The GENIUS Act was signed into law on July 18, 2025. Eleven months in, Treasury has published an ANPRM (September 2025) soliciting comment on implementation, FinCEN and OFAC jointly proposed an AML and sanctions framework for permitted payment stablecoin issuers (April 2026), Treasury proposed principles for acceptable state stablecoin regimes (April 2026), and the OCC issued Bulletin 2026-3 on the agency rulemaking. Final rules from FinCEN, OFAC, the Fed, and the OCC are still pending as of June 2026. The proposed AML/sanctions rules would take effect 12 months after final issuance.
What the GENIUS Act actually requires
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act of 2025 (the GENIUS Act) established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The statute does several things at once. It defines "permitted payment stablecoin issuer" (PPSI), reserves the activity of issuing payment stablecoins to PPSIs, sets the 1:1 backing requirement, requires reserves in US dollars or other low-risk assets, creates a federal-charter path under the OCC and the Fed, and creates a state-path option for issuers under approved state regimes.
It also tasks Treasury, FinCEN, OFAC, the Fed, the OCC, and the FDIC with issuing implementing regulations. The statutory deadlines varied by agency and topic. What follows is what those agencies have actually shipped between July 2025 and June 2026.
Milestone tracker: July 2025 through June 2026
Date | Agency | Action | Status |
Jun 17, 2025 | Senate | Passed S.394 (GENIUS Act of 2025), vote 68-30 | Complete |
Jul 17, 2025 | House | Passed S.394 | Complete |
Jul 18, 2025 | White House | Trump signs GENIUS Act into law | Complete |
Sept 19, 2025 | Treasury | ANPRM on GENIUS Act implementation (Federal Register 2025-18226) | Comment period closed |
April 2026 | FinCEN + OFAC | Joint NPRM on AML and sanctions compliance for PPSIs | Comment period open / [VERIFY closure date] |
April 2026 | Treasury | Proposed principles for acceptable state stablecoin regimes | Comment phase |
Apr 10, 2026 | OCC | Bulletin 2026-3 on GENIUS Act NPRM | Published |
Pending | FinCEN + OFAC | Final AML/sanctions rule | Pending |
Pending | OCC + Fed | Final prudential rules for federally-chartered PPSIs | Pending |
Pending | Treasury | Final state-regime certification framework | Pending |
What the FinCEN and OFAC NPRM actually proposes
The joint FinCEN and OFAC proposed rule, published in April 2026, lays out the AML and sanctions compliance program requirements for PPSIs. It treats PPSIs as financial institutions for Bank Secrecy Act purposes, requires a written AML compliance program, designates a compliance officer, mandates customer identification and ongoing monitoring, and imposes record-keeping and SAR-filing obligations consistent with other regulated financial institutions.
On the OFAC side, PPSIs would be required to maintain sanctions screening programs covering both transactional counterparties and any wallet-level controls available through the smart contract or off-chain identity systems they deploy.
The proposed effective date is 12 months after final rule issuance. That gives issuers a year of runway to build the operational machinery, but only once the final rule lands.
What Treasury's state-path framework actually proposes
The GENIUS Act allows a stablecoin issuer to operate under an approved state regime as an alternative to federal charter. Treasury's April 2026 proposal lays out the principles under which a state regime can be certified as acceptable. The proposed criteria align state regimes with federal-charter substance on reserves, segregation, audit, redemption, and supervisory oversight, while preserving meaningful state discretion on implementation.
This is the gating regulation for the next state-issued stablecoin launches. Wyoming's Frontier Stable Token is operating under a state-statute structure that predates the federal framework. Future state launches will likely wait for Treasury's certification framework to be finalized before going public.
What is NOT yet resolved
Several pieces of the implementation puzzle remain open as of June 2026.
Final prudential rules for federally-chartered PPSIs. The OCC has begun the rulemaking under Bulletin 2026-3, but the final capital, liquidity, and resolution-planning requirements are not yet in place.
Final FinCEN and OFAC rule. Comments are being collected; the final rule will set the formal 12-month implementation clock.
State-regime certifications. Treasury's framework is proposed but not final, so no state regime has been certified as acceptable.
Interaction with foreign regimes. Cross-border treatment of foreign-issued stablecoins offered to US users, and US-issued stablecoins offered abroad, is still being worked out across agencies.
Issuer onboarding queue. The OCC has not yet announced a public charter applicant list.
The implementation pace, in context
Eleven months is fast for major financial regulation. By the equivalent point in Dodd-Frank's implementation cycle, only the most procedural rules had been issued. The GENIUS Act has ANPRM + NPRM stages running across multiple agencies in parallel, which is an unusual cadence for a brand new financial-products statute.
The pace is also imperfect. Final rules from FinCEN, OFAC, the OCC, the Fed, and Treasury all remain outstanding. Issuers can read the proposed rules but cannot yet build to a finalized standard. That gap, between proposed and final, is where the next 12 months of implementation will play out.
What to watch in the second year
Three things define whether the GENIUS Act lands cleanly through 2026 and into 2027. First, whether FinCEN and OFAC finalize their AML and sanctions rule, starting the 12-month clock. Second, whether Treasury certifies its first state regime, clearing the path for the next state-issued stablecoin launch. Third, whether the OCC charters its first federally regulated PPSI, which is the moment the federal-path framework moves from paper to practice.
Any of the three crossing the line moves the next 12 months from a comment-letter phase into an operational phase. None of the three has yet.
Methodology and sources
The milestones in the tracker are pulled from the Federal Register (federalregister.gov), Treasury press releases (home.treasury.gov), the OCC bulletin library (occ.treas.gov), and contemporaneous coverage from Mayer Brown, Paul Hastings, and Davis Polk on the agency rulemakings. The statute text is on congress.gov as S.394 (119th Congress).
Related reading
PLACEHOLDER-state-issued-stablecoins-after-wyoming-frnt-whos-next
PLACEHOLDER-stablecoin-regulation-singapore-hong-kong-uae
PLACEHOLDER-fasb-stablecoin-holdings-gaap-corporate-treasuries
