Brazil now reports self-custody transfers of $10,000 or more to its financial intelligence unit

Since 1 October 2026, a Brazilian exchange that sends US$10,000 or more in crypto to a wallet its customer holds personally must report the transfer to Coaf, the country's financial intelligence unit. The same applies in the other direction. The report is triggered by the amount alone.

What the rule says

Banco Central do Brasil added one line to its anti-money-laundering circular. It makes reportable "transfers of virtual assets to or from self-custodied wallets of a value equal to or greater than the equivalent of US$10,000". The rule first appeared as Resolution 588 on 23 September. A week later Resolution 591 revoked it and re-enacted the same text, in force from 1 October.

Resolution 591 also gave institutions a grace period. Transfers made between 1 October and 31 December 2026 may be reported in one batch on the first business day of January 2027. They are still reported.

What it does not say

Self-custody is not banned and not capped. The duty falls on institutions licensed by the central bank, not on the wallet holder. And nothing in the text explains how an exchange should decide that a destination address is self-custodied and not another company's.

That gap matters. An exchange facing an address it cannot classify has every reason to report it.

Why the mechanism is the news

A report to a financial intelligence unit normally starts with suspicion: a compliance officer sees something odd and files. A threshold report needs none. Brazil already uses thresholds for cash, at R$50,000. From this month, moving your own coins to your own wallet sits in the same category as leaving a bank with a bag of banknotes.

A companion measure, Resolution 589, bars licensed institutions from dealing with foreign crypto providers that lack Brazilian authorisation, with an operational cut-off on 6 November 2026.

If you use a Brazilian exchange

Withdrawals below the threshold are not covered by this rule. A withdrawal above it creates a record of your name, the amount and the destination address in a government database, whatever the purpose. Splitting a withdrawal to stay under a reporting line is exactly the pattern exchanges are required to flag, so the threshold is better understood than gamed.

Europe's version of the same pressure, with its own date, is covered in the note on the AMLR deadline.

Sources: Banco Central do Brasil — Resolução BCB 591, Banco Central do Brasil — Resolução BCB 588, Migalhas, 24 Sept 2026