France
Overview
France’s AML/CFT framework is concentrated in the Monetary and Financial Code and successive EU-transposition reforms, including Ordonnances 2009-104, 2016-1635, 2020-115 and 2024-937. In 2026, Law No. 2026-534 redefined part of the high-value-goods obliged-person perimeter and Law No. 2026-725 introduced staged changes for sports-agent AML scope and supervision. Directly applicable EU measures also form part of the current framework.
France developed the registre des bénéficiaires effectifs from the 2016 reform and related implementation. Obliged entities also perform beneficial-owner identification through CDD independently of company-register transparency.
Suspicious transaction reports are filed with Tracfin. Current ACPR/Tracfin joint guidelines explain transaction vigilance, reporting and information obligations for supervised sectors.
Compliance Calendar3
Requirement
Déclaration de soupçon (TRACFIN)
Authority / Report toTRACFIN
Deadline / triggerWithout delay (sans délai). Where possible the declaration should precede execution; when a statutory exception permits an already-executed transaction, TRACFIN must be informed without delay.
Requirement
- Subject scope
- Persons subject to Article L.561-2 of the Code monétaire et financier, subject to professional scope and exemptions.
- Trigger
- Knowledge, suspicion or good reason to suspect that funds/operations fall within Article L.561-15, including relevant ML/TF and specified tax-fraud circumstances.
- Filing channel
- Primarily electronically through the ERMES platform; official fallback procedures apply if ERMES is unavailable or in defined exceptional circumstances.
Impact
- Consequences of non-compliance
- Failures may lead to disciplinary/supervisory or other legal consequences. The applicable sanction depends on profession, breach and competent authority.
- Enforcement authority
- TRACFIN receives declarations; ACPR and other competent professional supervisors enforce compliance.
- Operational impact
- Internal monitoring, enhanced examination and escalation should be designed so a report reaches TRACFIN without delay once suspicion is established.
Requirement
Mandatory AML/CFT staff training and training-record retention
Authority / Report toRelevant competent supervisory authority under Article L.561-36
Deadline / triggerTraining at hiring and regularly thereafter. Keep records of mandatory training throughout the person’s functions and for five years after those functions end.
Requirement
- Subject scope
- Persons subject to Article L.561-2 of the Code monétaire et financier, for personnel participating in implementation of AML/CFT obligations.
- Trigger
- At hiring for relevant personnel and regularly thereafter; training content and frequency must reflect the entity’s risk classification and the personnel’s functions, activities and level of responsibility.
Impact
- Consequences of non-compliance
- Supervisors verify compliance with the training duty and the adequacy of training frequency and content; consequences depend on the applicable supervisory and sanctioning framework.
- Enforcement authority
- ACPR or other competent supervisory/professional authority for the relevant Article L.561-2 category.
- Operational impact
- Add training-at-hire and recurring risk-based training controls, with evidence retention extending five years beyond the employee’s relevant functions.
Requirement
ML/TF risk classification, procedures and internal controls
Authority / Report toRelevant supervisory authority; ACPR for prudentially supervised financial institutions in its perimeter
Deadline / triggerOngoing. Risk identification/classification and related procedures must be maintained and updated, including after significant internal or external changes.
Requirement
- Subject scope
- Persons within Article L.561-2, with detailed governance expectations varying by professional category and supervisor.
- Trigger
- Continuous activity and changes in customers, products/services, transactions, delivery channels, geography and organisation.
- Filing channel
- Internal governance and documentation; available to the competent supervisor under the applicable framework.
Impact
- Consequences of non-compliance
- Deficiencies can lead to supervisory remediation and disciplinary/financial sanctions; sanction scale depends on entity and provision.
- Enforcement authority
- ACPR or other competent supervisory/professional authority.
- Operational impact
- Keep risk classification and policies dynamically aligned to material changes and use them to calibrate vigilance and monitoring.
Authorities & FIU9
FATF Assessment
Measures how fully the jurisdiction has implemented FATF’s technical requirements. It does not measure practical effectiveness.
