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Quick answer — Argentina, 2026

• Legal: Legal to own and trade, not legal tender
• Tax: Taxed as property under income and personal assets tax
• Buying: Via CNV-registered exchanges and peer-to-peer

Argentina is one of the most active cryptocurrency markets in Latin America. Years of high inflation, recurring currency crises and tight foreign-exchange controls pushed many Argentines toward Bitcoin and US-dollar stablecoins to protect savings and move money across borders. That grassroots adoption now sits alongside a formalising legal framework: crypto is legal to own and trade, exchanges and other Virtual Asset Service Providers must register with the securities regulator, and the tax authority increasingly expects holdings and gains to be declared.

This guide explains how crypto is treated in Argentina as of 2026: legal status, the regulators, the key laws, registration and tax rules, AML and KYC obligations, mining, recent developments and the practical risks. It is general information as of 2026 and is NOT legal, tax or financial advice. Rules here change quickly, so verify current specifics with the named official regulators, the Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV) and the tax authority (ARCA), or a qualified Argentine professional, before acting. For broader context see our guide to crypto regulation.

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Yes. Owning, buying, selling and trading Bitcoin and other crypto assets is legal in Argentina. There is no ban on individuals holding digital assets, and using crypto in private agreements between consenting parties is generally permitted.

What crypto is NOT is legal tender. The Argentine peso, issued by the Central Bank (Banco Central de la Republica Argentina, BCRA), remains the only currency that must be accepted to settle debts. Bitcoin and other crypto assets are treated as property rather than money, so merchants are not obliged to accept them. Crypto is a legal, recognised asset class in Argentina, but one that now sits inside a registration, anti-money-laundering and tax framework rather than outside it.

Several authorities share oversight of the crypto sector:

• Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV) is the lead crypto regulator. The National Securities Commission was designated under Law 27.739 to run the public registry of Virtual Asset Service Providers (Proveedores de Servicios de Activos Virtuales, or PSAV) and to set their operating rules. See the official site: Comisión Nacional de Valores (cnv.gov.ar).
• Unidad de Información Financiera (UIF), Argentina's financial-intelligence unit, oversees anti-money-laundering (AML) rules and receives suspicious-activity reports. Registered PSAVs are designated reporting entities to the UIF.
• Banco Central de la Republica Argentina (BCRA), the Central Bank, governs banks and the peso and sets foreign-exchange rules. It has been preparing a framework that would let regulated banks offer crypto custody and trading.
• Agencia de Recaudación y Control Aduanero (ARCA), the national tax and customs authority that replaced AFIP, administers crypto-related taxes and receives data from local exchanges.

For background on how regulators work elsewhere, see our overview of crypto regulation.

Argentina moved from a largely unregulated market to a registration-based regime in 2024 to 2025. The core instruments are:

• Law 27.739 (March 2024) reformed the anti-money-laundering law (Law 25.246) in line with Financial Action Task Force (FATF/GAFI) Recommendation 15. It introduced the legal definition of a PSAV and tasked the CNV with maintaining a mandatory PSAV registry. Unregistered providers may not operate in the country.
• CNV General Resolution 994/2024 created the PSAV registry and set initial registration requirements.
• CNV General Resolution 1058/2025, published in the Boletín Oficial on 14 March 2025 and effective from 26 May 2025, updated and tightened the rules, adding obligations on legal form (S.A. or S.R.L. only), minimum capital, segregation of client assets, cybersecurity, reporting and risk disclosure. It set staged registration deadlines during 2025 (with cut-off dates in July, August and September 2025 depending on the applicant), a minimum net-worth compliance date of 30 November 2025 for providers already enrolled under the earlier Resolution 994/2024, and most of the substantive Chapter III obligations becoming enforceable for registered providers from 31 December 2025. You can read the official text at the Boletín Oficial (Resolución General 1058/2025).

Because deadlines and thresholds have been revised more than once, check the current CNV rules and registry directly rather than relying on older summaries.

