Mexico Stablecoin Regulation: the AVE Bill Explained

A company that pays a supplier in Guadalajara with USDT, or collects USDC from a client in Monterrey, is operating in a specific legal gray zone. Mexico's 2018 Fintech Law regulates financial technology institutions, but it says nothing about a digital token designed to hold a fixed peg to the peso. A bill filed in the Senate aims to close that gap. It has not closed it yet.

At Soulbit Academy we track stablecoin regulation across Latin America because it decides who a company can transact with and what it will be asked to document. This guide covers what the Mexican bill proposes, how it would define the Activo Virtual Estable, who could issue one, and what it means today, while the bill sits in committee, for a company already using stablecoins with Mexican counterparties.

Mexico stablecoin regulation: what the AVE bill would create

Senator Alejandro Murat Hinojosa, of the Morena party, filed a bill in the Mexican Senate on 6 May 2026 to regulate stablecoins referenced to the peso. The text creates the Activo Virtual Estable (AVE) Referenced in National Currency, and it was published the same day in the Senate Gazette, according to the official bill document.

The proposal did not appear out of nowhere. Murat stated publicly that the bill is modeled on the US GENIUS Act, passed in 2025 to regulate dollar-referenced stablecoins. Mexico wants, in his words, to speak the same regulatory language as its trade partners. Read more in our guide to the GENIUS Act and what it means for LATAM companies.

As of August 2026, the bill is still under committee review in the Senate. It has not been voted on in committee or on the floor, and it is not current law. Everything below describes a legislative proposal, not a legal obligation that applies to any company today.

How the bill defines a stablecoin referenced to the peso

Under the text, an Activo Virtual Estable is a digital representation of value, electronically recorded, used as a means of payment, whose issuer commits to guaranteeing conversion into pesos at face value. That means at par: an AVE would always be worth one peso, without the market fluctuation of a typical crypto asset.

The bill also spells out what an AVE would not be, and that negative list matters as much as the definition itself. It would not be legal tender, so no one would be required to accept it as payment. It would not count toward the monetary base that Banco de Mexico calculates. And it would not qualify as a bank deposit, even though its convertibility promise looks similar on the surface.

Would an AVE be the same as a peso balance in a bank account?

No. The bill explicitly separates an AVE from a bank deposit. The first would be a digital payment instrument issued under its own reserve rules; the second remains covered by deposit insurance and the Credit Institutions Law. A client holding AVE would not carry the same protection as a saver with a checking account.

The 1:1 reserve requirement behind the AVE

The issuer of an AVE would have to hold, at all times, liquid assets equal to or greater than the face value of AVE in circulation. That 1:1 reserve is the technical core of the bill.

The bill limits what counts as a reserve to four categories. The first is cash in Mexican pesos. The second is demand deposits at credit institutions. The third is deposits held at Banco de Mexico itself. The fourth is short term government securities, such as Cetes.

Those reserves would sit legally segregated from the rest of the issuer's balance sheet, and the text declares them non pledgeable: they could not back any other debt the bank or IFPE takes on. The design aims to give AVE holders a preferential claim on that separate pool if the issuer runs into trouble, rather than competing with other creditors.

Who could issue an AVE, and why fintech startups are locked out

Issuance would be reserved for two types of entities: banks and Electronic Payment Fund Institutions, known as IFPEs, that hold prior authorization from Banco de Mexico. An unlicensed fintech could not launch an AVE, even if its model met the 1:1 reserve requirement to the letter.

That restriction locks unlicensed startups out of the business, a different design from what already applies to dollar-referenced stablecoins, where non bank issuers operate independently under their own rules. The Mexican bill does not create a separate stablecoin license. It builds on categories that already exist under the Fintech Law and the Credit Institutions Law, adding specific rules for the AVE. We cover that underlying law in the Fintech Law and crypto assets for a Mexican company.

Could a company operating in Mexico issue its own AVE to pay suppliers?

No, unless it is a bank or an IFPE authorized by Banco de Mexico. A company that does not provide regulated financial services would remain a stablecoin user, never an issuer, both under current rules and under the bill if it passes in its current form.