Measures whether the AML/CFT system achieves its intended results in practice. Follow-up reports do not normally replace these ratings.
Explore 40 FATF RecommendationsSee every Technical Compliance rating and what it means.+
Explore 11 Immediate OutcomesSee how FATF rates whether the AML/CFT system works in practice.+
Regulatory Timeline48
Article 26 of Law No. 2026-725 amends the Monetary and Financial Code provisions governing sports agents and their AML/CFT supervision. The immediately effective portion changes Article L.561-2(16) for professional-card sports agents linked to federations above a threshold to be set by decree; other supervisory amendments in Article 26 IV are staged for a decree-set date and no later than 10 July 2029.
Article 67 of Law No. 2026-534 rewrites Article L.561-2(11) of the Monetary and Financial Code. It brings regular or principal professional trade in watches, jewellery, precious jewellery and goldsmith goods above €10,000 within the stated category and retains a separate threshold-based rule for other goods traders accepting cash or electronic-money payments. The amendment entered into force on 1 August 2026.
Decree No. 2026-310 of 24 April 2026, published in the Journal officiel on 25 April, modifies beneficial-owner register access procedures and defines the AML/CFT training obligation for staff of entities subject to Article L.561-2. Training is required at hiring and regularly thereafter, calibrated to risk and role, with training records retained during employment and for five years after it ends.
ACPR and the Direction générale du Trésor published the second update of their joint guidance for ACPR-supervised financial institutions on implementing asset-freezing measures. The update was adopted on 16 March 2026 and published online on 7 April 2026. It reflects intervening French and EU sanctions legislation, EBA restrictive-measures guidelines, recent enforcement practice and emerging risks, and reiterates that asset-freezing measures must be implemented immediately and are not risk-based.
FATF revised Recommendation 16 to standardise payment information and strengthen fraud/error controls in cross-border payments.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗FATF amended Recommendation 1 and related interpretive material to strengthen proportionality and simplified measures under the risk-based approach.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗The decree implements elements of the 2024 ordinance and Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 in the French framework.
France published Ordinance 2024-937 strengthening AML/CFT obligations for transfers of crypto-assets, with staged application dates.
AMLR applies and AMLD6 implementation becomes central from July 2027; this remains future as of August 2026.
FATF revised Recommendations 4, 30, 31 and 38 and related interpretive material to make asset recovery a stronger operational priority, expand tools to trace and confiscate criminal property and improve domestic and international cooperation.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗At its February 2023 Plenary FATF revised Recommendation 25 and its Interpretive Note to strengthen transparency and beneficial-ownership requirements for trusts and similar legal arrangements, complementing the 2022 strengthening of Recommendation 24 for legal persons.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗FATF strengthened Recommendation 24 on beneficial ownership transparency for legal persons.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗FATF amended Recommendations 1 and 2 and their Interpretive Notes so countries and covered private-sector entities must identify, assess and mitigate risks of breaches, non-implementation or evasion of proliferation-related targeted financial sanctions.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗The Basel Committee revised its ML/TF risk-management guidelines to add principles for information exchange and cooperation between prudential and AML/CFT supervisors in authorisation, ongoing supervision and enforcement.
A Basel supervisory publication does not become domestic law merely because it is GLOBAL. National adoption, supervisory use or incorporation must be evidenced by a LOCAL milestone or source.
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision ↗The 2020 ordinance expands and refines preventive obligations, beneficial-ownership, supervision and asset-freezing interfaces.
FATF adopted detailed implementation requirements for virtual assets and VASPs in June 2019, including the application of wire-transfer information requirements commonly described as the Travel Rule. This operationalised the virtual-asset perimeter introduced through the 2018 Recommendation 15 revision.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗In October 2018 FATF revised Recommendation 15 and added the definitions of virtual asset and virtual asset service provider, formally bringing virtual-asset activity into the global AML/CFT standards architecture. Detailed implementation requirements followed in 2019.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗Corporate beneficial ownership transparency requirements developed from the 2016 ordinance and related company-law implementation.
