Stablecoins for companies in Honduras: the legal picture

A company in Bogotá or Miami that hires a supplier in Tegucigalpa, or bills a client in San Pedro Sula, soon asks a practical question: can it pay in USDC, and what happens when the money reaches a Honduran bank? CNBS Circular 003/2024 restricts supervised institutions' operations; each company's position requires its own legal and tax assessment.

At Soulbit Academy we lay out that framework without dressing it up. As of October 2026 we have not found a Honduran law dedicated to stablecoins or virtual assets, so this analysis rests on two official documents: a Central Bank statement and a circular from the National Banking and Insurance Commission. Soulbit is a payment and treasury rail in stablecoins for companies, not a bank or a legal adviser, and by the end you will see exactly what it covers and what it does not in this country.

Stablecoins in Honduras: what the Central Bank of Honduras says

The Central Bank of Honduras (BCH) holds that crypto assets, a category that includes stablecoins, are neither regulated nor backed by the country's laws. In its statement of 29 July 2022 the BCH recalled that it is the sole issuer of legal tender coins and notes, citing article 342 of the Constitution, article 5 of the Monetary Law and articles 2 and 26 of its own charter. That position underlies everything else.

The same BCH statement says crypto assets have no backing, so they are not regulated and their use is not guaranteed, and therefore they do not enjoy the protection of national laws. It adds that any transaction with them is carried out at the responsibility and risk of whoever makes it. The text restates earlier statements dated 19 January 2018, 17 January 2020, 11 June 2021 and 23 March 2022.

Two nuances matter for a company. The first is that the statement warns and does not prohibit: it does not declare it unlawful for two parties to agree to settle in a digital asset. The second is its date, 2022. The BCH speaks of crypto assets in general and does not name stablecoins, so reading the text as applying to USDC or USDT is a reasonable inference, not a literal quotation. Check bch.hn for any later statement before you operate.

CNBS Circular 003/2024: restrictions on supervised institutions

CNBS Circular No. 003, dated in Tegucigalpa on 12 February 2024, bars institutions supervised by the National Banking and Insurance Commission from holding, investing in, intermediating or operating with cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets that were not issued or authorized by the Central Bank. The official document is published on the CNBS circulars portal.

According to the summaries of that text in the sources we consulted, the circular contains three obligations. The first is the ban on holding, investing in, intermediating or operating with those assets. The second is not to hold assets or liabilities whose returns depend on them. The third is to include the risks of virtual assets in each institution's financial education programs. As its reason, the circular states that Honduran law has no specific regulation for cryptocurrencies and that their users face fraud, operational and legal risks.

The CNBS also published a clarification on the prohibition on its official site. Its body sits in an attached PDF that we could not read, so we attribute no detail about its scope to that statement.

Who exactly does the CNBS prohibition address?

The circular addresses institutions supervised by the CNBS, such as banks and insurers. Its scope does not amount to a general authorization for industrial, commercial or services companies. Before agreeing to collect in stablecoins, confirm the rules applying to the business and how the recipient will convert into lempiras without a supervised entity intermediating the crypto asset.

What this means for a company collecting or paying in stablecoins

For a company, the circular creates a practical limit: a supervised entity cannot take part in the crypto asset operations described in the rule. It does not establish that every private transaction is permitted or prohibited. Whether a transaction is viable depends on the activity, the counterparties and other applicable rules.

The first consequence concerns the exit into lempiras. Whoever receives USDC in Honduras needs to convert it into local currency by a route that does not involve a supervised institution acting as an intermediary of crypto assets. That narrows the options and turns the exit into a matter for each company rather than a standard bank service. Before agreeing a stablecoin payment with a Honduran counterparty, confirm how it will handle that exit.

The second consequence concerns the company's own bank accounts. A supervised entity may question inflows tied to virtual assets. This is a risk reading, not a quoted rule: the circular speaks of the institution's own operations, not of its clients. Even so, keep a file that explains the origin of each fund.