What changes for companies operating with Mexico

Today no Mexican law requires specific authorization or a minimum reserve to issue a peso referenced token. If the bill passes, only banks and IFPEs authorized by Banco de Mexico could issue one, with a mandatory 1:1 reserve.

Aspect	No specific law today	If the AVE bill is approved
Who can issue a peso referenced token	Any entity, with no authorization required by law	Only banks and IFPEs with prior Banco de Mexico authorization
Backing for the token	No legal minimum reserve requirement	1:1 reserve in pesos, demand deposits, Banco de Mexico deposits or short term government securities
Legal tender status	Not applicable, the category does not exist in law	The AVE would not be legal tender or count toward the monetary base
Dedicated oversight	Regulatory gap for this specific instrument	Banco de Mexico, CNBV, CONDUSEF and SHCP with defined roles
Laws involved	2018 Fintech Law, with no direct mention of stablecoins	Amendments to ten financial statutes, including the Banco de Mexico Law and the Fintech Law itself

The reform would touch ten financial statutes in total, not only the Fintech Law. Among them are the Banco de Mexico Law, the Law to Regulate Financial Technology Institutions (LRITF) itself, the Credit Institutions Law, the National Banking and Securities Commission Law, the federal anti money laundering law, and the Federal Criminal Code. You can check the current text of the Fintech Law at the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to see the base statute the bill would amend.

What happens if Congress does not pass the bill this year?

Nothing changes automatically. Stablecoins would keep operating under today's fragmented framework: no specific legal category, but no ban either. A company could still use USDC or USDT to pay and collect, subject to the general anti money laundering rules that already apply to any financial activity in Mexico.

Four regulators, one bill: how oversight would be split

The bill splits AVE oversight among four authorities with distinct roles, without creating a new regulator from scratch.

Authority	Proposed role over the AVE	What it would supervise
Banco de Mexico (Banxico)	Primary authority	Authorizes banks and IFPEs to issue AVE and sets reserve rules
National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV)	Prudential supervision	Issuer solvency and effective compliance with the 1:1 reserve
CONDUSEF	Financial consumer protection	Transparency toward end clients and complaint handling
Ministry of Finance (SHCP)	Anti money laundering	Compliance with anti money laundering rules on AVE transactions

That split is not exotic. It mirrors how banking and fintech supervision are already divided in Mexico today. What is new is that it would explicitly reach an instrument referenced in national currency that current law does not mention.

What this means today for a company paying or collecting in Mexico

While the bill sits in committee, no company is required to wait for it before using stablecoins with Mexican counterparties. The AVE, if approved, would regulate a specific peso pegged token, not the USDC or USDT already moving between companies across the region today.

At Soulbit Academy we cover, for instance, how a Mexican ecommerce company already pays suppliers in Asia with USDC in our case study of a Mexican ecommerce company paying Asian suppliers with USDC, and how to structure payroll for remote workers under Mexico's CFDI invoicing rules in payroll for remote workers in Mexico and CFDI. Neither flow depends on the Senate approving the AVE.

Mexico is also an economy where the flow of dollars into households is enormous: according to Banco de Mexico's remittances report published on February 3, 2026, the country received $61,791 million in remittances during 2025, 4.6% less than the $64,746 million recorded in 2024. That volume helps explain the regulatory interest, since a well backed, peso referenced stable instrument would have a natural market in cross border payments and remittances.

For the full picture of how a company operates with crypto in the country, see our guide to crypto payments in Mexico and how to receive international payments in USDC in Mexico.

Soulbit is not the issuer of any token or of an AVE, and it has no relationship with the Mexican Senate bill. Its V1 is a B2B payments and treasury rail: a business account with USDC and USDT balances, fiat limited to USD, EUR and GBP, business verification (KYB), recurring and batch payroll, payment links, collection QR, OTC on request quote, institutional custody and AML/KYT monitoring. In Mexico, unlike in Colombia, there is no local Soulbit banking rail yet, so the final conversion into pesos depends on third parties.

What V1 does not offer also matters: no cards, no yield or APY, no own token, no native app, and no EURC balance. If the AVE bill is ever approved, any Soulbit involvement with that instrument would be a future decision, not something this article promises.