When you send crypto from one country to another, you might not think about government lists. But if that crypto touches a country on the FATF greylist, your transaction could get stuck, flagged, or even blocked. This isn’t theoretical-it’s happening right now. As of June 2025, FATF greylist countries include 24 jurisdictions where crypto exchanges, wallets, and banks must apply extra scrutiny. And if you’re running a business or trading crypto across borders, ignoring this list can cost you your license, your funds, or your reputation.

What the FATF Greylist Actually Means

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) isn’t a police force. It’s an international body that sets rules to stop money laundering and terrorist financing. When a country is put on the greylist, it means FATF has found serious gaps in its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) systems. The country isn’t banned-it’s on probation. It has to fix these problems within a set timeframe, or risk being blacklisted.

The greylist isn’t a punishment. It’s a warning sign. Banks and crypto platforms look at it and say: "We need to watch this more closely." For crypto users, that means longer wait times, more ID checks, and sometimes, outright restrictions.

Which Countries Are on the FATF Greylist in 2025?

As of June 2025, the FATF greylist includes these 24 countries:

• Algeria
• Angola
• Bolivia
• Bulgaria
• Burkina Faso
• Cameroon
• Côte d'Ivoire
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Haiti
• Kenya
• Laos
• Lebanon
• Monaco
• Mozambique
• Namibia
• Nepal
• Nigeria
• South Africa
• South Sudan
• Syria
• Venezuela
• Vietnam
• Virgin Islands (UK)
• Yemen

Bolivia and the Virgin Islands (UK) were added in June 2025. Croatia, Mali, and Tanzania were removed after fixing their systems. That’s the key point: the list changes. If you’re running a crypto business, you can’t set it and forget it. You need real-time updates.

Why Crypto Exchanges Care So Much

Crypto isn’t like cash. Every transaction leaves a trail on the blockchain. But the problem isn’t the blockchain-it’s the people behind it. If a user in Nigeria sends Bitcoin to a wallet in the U.S., the exchange has to ask: "Is this person linked to a criminal network?"

FATF’s "Travel Rule" requires exchanges to share sender and receiver info for transfers over $1,000. But if the recipient is in a greylist country, that’s not enough. Exchanges now need to know where the money came from, who owns the wallet, and whether the user has a history of suspicious activity. Some platforms block transfers to greylist countries entirely. Others require notarized documents, proof of income, or even video calls.

This isn’t just about compliance. It’s about survival. If a crypto exchange fails to monitor greylist countries properly, it can lose its banking license. Banks refuse to work with them. Payment processors shut them down. That’s why even small exchanges in the U.S. or Europe now use automated tools that scan every transaction against the latest FATF list.

Blacklisted vs. Greylisted: What’s the Difference?

There are only three countries on the FATF blacklist: North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar. These are the real danger zones.

- North Korea uses crypto to fund its weapons program. It hacks exchanges, steals millions, and washes the money through decentralized apps. U.S. and EU exchanges block all traffic to North Korean addresses.

- Iran is under U.S. sanctions, but still uses crypto to bypass them. The government even created a state-backed digital currency. Most international exchanges won’t touch Iranian users-even if they’re not government-linked.

- Myanmar saw a surge in crypto use after the 2021 coup. Criminal networks use it to move stolen funds. Exchanges that serve Myanmar risk being labeled enablers of financial crime.

Greylist countries? They’re risky. Blacklist countries? They’re off-limits.

The Real Cost of Being on the Greylist

It’s not just about crypto. When a country is greylisted, foreign investment drops. Banks stop opening accounts. Loans get harder to get. Pakistan was greylisted from 2008 to 2019. During that time, it lost an estimated $38 billion in foreign capital. That’s not a typo. $38 billion.

In South Africa, the 2024 greylisting followed a wave of corruption. Eighty-two percent of citizens said corruption got worse in 2023. The government tried to fix it, but internal politics stalled reforms. Now, foreign crypto firms are pulling out. Local exchanges are struggling to find banking partners.

Even Monaco-a wealthy, tiny country-is on the list. Why? Because it’s a tax haven with weak enforcement. Crypto firms using Monaco-based wallets now face extra scrutiny from European regulators.

How Crypto Platforms Handle Greylist Countries

Most major exchanges-Coinbase, Kraken, Binance-don’t treat greylist countries the same way. Here’s what they typically do:

• Block direct deposits from greylist countries
• Require enhanced KYC (Know Your Customer) for users from these regions
• Flag all outgoing transfers to greylist addresses for manual review
• Use blockchain analytics tools to trace wallet histories
• Update their screening systems within hours of a FATF list change

Smaller exchanges? They often don’t have the resources. Some ignore the list. Others get shut down by regulators. The ones that survive are the ones that treat FATF compliance like a core feature-not a legal afterthought.

Why Some People Still Use Crypto in Greylist Countries

You might think: if it’s so restricted, why do people still use crypto in Nigeria, Venezuela, or Lebanon?

Because they have no choice.

In Venezuela, the national currency lost 99% of its value in five years. People use Bitcoin to buy food. In Nigeria, the central bank banned banks from handling crypto in 2021-but usage grew anyway. In Lebanon, banks froze accounts during the financial crisis. Crypto became the only way to send money abroad.

FATF wants to stop crime. But for millions, crypto is the only financial system that still works. That’s the tension. Regulations are meant to protect the system. But when the system fails regular people, they find workarounds.

What Happens If You Ignore the FATF List?

Let’s say you run a small crypto exchange in Canada. You let users from Nigeria send Bitcoin to your platform. You don’t do extra checks. One day, a user sends $200,000 in crypto. The funds come from a wallet linked to a Nigerian scam operation.

The Canadian Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) investigates. They find you didn’t monitor the transaction properly. You’re fined $500,000. Your banking partner drops you. Your customers leave. You shut down.

That’s not hypothetical. It’s happened. In 2023, a Malta-based exchange was fined $2.7 million for failing to screen users from South Africa and Lebanon.

Compliance isn’t optional. It’s survival.

The Future: More Rules, More Tech

FATF is working on new rules for decentralized finance (DeFi) and peer-to-peer crypto trading. Right now, most DeFi protocols don’t follow the Travel Rule. That’s changing. By 2026, FATF will likely require DeFi platforms to collect user data-even if they’re decentralized.

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are also changing the game. Countries like China and Sweden are rolling out digital money with built-in tracking. That makes it harder to hide funds. It also makes it easier for FATF to monitor cross-border flows.

The bottom line: crypto is becoming more regulated, not less. If you’re involved in crypto, you need to treat FATF compliance like oxygen. No air? No business.