The ordinance transposed major Fourth AML Directive requirements and strengthened preventive measures, beneficial ownership and supervision.
The Basel Committee issued Sound management of risks related to money laundering and financing of terrorism, superseding its 2001 CDD and 2004 consolidated KYC papers and integrating ML/TF risk management with prudential supervisory expectations.
A Basel supervisory publication does not become domestic law merely because it is GLOBAL. National adoption, supervisory use or incorporation must be evidenced by a LOCAL milestone or source.
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision ↗FATF adopted a consolidated revised set of 40 Recommendations integrating AML, CFT and proliferation-financing safeguards.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗The national coordination architecture supports cross-government AML/CFT policy and national risk analysis.
The 2009 ordinance and implementing decrees were a major step in strengthening France’s preventive AML/CFT regime.
Resolution 1737 imposed binding measures concerning Iran’s proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities, including an asset freeze on designated individuals and entities. Together with the DPRK regime, it forms a foundational UN counter-proliferation targeted-financial-sanctions architecture.
UN Members agree to accept and carry out Security Council decisions. This current Charter relationship is not proof of the jurisdiction’s domestic implementation, nor a claim about its membership status on the historical event date.
UN Charter · Article 25 ↗A 6 December 2006 decree changed TRACFIN’s institutional status to a national-competence service. The reform is material because it separates the unit’s 1990 creation from the later institutional form under which the modern FIU operates.
Following the DPRK nuclear test, Resolution 1718 imposed binding sanctions including an asset freeze on designated persons and entities connected to the nuclear programme. It became a central UN targeted-financial-sanctions pillar for counter-proliferation financing.
UN Members agree to accept and carry out Security Council decisions. This current Charter relationship is not proof of the jurisdiction’s domestic implementation, nor a claim about its membership status on the historical event date.
UN Charter · Article 25 ↗FATF added a ninth Special Recommendation addressing cash couriers and cross-border movement of currency.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗Resolution 1540 requires all States to adopt and enforce laws and domestic controls to prevent non-State actors from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction and related materials. It forms a binding global legal pillar of the proliferation-financing control environment later reflected in FATF CPF standards.
UN Members agree to accept and carry out Security Council decisions. This current Charter relationship is not proof of the jurisdiction’s domestic implementation, nor a claim about its membership status on the historical event date.
UN Charter · Article 25 ↗The UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention against Corruption on 31 October 2003. UNCAC addresses prevention of money laundering, laundering of corruption proceeds, confiscation and a dedicated asset-recovery framework; the Convention entered into force globally on 14 December 2005.
Current UN depositary relationship to 2003 UN Convention against Corruption. This is not a claim that the jurisdiction was already a Party on the GLOBAL event date; the national accession/ratification date is a separate LOCAL/STATUS fact.
UN Treaty Collection ↗FATF comprehensively revised its AML/CFT Recommendations, strengthening preventive measures and extending coverage.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗The Basel Committee issued Customer due diligence for banks, setting minimum supervisory expectations for customer acceptance, identification, ongoing monitoring and risk management. It became an influential global banking KYC/CDD benchmark and was later reflected in FATF standards.
A Basel supervisory publication does not become domestic law merely because it is GLOBAL. National adoption, supervisory use or incorporation must be evidenced by a LOCAL milestone or source.
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision ↗FATF expanded its standards to terrorist financing through eight Special Recommendations.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗Resolution 1373 requires all States to prevent and suppress terrorist financing, criminalise the provision or collection of funds for terrorist acts, freeze terrorist assets without delay and prohibit making funds or financial services available to terrorists and related entities.
UN Members agree to accept and carry out Security Council decisions. This current Charter relationship is not proof of the jurisdiction’s domestic implementation, nor a claim about its membership status on the historical event date.