Operation	Traditional bank route with Honduras	Stablecoin route
Collect from a client in Honduras	International transfer through correspondent banks	Payment link or QR; settlement time depends on the transaction
Pay a Honduran supplier	Bank order through a chain of correspondents	Send from the stablecoin balance to the recipient
Move into lempiras	Conversion by the local bank	Handled by the recipient: supervised banks cannot intermediate crypto assets
Document the operation	Bank statement, with a delay	On-chain identifier plus contract and invoice
Specific legal backing	Known banking and foreign exchange rules	No specific law: the BCH says it is not regulated
Hold treasury in dollars	Dollar account subject to local banks	USDC or USDT balance with institutional custody

What Honduras does not yet regulate about virtual assets

As of October 2026 we have not found in an official source a Honduran law that creates a licence for virtual asset service providers or a specific supervisory regime for stablecoins. Nor have we found an official statement on their tax treatment. The absence of such a rule is a search conclusion, not a legal certainty: confirm it with a Honduran lawyer before you operate.

Our search cannot establish that no register applies to every virtual asset activity or determine the tax treatment of a USDC payment. The BCH warns that these assets do not enjoy the protections national law provides for legal tender. Companies should verify the rules for their activities and their accounting and tax treatment with local specialists.

How does Honduras differ from its Central American neighbours?

The sources consulted confirm the CNBS's restrictive stance toward supervised institutions, but do not establish a complete regime for every company. Guatemala, for example, brought virtual asset service providers into its anti money laundering regime, as we explain in the legal picture of stablecoins in Guatemala. El Salvador has its own regime, covered in stablecoins for businesses in El Salvador. In Honduras, confirm how the rules apply to each transaction before proceeding.

Compliance: KYB, traceability and a file per transaction

A company's compliance depends on the rules applicable to its activity, as well as the requirements of its counterparties and payment provider. KYB is the process a provider uses to verify a company, its business and its beneficial owners before opening an operating account. It is described in what KYB is and how a company is verified. Prepare corporate documents before they are requested.

The second requirement is traceability. Transfers of virtual assets between providers follow international standards on originator and beneficiary information, known as the travel rule, which we explain in what the FATF Travel Rule means for crypto payments. With or without a direct local obligation, a company paying into Honduras should expect its provider to ask for recipient details.

For each operation, keep the contract, the invoice, the on-chain identifier, the gross amount, the network fee and the quote for any conversion. That file supports the accounting and explains the origin of funds if a bank, an auditor or an authority asks.

What specific risks should a company weigh before paying or collecting in stablecoins with Honduras?

Three. The first is exit risk: that the recipient has no clear way to move into lempiras. The second is banking risk: that a local account questions funds tied to virtual assets. The third is regulatory risk: that the BCH or the CNBS publishes a new rule and changes the picture. All three are mitigated with a small pilot, a complete file and local advice.

What Soulbit V1 delivers in Honduras and what it does not

Soulbit V1 has no banking presence in Honduras: its only local banking rail is Colombia. That defines what a company can expect for this corridor.

Need of a company dealing with Honduras	Covered by V1?	How it is handled
Collect from abroad in USDC or USDT	Yes	Payment links and QR codes tied to each invoice
Hold treasury in digital dollars	Yes	Business account with institutional custody
Pay payroll or suppliers in several countries	Yes	Recurring payroll and batch payments
Convert to fiat	Yes, in USD, EUR and GBP	Conversion by quote on request
Receive lempiras in a Honduran account	No	The only local banking rail in V1 is Colombia
Yield, token or native app	No	Outside the scope of V1

The honest reading is that V1 covers the dollar layer of the corridor, useful for a company that collects from or pays into Honduras, and does not cover the lempira layer. That layer still depends on the Honduran counterparty and on what it can solve through its own operations, inside a banking system that, by circular, cannot intermediate crypto assets.

Where to start

Three steps order the decision without committing to anything. First, ask the Honduran counterparty how it will handle the conversion into lempiras and whether its bank accepts funds tied to virtual assets. Second, prepare the corporate file for KYB before you need it. Third, scope a pilot: one invoice, one payment, one full cycle with its paperwork. Country-level operational detail is in the guide to crypto payments in Honduras.

To place Honduras within the region, the analysis Central America nearshoring: a services and collections hub gathers the context on the isthmus's services and collections corridors. It is worth reading before deciding whether the corridor deserves a pilot.

Measure the pilot with concrete criteria. How long the collection took from invoice approval. How much was deducted in fees and network costs. How many minutes it took to reconcile the operation with its identifier. And whether the counterparty completed the exit into lempiras without friction. With those four data points, scaling the pilot stops being a debate of opinions and becomes a decision with your own numbers.