Crypto license in El Salvador
Initial registry fee
Начальный сбор
15 minimum wages
15 минимальных зарплат
Annual renewal
Ежегодное продление
10 minimum wages
10 минимальных зарплат
Decision on a file
Решение по делу
20 business days
20 рабочих дней
Issuer's fee
Сбор с эмитента
0.01% of the offer
0,01% от оферты
When you need a crypto license in El Salvador
Your users are in El Salvador
The register reaches anyone whose ordinary business is a digital asset service and who is either domiciled here or actively marketing that service here.
The tax treatment is your reason
On the register, the law exempts your digital asset activity from value added tax, income tax and municipal tax, and the exemption reaches shareholders.
You are issuing your own asset
Issuers are registered separately from providers, and the fee is 0.01% of the offering the commission enables, paid on authorisation.
Somebody told you about bitcoin
Bitcoin is still legal tender here, but acceptance became voluntary in 2025 and that does not touch whether your company belongs on the register.
What you get
- A written answer on whether the register covers you at all
- A file built against the articles the commission checks
- A registry number and a certificate you can show
- The tax position that comes with being registered
- A calendar built around the first-quarter renewal
What is required to register in El Salvador
One commission, several registers
Digital assets here run on the Digital Assets Issuance Law, published in the Official Gazette on 24 January 2023 and in force eight days later. It created the National Commission for Digital Assets (CNAD), a decentralised public body with its own budget attached to the Ministry of Economy. The commission keeps the register of service providers, the register of issuers and their offerings, and the register of certifiers.
What counts as a digital asset service
- Exchanging digital assets for money or for other digital assets, on your own capital or a third party's.
- Operating a platform for trading digital assets or their derivatives.
- Risk and price assessment, underwriting an issue, and placing assets on platforms or in wallets.
- For a client: transferring assets or the means of controlling them, safekeeping, and receiving, passing on and executing orders.
Fees the law states in minimum wages
The law does not quote a flat sum. It states the fees in monthly minimum wages for the commerce and services sector, which is why the figure moves whenever that wage does. A provider pays fifteen of them once on registration and ten every year, in the first quarter, regardless of when it first registered. Each extra copy of the certificate costs fifty dollars, and an issuer pays 0.01% of the offering the commission enables.
Miss the first-quarter payment and the register entry is cancelled rather than suspended: the law says so in the same article that lists the requirements.
Deadlines the file runs on
| Step | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Resolution on a provider's application | 20 business days |
| Missing information supplied on request | 5 business days |
| Registration fee after a favourable resolution | 10 days |
| Review of a public offering | 5 business days |
| Annual renewal payment | first quarter |
What working outside the register costs
Failure to register carries a fine of up to one hundred and fourteen minimum wages of the commerce and services sector, per breach. Trading an asset whose issue the commission never enabled sits in the next band, up to three hundred and five. An issuer placing an asset without authorisation faces up to one percent of the whole initial offering.
Bitcoin, and why it is a separate question
The reform published on 30 January 2025 kept bitcoin as legal tender and made acceptance voluntary, available only to private persons and wholly private companies. That is a payments question. Whether your company belongs on the commission's register is decided by the service you sell.
On the register, or outside it
On the register
A number, a certificate, the tax exemption for the digital asset activity, and a supervisor whose resolutions you can point counterparties to.
Outside it
No exemption, and operating unregistered is itself the infraction the law fines, per breach. A fresh application may be filed at any time.
We do not keep a separate page on El Salvador. The duties that outlive any authorisation live in licensing and compliance, and to hold this regime up against another one, begin with crypto and fintech licensing.
Sources: Digital Assets Issuance Law, Legislative Decree 643 of 11 January 2023, Official Gazette 16, vol. 438, arts. 12, 19, 20, 36, 38 and 47; Legislative Decree 781 of 2023, Official Gazette 132, vol. 440, arts. 3 and 4; Legislative Decree 199 of 29 January 2025, Official Gazette 21, vol. 446; registration procedure published on cnad.gob.sv.
Stages of work
Pre-registration and the objection test
A short pre-registration form states who you are and what you plan to do. The commission evaluates it, may ask for more, and then issues either a no-objection or an objection, depending on whether your business falls inside its remit.
Build the file the regulation lists
With the no-objection in hand, the commission specifies which requirements apply. The file covers your capacity to deliver the named services, the assets you plan to trade, cybersecurity standards, your organisational structure by name and role, and client support.
Definitive registration and the review
The file is delivered at the commission's offices in both digital and physical form. The review takes up to twenty business days, and anything missing is supplied within the period the commission sets in writing.
The resolution, then the fee
A favourable resolution starts a ten-day clock for the initial registration fee. Because the fee is set in minimum wages, we confirm the current amount with the commission before paying it.
Registry number, certificate, tax position
Once payment is verified you are assigned a registry number and issued the certificate authorising operation. The exemptions attach from that notification rather than from the day you applied, and the commission tells the financial investigation unit you are on the register.
Renew in the first quarter, every year
Ten minimum wages fall due in the first quarter of each year, whatever month you registered in. That date goes into your calendar with the reporting the commission expects.
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