Rwanda Legalises Crypto: Parliament Adopts First Virtual Asset Law After Years of Central Bank Restrictions

What you need to know:

• Rwanda’s Parliament ends 8-year crypto ban with 96-0 unanimous vote. 
• Regulatory oversight of the sector is the joint responsibility of the CMA and the BNR.
• Crypto assets will be individually and independently assessed before adoption.
• The law has not yet gotten presidential assent

The Unanimous Vote

On May 5th, 2026, the Rwandan Parliament voted 69-0 to adopt the country’s first law regulating virtual assets and cryptocurrencies. This result, which formally ends the more restrictive stance Rwanda has adopted toward virtual assets and crypto, comes as a shock to many. 

Just a month earlier, following an announcement from Bybit, stating that users could trade virtual assets on its platform using the Rwandan Franc, the Central Bank of Rwanda issued an official statement warning the Rwandan people that crypto-assets were still not recognised as legal tender, and that using the FRW for peer-to-peer trading on crypto platforms is still unauthorised.

The bill, approved by Rwanda’s lower chamber, approved the virtual assets bill without a single dissenting vote. This bill provides a framework for the supervision of the issuance, trading, and licensing of cryptocurrencies and digital assets in Rwanda for the first time.

The Capital Market Authority of Rwanda will coordinate with the National Bank of Rwanda to oversee the sector. Working together, these authorities will create the regulatory structure required to formalise this market. 

The question now remains: how did Rwanda go from warning statements from the Central Bank to a unanimous parliamentary vote in a matter of weeks? 

Eight Years of Hostility, Then a Sharp Turn

Since 2018, the BNR  has maintained a hostile stance towards cryptocurrency and digital assets. Cryptocurrencies were not recognised as legal tender. And licensed financial institutions were banned from facilitating conversions between the Rwandan franc and crypto assets. 

That position showed signs of softening in November 2024, when the BNR signalled a willingness to start exploring the regulatory framework. By March 2025, the BNR and the CMA released a draft framework for the regulation of Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs).

A year later, in March 2026, Rwanda’s Cabinet approved a more detailed version of the bill. By May 2026, Parliament had passed the bill in its landmark unanimous vote. 

Rwanda was due for a reversal of its prohibitive framework. Despite all the previous bans and prohibitions by the BNR, Rwanda has roughly 350,000 cryptocurrency users. As of 2021, Chainalysis ranked the country 69th on its global crypto adoption index. By 2023, following the BNR’s stricter cautions, it fell to 142nd. Despite this drop, many Rwandans continued to trade, albeit in the shadows and with little regulatory protection. 

During parliamentary discussions, Rwandan lawmakers pointed out that the Rwanda Investigation Bureau had recorded at least 35 cryptocurrency-related cases linked to fraud, pyramid schemes, and illegal trading operations, implying that the sector was due for further regulation. 

Since the existence of cryptocurrency in Rwanda was no longer subject to debate, the argument that might have informed this decision was whether the state was ready to shape the future of crypto in the country. 

Inside the law: Licenses, Penalties, and What’s Still Banned

The new framework, while a marked change from the nation’s previous stance, is still not a permissive one. 

The CMA has clarified that it will not automatically allow all crypto assets into its market. Each crypto or virtual asset entering the Rwandan market will be assessed independently before being approved for licensing or trading. 

The legislation includes strict licensing requirements for VASPs, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations, operational reporting requirements, and minimum capital standards for any entities wishing to operate within the sector. 

The penalties for non-compliance are stiff. Companies that operate without proper authorisation could face between RWF 70 million and RWF 100 million in fines. Unauthorised issuance of digital assets could attract fines of up to RWF 150 Million. 

The penalties extend to individual offenders. Offenders running unlicensed trading operations face between 3 and 5 years in prison, a sentence much harsher than the norm in similar legislation in the East African region, such as Kenya, where penalties and enforcement are stricter for corporate actors. 

Many of the existing bans remain. Unauthorised crypto mining is a criminal offence, as well as illegal digital payments. Crypto mixers, or tumblers, are services that pool and scramble crypto from multiple users to break the on-chain link between the actual sender and the final recipient. Users often use them to anonymise their other payments. 

Using a crypto mixer is also a criminal offence under the bill. This ban is one of the stricter provisions in Africa and aligns the bill with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF standards around traceability and anti-money laundering compliance. 

Of course, this move could push more privacy-inclined individuals towards decentralised platforms that are harder to supervise. 

The legislation also recognises tokenised real-world assets within Rwanda’s legal framework. This provision pushes the regulatory fence beyond crypto trading into blockchain-based structures tied to physical properties, shares, and other financial holdings. This signals Rwanda’s desire to establish itself as a financial hub within the region. 

The law does not make cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, or any other digital or virtual assets, legal tender. They cannot be used as official payment instruments except explicitly authorised by the National Bank of Rwanda. 

The BNR is separately piloting its own digital currency, the central bank digital currency (CBDC) called the e-FRW. A proof of concept was completed in February 2026, and a 12-month domestic pilot is currently underway.

The law, however, is not yet in effect. To take effect, it still requires presidential assent and a publication in the official gazette before it has any legal weight. The CMA and the BNR are also currently drafting subsidiary regulations. 

Rwanda in the East African Crypto and Virtual Assets Race 

Rwanda’s move fits into a broader picture within the East African region. In October 2025, Kenya passed its own VASP Act. Authorities in Kenya have advanced discussions on taxation and regulatory oversight as the country sees an increased use of virtual assets and cryptocurrency. 

Kenya’s path exists in sharp contrast with Rwanda’s. Kenya’s journey from the Central Bank’s first cautionary circulars to a full VASP Act took a decade, with multiple false starts and public consultations. Rwanda had gone through a similar arc within roughly 18 months. 

Uganda and Tanzania have not enacted any legislation to regulate virtual and digital assets, despite the growing use of cryptocurrency in these countries.

Whether the law will receive presidential assent, what assets the CMA will give the green light to, and what subsidiary regulations will look like, especially in practice, remain to be seen.