Florida's stablecoin licensing law takes effect, and no rule yet says how to apply

What happened

Florida's payment stablecoin law, Chapter 2026-176, approved by the Governor on 26 June 2026, brought its licensing provisions into force on 1 October. From that date "A person may not engage in the activity of a qualified payment stablecoin issuer in this state unless the person is licensed or exempted from licensure under this chapter." There are two ways in: a money services business licence from the Office of Financial Regulation or, for a trust company, a certificate of approval. Issuers qualified at federal level are exempt, and so are issuers approved by another state under the GENIUS Act, which must notify the OFR within 30 days of starting business in Florida. Transfers between individuals without an intermediary, and self-custody wallets, are outside the law. The prudential terms follow the federal Act. Reserves must back coins at least one to one, in cash, Federal Reserve balances, demand deposits, Treasuries of 93 days or less, overnight repo, government money market funds, or any of these "in tokenized form". Issuers must publish their reserve composition monthly, have a registered public accounting firm "conduct a monthly examination of the previous month-end reserve report", and file a monthly certification from the chief executive and the chief financial officer. An issuer that reaches $10 billion outstanding has 360 days to move to a framework the OFR administers jointly with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or must stop issuing. A coin that meets the law "is not a security and is not subject to chapter 517", the chapter where Florida law defines a security.

Why it matters

The law is written to make a licence hard to refuse. For trust companies, "The issuance of a payment stablecoin on an open, public, or decentralized network is not a valid ground for denial" of an application, the OFR must decide a substantially complete application within 120 days, and if it does not, "the application is deemed approved". That is a promise of speed, and it depends on there being something to apply with. The licence application goes "on a form prescribed by rule of the commission", meaning the Financial Services Commission of the Governor and the Cabinet, which the OFR says "is responsible for final approval of rules developed by the OFR". The power to make those rules took effect in June, because the sections granting it carry no later date. On 1 October the list of rules in chapter 69V-560 of the Florida Administrative Code, titled Money Transmitters, included none on payment stablecoin issuers. The money services application form, OFR-560-01, effective from 1 July, does not mention stablecoins. The OFR's press releases page carried nothing newer than November 2025. So the licence was mandatory on the first day of the regime and the route to it had not been published.

What is not settled

Whether the regime counts under federal law is not settled. The law tells the OFR to attest to the federal Stablecoin Certification Review Committee that the state regime "meets the criteria for substantial similarity to the GENIUS Act", and to do so "in accordance with the timeline established by the committee for accepting certifications", so the date is not Florida's to set. The federal yardstick is not final either: the OCC's final rule implementing the Act, marked economically significant, has been under review at the White House's regulatory office since 27 August. None of the reports names an issuer that intends to apply. The coverage comes from the crypto trade press alone and restates the statute. ChainCatcher and PANews published within two minutes of each other on 1 October with the same points in the same order, which makes them one account rather than two. ChainCatcher has issuers "accept monthly audits by certified public accountants", where PANews has "monthly examinations" and TokenPost "examinations by accountants". The law requires a monthly examination of the reserve report by a firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and an audited annual statement only above $50 billion outstanding. ChainCatcher is the outlier.