Is Monero legal in the US? The rules in 2026

As of November 2026, Monero is legal to own, buy and use in the United States, and no federal law bans it. The federal rules fall on businesses that exchange or send it for other people, which must register with FinCEN, and on your tax return, because the IRS treats digital assets such as Monero as property.^[1][2]

Is Monero illegal in the USA?

No. FinCEN, the Treasury bureau that administers the Bank Secrecy Act (the main US anti-money-laundering law), deals with privacy coins in its 2019 guidance on virtual currency, and it sets rules for the businesses that handle them, not a ban. It describes “anonymity-enhanced” transactions, including those in coins “specifically engineered to prevent their tracing through distributed public ledgers”, which it says are also called privacy coins.^[1]

The same guidance says that someone who uses these coins to pay for goods or services on their own behalf is not a money transmitter.^[1] On that point, privacy coins are treated like any other virtual currency. The extra duties start when you handle Monero for other people as a business.

What rules apply to businesses that handle Monero?

FinCEN generally treats exchangers, businesses that exchange virtual currency for money or for other virtual currency, as money transmitters; ordinary users are not.^[1] A money transmitter must register with FinCEN within 180 days of starting, keep a written anti-money-laundering programme that includes verifying customers’ identities, and file reports such as suspicious activity reports. These duties also apply to exchanges based abroad that do business wholly or substantially in the US, even with no office there.^[1]

Individuals can count too. FinCEN says a person who buys and sells virtual currency for others as a business, known as a peer-to-peer exchanger, is a money transmitter, while someone who does it infrequently and not for profit is not.^[1]

Two parts of the guidance bear directly on privacy coins. Transfers of $3,000 or more can trigger the Funds Travel Rule, under which the business must obtain or pass on set information about the transfer before or when it is made. And FinCEN says a money transmitter that knowingly accepts privacy coins in transfers covered by that rule must not only track the coins through each transaction but also have procedures to obtain the identity of the sender or recipient.^[1] Our guide to why exchanges delist Monero explains how rules like these lead some exchanges to drop it.

Which US exchanges list Monero?

Kraken does, outside Maine and New York. As of November 2026, Kraken, which is registered with FinCEN as a money services business, doesn’t include Monero in its list of assets restricted for US clients, and it doesn’t serve residents of those two states at all.^[3]

Robinhood Crypto shows market data for Monero but says it “doesn’t support trading” it.^[4] Exchanges change their lists, so check an exchange’s own asset list, and whether it serves your state, before you sign up.

What are the rules in New York?

New York adds a licence of its own. Under the state’s BitLicense regulation, 23 NYCRR Part 200, anyone doing virtual currency business involving New York or its residents, such as transmitting, holding, buying and selling, or exchanging coins for customers, needs a BitLicense or a state charter with approval for that business. Consumers who only invest, and people who use virtual currency only to buy or sell goods or services, don’t.^[5]

A licensed firm may offer coins that the Department of Financial Services (DFS) has approved for it, coins it has self-certified under a DFS-approved listing policy, and coins on the DFS “Greenlist”. As of November 2026, the Greenlist has eight coins, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, and Monero isn’t one of them.^[5] So a New York-licensed firm needs specific DFS approval, or a self-certification under an approved policy, to offer Monero. Kraken doesn’t serve New Yorkers.^[3]

How is Monero taxed in the US?

For US tax purposes, digital assets, Monero included, are property, not currency. You must report digital asset transactions whether or not they produce a taxable gain or loss, and federal income tax returns ask whether, during the year, you received a digital asset as a reward, award or payment, or sold, exchanged or otherwise disposed of one.^[2]

• Answer “No” if you only bought Monero with dollars or only held it, with no other transactions.^[2]
• Answer “Yes” if you sold it, swapped it for another asset, spent it on goods or services, or received it as payment or from mining.^[2]
• Moving coins between your own wallets doesn’t count, unless you paid the transaction fee with a digital asset, which the IRS treats as a digital asset transaction.^[2]
• Sales and swaps of Monero held as a capital asset go on Form 8949. The gain is short-term if you held the coins for a year or less and long-term if longer. Income from mining goes on Schedule 1.^[2]

Can the IRS track Monero?

It has paid to try. On 30 September 2020 the IRS awarded two pilot contracts for cryptocurrency tracing to the analytics firms Chainalysis and Integra FEC.^[6] The IRS contracting officer told Decrypt that each was worth up to $625,000, and Decrypt reported that they were for tools to trace Monero, with a working submission due within eight months.^[7] As far as we could find, neither the IRS nor the firms have published what the tools can do.

The blockchain isn’t the only source. Brokers that hold customers’ coins, including custodial exchanges, report certain sales and exchanges to the IRS on Form 1099-DA, and customers get statements showing what was reported.^[2] Monero hides the sender, receiver and amount on its blockchain, but not what an exchange records about your account. Our guide How private is Monero? covers what it hides and what it doesn’t.

What changed in 2026?

• Cost basis on Form 1099-DA. Brokers have reported gross proceeds for transactions since 1 January 2025. For certain transactions from 1 January 2026, they must also report your basis, what the coins cost you.^[2]
• Monero limits at Kraken. Since 15 August 2026, Kraken has capped Monero deposits at $3,500 and withdrawals at $1,500 per rolling 30 days for individual accounts, as part of what it calls “risk-based compliance controls”. It says it continues to support Monero trading and transfers. Its page doesn’t say whether the limits differ by region.^[8]

Rules differ a lot from country to country. See our country-by-country guide, or the pages for Canada and the UK.