Stablecoins in Latin America 2026: the year in B2B payments so far

A finance team planning its fourth quarter needs to know what actually changed in Latin American B2B stablecoin payments this year, not just repeat a headline from a market report. Between January and September 2026, rules that spent months as drafts became enforceable law, regional volume kept a trajectory that no longer depends on a small base, and several decisions stayed unresolved.

At Soulbit Academy we hold this kind of review to the same discipline we apply to any market figure: every fact with its date, its source and its real scope. This article is a review as of September 2026, not a year end wrap up. The fourth quarter is still open, and at least one rule effective October 1 has not yet been tested in practice.

The 2026 review so far: what changed in B2B stablecoins across Latin America

The year's review has three clear threads through September 2026. First, regulation moved from announcement to enforcement in several countries at once. Second, regional stablecoin volume kept growing on a base that already reached 324 billion dollars in 2025. Third, at least three significant regulatory decisions, in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, remain unresolved before the year closes.

None of these three threads is an isolated surprise. What changes between January and September is not that a new phenomenon appeared, but that the announcement and draft phase of 2025 gave way to actual enforcement in 2026. That is what separates this review from a simple roundup of headlines.

Regulation: the year Latin America and the United States moved from announcing rules to applying them

Stablecoin regulation in Latin America stopped being an announcement and became a compliance calendar during 2026. Four milestones mark that shift, each with a concrete date and regulator.

In Colombia, DIAN Resolution 000240, dated December 24, 2025, requires crypto asset service providers to report their reportable users, the type of asset, its fair value and the number of transactions. It applies from the 2026 tax year, with a deadline on the last business day of May 2027, and penalties fall under Article 651 of the Tax Statute.

In Brazil, Banco Central do Brasil's Resolutions 519, 520 and 521 took effect on February 2, 2026, with mandatory reporting active since May 4. They set out the authorization process, incorporation and operation of virtual asset service providers, across three categories: intermediary, custodian and broker.

Globally, the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework took effect on January 1, 2026. Colombia signed the multilateral agreement on October 31, 2024, Brazil on November 21, 2024, Costa Rica on November 26, 2024, and Chile on October 21, 2025. Data collection runs through this year; the first automatic exchange between tax administrations lands in 2027.

In the United States, GENIUS Act implementation moved through the proposal stage, not final rules. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published a notice of proposed rulemaking on March 2, 2026, for stablecoin issuers under its jurisdiction, and other federal regulators, including FinCEN, OFAC, the FDIC and the NCUA, advanced parallel proposals during the year. The law takes effect January 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules are published, whichever comes first.

Rule or regulator	Status as of September 2026	Key date
DIAN Resolution 000240 (Colombia)	In force, reporting from the 2026 tax year	Deadline: last business day of May 2027
BCB Resolutions 519, 520 and 521 (Brazil)	In force, mandatory reporting active	Effective Feb 2, 2026, reporting since May 4, 2026
OECD CARF (global)	In force, data collection underway	First automatic exchange in 2027
GENIUS Act, federal regulators (United States)	In proposed rulemaking stage	Effective Jan 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules
MiCA, crypto asset service provider regime (EU)	Transitional period closed	Closed July 1, 2026

Why should a company based in the United States or Europe care that Latin American regulators moved this year?

Because the compliance profile of any Latin American counterparty a US or EU company pays or collects from changed alongside these rules. The transitional period for crypto asset service providers under the EU's MiCA regime closed on July 1, 2026, tightening which entities can operate with authorization in that market. You can go deeper on the country by country picture in our Latin America crypto regulation landscape and in the detail of Colombia's DIAN Resolution 000240.

Stablecoin volume in Latin America: from $324 billion to a pace that has not slowed

324 billion dollars is the volume stablecoins moved across Latin America in 2025, up 89% from the year before, according to Digital Chamber. That figure, already reported at year end, is the baseline against which every later movement in 2026 gets measured.

What matters for this review is not repeating the 2025 snapshot, but confirming the trend held through the first nine months of 2026. B2B volume specifically, business to business rather than person to person, grew 30 times over the past two years per the same source, and that multiplier is the best explanation for why the regulation described above arrived when it did: regulators are responding to volume that stopped being marginal a while ago.

Does growth of this size mean every corridor in the region behaves the same way?

No. The volume concentrates unevenly. In Brazil, over 90% of crypto flows are already stablecoins, built on a mature instant payments system and now on a specific regulatory framework. In Argentina, the share exceeds 60%, driven by a local currency with persistent inflation. The rest of the region, including Colombia and Mexico, follows a more gradual curve, without public aggregate figures at the same level of detail. See the full breakdown, including the cost gap against traditional banking, in our stablecoin numbers for Latin America and in global B2B stablecoin payment volume.

