 27 of Règlement n° 02/18/CEMAC/UMAC/CM concerns non-resident CFA franc accounts and the duty of a domiciling intermediary to report doubts under CEMAC AML/CFT rules, and imposes no backing obligation on electronic money; the segregation of funds received against electronic money is required by COBAC Règlement R-2019/02, article 10, implementing Règlement n° 04/18/CEMAC/UMAC/COBAC.

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The foundational CEMAC AML/CFT text is a UMAC Ministerial Committee règlement, not a UEAC directive: Règlement n° 01/03-CEMAC-UMAC of 4 April 2003, revised by Règlement n° 02/10 of 2 October 2010 and Règlement n° 01/16/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 11 April 2016, and superseded by Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024, which applies directly in Equatorial Guinea without national transposition.

Equatorial Guinea has no standalone national AML/CFT statute; the GABAC mutual evaluation adopted on 22 November 2024 records that the country relies entirely on the directly applicable CEMAC règlement, supplemented by the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, and no law numbered 4/2004 on money laundering appears in that report.

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Obligation to Report: VASPs must establish systems to detect and report suspicious transactions.

Reporting Authority: Reports are submitted to the national Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

Article 39 of Règlement n° 02/24/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 20 December 2024 requires assujettis in Equatorial Guinea, including virtual-asset service providers, to keep identity and transaction records for a minimum of ten years after the account is closed or the business relationship ends, not five years.

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Equatorial Guinea taxes company capital gains as part of taxable profits subject to corporate income tax at 25%, and no Equatorial Guinean instrument classifies virtual assets as property or as an asset for tax purposes.

Equatorial Guinea's corporate income tax rate is 25% of taxable profits, with a minimum income tax of 1.5% of the year's turnover for fiscal year 2025, following the Tax Code enacted by Law n° 1/2024 of 19 November 2024.