UN Charter · Article 25 ↗The Palermo Convention was adopted on 15 November 2000 and broadened the international money-laundering framework beyond drug proceeds through criminalisation and preventive measures tied to transnational organised crime. It entered into force globally on 29 September 2003.
Current UN depositary relationship to 2000 Palermo Convention. This is not a claim that the jurisdiction was already a Party on the GLOBAL event date; the national accession/ratification date is a separate LOCAL/STATUS fact.
UN Treaty Collection ↗The UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism on 9 December 1999, creating the treaty framework for criminalising terrorist financing and international cooperation. It entered into force globally on 10 April 2002.
Current UN depositary relationship to 1999 Terrorist Financing Convention. This is not a claim that the jurisdiction was already a Party on the GLOBAL event date; the national accession/ratification date is a separate LOCAL/STATUS fact.
UN Treaty Collection ↗Resolution 1267 imposed an assets freeze and other targeted sanctions in the Taliban context and created the Security Council committee that became the foundation of the UN 1267 sanctions architecture. It is a key global precursor to modern terrorist-financing targeted financial sanctions.
UN Members agree to accept and carry out Security Council decisions. This current Charter relationship is not proof of the jurisdiction’s domestic implementation, nor a claim about its membership status on the historical event date.
UN Charter · Article 25 ↗Law No. 96-392 of 13 May 1996 created Penal Code Articles 324-1 et seq., extending the offence beyond the earlier drug-linked framework to proceeds of crimes and offences generally. The new provisions took effect on 14 May 1996.
FATF revised the Forty Recommendations to reflect evolving money-laundering methods and countermeasures.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗Representatives of 13 financial intelligence units met in Brussels on 9 June 1995 and founded what became the Egmont Group. The milestone created the operational global network for FIU-to-FIU cooperation and exchange of financial intelligence.
Current profile relationship to the Egmont network. This does not imply membership in 1995; admission history is a separate LOCAL/STATUS fact.
Egmont Group · Member FIUs ↗Historical FinCEN/GAO membership evidence identifies France among the 14 first Egmont Group members; Egmont's official history dates the founding meeting to 9 June 1995.
Law No. 90-614 of 12 July 1990 imposed suspicious-reporting duties on financial institutions and routed declarations to the newly created TRACFIN service. It established the core preventive reporting architecture that later reforms broadened.
A decree of 9 May 1990 created TRACFIN to process intelligence and coordinate action against clandestine financial circuits. This is the institutional origin of France’s current FIU, distinct from later changes to its legal status.
FATF issued its original Forty Recommendations, establishing the first global AML standard framework.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗FATF records France as a member since 1990.
The G7 established FATF in 1989 to examine and develop measures to combat money laundering. FATF became the central global standard-setting body whose recommendations are implemented through national and regional AML/CFT frameworks.
Current relationship. Direct FATF membership and any listed regional assessment network participation are current profile relationships only. The GLOBAL milestone does not prove membership or domestic implementation on the event date; those remain LOCAL/STATUS evidence.
FATF Global Network ↗France was one of the original jurisdictions in the FATF framework established in 1989. The milestone anchors France’s national AML development in the emerging international standard-setting architecture.
The Vienna Convention was adopted on 20 December 1988 and created the first treaty-level international obligation to criminalise laundering conduct linked to drug-trafficking proceeds, alongside confiscation and international-cooperation measures. It entered into force globally on 11 November 1990.
Current UN depositary relationship to 1988 Vienna Convention. This is not a claim that the jurisdiction was already a Party on the GLOBAL event date; the national accession/ratification date is a separate LOCAL/STATUS fact.
UN Treaty Collection ↗The Basel Committee published a Statement of Principles for banks aimed at reducing the risk that banking institutions would be used by criminals or as channels for money laundering. This helped establish the preventive and supervisory side of AML alongside the emerging criminal-law framework.
A Basel supervisory publication does not become domestic law merely because it is GLOBAL. National adoption, supervisory use or incorporation must be evidenced by a LOCAL milestone or source.
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision ↗