Brazil's year end restriction: BCB Resolution 561

BCB Resolution 561 is the most urgent item in this year's review, because it takes effect October 1, just days after this article publishes. According to specialized legal press, the resolution amends BCB Resolution 277/2022 and restricts the use of virtual assets, stablecoins included, to settle the offshore leg of foreign exchange operations known as eFX.

This is not a commercial opportunity, it is a market restriction that any company with cross border payments into or out of Brazil needs to know before it takes effect. Settlement of that offshore leg will need to route through a traditional exchange operation or a non-resident real account, according to the same sources.

It is worth being precise about the source of this fact: the Banco Central do Brasil website is a single page application that can return an HTTP 200 response even when specific content does not yet exist at that address. This article describes the resolution based on specialized legal press that reviewed the text published April 30, 2026, not on a confirmed direct reading of the official bulletin.

What should a company that currently settles international payments with stablecoins to or from Brazil review first?

It should specifically review the offshore leg of any exchange operation it currently settles with a virtual asset, because that leg is the one being restricted, not the general use of stablecoins within the country. Read the full breakdown in our article on BCB Resolution 561 and international payments in Brazil.

What is still unresolved in Colombia and Mexico

Colombia and Mexico reach September 2026 with regulatory decisions still open, and that is part of this year's review too.

In Colombia, the tax reform bill filed in July 2026 was not approved. It included raising the withholding tax on dividends to foreign companies and non-residents from 20% to 30%, a measure that would have affected structures with offshore investment. Separately, the country has been discussing a framework bill on digital assets for months, without a confirmed approval date.

In Mexico, the bill that would create Stable Virtual Assets, introduced in May 2026, proposes a one to one liquid reserve, immediate redemption, and joint oversight from Banxico and the CNBV, with issuance reserved for banks and electronic payment fund institutions. As of September 2026, the bill remains in the legislative process, with no confirmed vote.

Why should a company outside Latin America track these open decisions rather than wait for them to close?

Because the window between a bill and enforcement can be short, as BCB Resolution 561 shows: published in April, effective in October. A company already using stablecoins in its operations lowers its risk by tracking the legislative calendar instead of reacting once a rule is already in force.

What Soulbit's V1 delivers today in B2B stablecoin payments

Soulbit V1 today lets a company hold balance in USDC and USDT, alongside fiat in USD, EUR and GBP, and operate on that balance regardless of whether any of the rules described above have finished rolling out. This regulatory and volume review should not be confused with a catalog of what the platform delivers, so it is worth separating the two with the same discipline as the rest of this article.

Today, a company can collect through payment links and QR codes, disburse payroll on a recurring or batch basis, request an OTC quote on demand to convert between stablecoin and local currency, and operate on a local banking rail in Colombia, backed by KYB onboarding and AML and KYT controls on every counterparty.

What the V1 does not deliver, and what no regulatory milestone from this year should make look available, is yield on the balance held, a physical or virtual card, a proprietary token, or a native app you can download from a store today. This year's regulatory review describes the framework the market operates under; it does not describe what any single provider, Soulbit included, has shipped today.

What comes next: Q4 2026 and 2027 for Latin American stablecoins

Q4 2026 carries the single highest impact regulatory event of the year: BCB Resolution 561 takes effect October 1, just days after this review publishes. No company paying or collecting into or out of Brazil should reach that date without reviewing its settlement flow.

For 2027, three dates are already fixed and one remains conditional. The first automatic data exchange under the OECD's CARF happens in 2027, between the tax administrations of signatory countries. The deadline for the first filing under Colombia's DIAN Resolution 000240 falls on the last business day of May 2027. And the United States GENIUS Act takes effect January 18, 2027, unless federal regulators publish final rules first, in which case the date moves up to 120 days after that publication.

Figure	Value	What it measures
Stablecoin volume in Latin America, 2025	324 billion USD	Aggregated on-chain transactions across the region for the year
Year over year volume growth	89%	2025 compared with 2024
Institutions already using stablecoins in cross border payments	71%	The highest institutional adoption rate of any region in the world
B2B volume growth over two years	30 times	Multiplication of volume moved between businesses

None of these dates is a recommendation to act for any specific company. They are calendar points a finance team should have flagged before the year closes, alongside the open decisions in Colombia and Mexico described above. This year's review does not close in September, it completes in the fourth quarter, and this article will be updated if any of these milestones shift in date or scope.

What can already be said, with the figures and dates verified as of September 2026, is that B2B stablecoins in Latin America left the regulatory announcement phase and entered active enforcement, on volume that showed no sign of slowing. A finance team reviewing its Q4 plan should start from that fact, not from the assumption that 2026 was a quiet year.