Canada's financial intelligence agency has reported a sharp increase in enforcement activity, with implications for businesses handling virtual currency. FINTRAC's annual-report announcement on 26 October records 35 notices of violation worth more than C$247 million for 2025-26. These are figures for a completed reporting year, not penalties imposed this week. The annual publication provides a new account of how the agency has been applying Canada's anti-money-laundering framework.
The results published on 22 October show that more than 55% of assessment activity focused on money services businesses. That category covers several types of provider, not only cryptocurrency companies. Work included examinations of traditional money services businesses, reviews of crowdfunding platforms, assessments of payment providers and demands for information from virtual asset service providers. The figures therefore should not be presented as a crypto-only enforcement total.
Information requests carry registration consequences
The full annual report says FINTRAC revoked 82 money services business registrations, compared with 12 the previous year. It attributes the revocations to failures to answer clarification requests or information demands. The information sought included crypto wallet addresses. The report connects those details with the agency's ability to assess compliance and trace criminal proceeds across borders, giving the registration figures a specific operational context.
FINTRAC's account also separates registration from regulatory endorsement. A registered business has met the legal registration requirement; that status does not amount to a licence or an endorsement of the business. Money services businesses must renew registration every two years and respond promptly to information demands. The report says high-risk virtual asset service providers were among the businesses targeted through such demands during the year.
The results document records more than C$198 million in penalties against money services businesses. The violations included registration failures, reporting failures and weaknesses in compliance programmes. These are administrative enforcement figures, not a finding that every affected transaction was criminal. Separately, FINTRAC referred 31 non-compliance cases to law enforcement, 28 involving money services businesses. A referral for potential investigation is distinct from a conviction.
The annual report records 138,510 large virtual currency transaction reports, compared with 137,105 a year earlier. Separately, transactions within that reporting category fell to 614,217 from 751,209. Report counts and transaction counts measure different things and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Existing reporting duties explain the scrutiny
The practical reporting requirements predate this annual release. FINTRAC's large virtual currency transaction guidance, effective since June 2021, requires reporting entities to report receipts worth at least C$10,000 in a single transaction. The guidance treats receipt as occurring when the transaction can no longer be reversed or cancelled. Reports are due within five working days after the day the amount is received. The annual report has not introduced that deadline.
The same guidance requires aggregation in specified circumstances. Two or more receipts totalling at least C$10,000 within a consecutive 24-hour period must be reported when the business knows they involve the same person or entity, the same third party or the same beneficiary. Businesses use their normal business exchange rate to assess the threshold and must describe that process in their compliance policies. Hiring a service provider to submit reports does not transfer the reporting entity's legal responsibility.
Canada's 2025 national risk assessment helps explain the supervisory focus. It identifies crypto assets and certain money services businesses among the areas inherently vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing. Accessibility, transaction speed and reduced transparency can contribute to those risks. The assessment also distinguishes inherent vulnerability from the mitigating effect of compliance controls. A higher-risk classification is not itself an allegation against every business or customer in that sector.
FINTRAC's release places the enforcement work alongside its intelligence function. It reports 7,214 disclosure packages based on 3,007 unique disclosures during 2025-26. Those are different measures: packages should not be reported as an equal number of unique cases. The agency says its intelligence supported 348 major investigations, as well as other individual investigations, across multiple categories of financial crime.
Other jurisdictions use different instruments. Dalimss News has reported on US stablecoin issuer rules and Albuquerque's cryptocurrency ATM restrictions. Neither replaces Canada's separate registration, information-response and reporting framework.