Under Law 27.739 and the CNV resolutions, any natural or legal person that, as a business, exchanges crypto for fiat, swaps one crypto for another, transfers virtual assets, custodies or administers them, or provides related financial services must register as a PSAV with the CNV. The registry covers both Argentine and foreign providers that direct their offer to Argentine residents, regardless of transaction volume or technology, and foreign legal entities are generally expected to register through a local entity or branch.

Registration runs through the CNV's remote-procedures platform and requires identity and corporate documentation, AML/CFT policies, a described business structure, internal controls, cybersecurity measures and ongoing reporting (including periodic data on customers, transactions and assets) plus annual IT audits. Under Resolution 1058/2025 a corporate PSAV must be incorporated locally as an S.A. or S.R.L., the participation of offshore companies is barred, client assets must be kept separate from the provider's own, and a minimum net-worth (capital) requirement applies. The CNV Normas set the minimum net worth by category: US$150,000 for categories 1, 2 and 4, being exchange between virtual assets and legal tender, exchange between virtual assets, and custody or administration of virtual assets; US$75,000 for category 3, transfer of virtual assets; and US$35,000 for category 5, participation in and provision of financial services related to virtual asset offerings. The requirement drops to 50 percent for a provider with under US$2,500,000 of volume transacted in the last twelve months in categories 1, 2 and 3, or under US$2,500,000 of volume held in custody in the last twelve months for category 4. Natural persons may only carry out the activities in categories 1 and 2. Providers that fail to register are not permitted to operate. You can consult the live registry at the CNV PSAV registry. Verify a platform's status there before depositing funds; details and deadlines can change.

Crypto is taxable in Argentina. Although digital assets are not legal tender, ARCA treats them as property, so both gains and holdings can trigger tax. The main taxes that may apply to individuals are:

• Income tax (Impuesto a las Ganancias) on profits from selling or disposing of crypto and on crypto received as income, such as salaries, staking rewards or mining proceeds. Gains on financial assets are generally taxed at a flat rate, while crypto earned as ordinary income can fall under the progressive scale; the exact treatment depends on your residency and circumstances.
• Personal assets tax (Bienes Personales), a wealth tax that can apply to crypto held at year-end if your total assets exceed the annual exemption, generally valued at market price on 31 December.
• Provincial gross-receipts tax (Ingresos Brutos) and other levies may apply to trading or business activity, depending on the jurisdiction.

The headline figures are a cedular income tax rate of 5 percent where the disposal is in pesos without an adjustment clause and 15 percent for foreign currency operations, with foreign-source results taxed at 15 percent in all cases, and a personal assets tax scale of 0.50, 0.75 and 1.00 percent for fiscal period 2025 above a general exempt minimum of ARS 384,728,044.57, reduced to 0, 0.25 and 0.50 percent for compliant taxpayers. Thresholds are indexed annually, so confirm the figures for the year you are filing. Confirm current figures with ARCA or a qualified Argentine tax advisor. Keep detailed records, including dates, amounts, fees and the peso value at the time, for every transaction. For general background see our guide to crypto taxes. This is general information, not tax advice.

Crypto in Argentina now operates inside the anti-money-laundering system. Law 27.739 brought PSAVs into the framework as obligated reporting entities supervised by the UIF, in line with FATF/GAFI standards. In practice this means a registered platform must:

• verify customer identity through Know-Your-Customer (KYC) checks, collecting ID and personal details before you can transact;
• apply risk-based due diligence and monitor transactions for suspicious patterns;
• file suspicious-activity reports to the UIF and retain records;
• share data with the authorities, including customer, transaction and asset information reported to the CNV, and provide data used by ARCA for tax purposes.

Argentina is also aligning with the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) for the automatic exchange of crypto account information between countries, with reporting expected to phase in over the coming years. The exact start date has shifted, so confirm the current position with ARCA.

Argentines can buy crypto through CNV-registered local exchanges, peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces and, increasingly, banks once they are authorised to offer digital-asset services. US-dollar stablecoins are especially popular as a savings tool. On a compliant platform, expect identity verification (registered PSAVs must run KYC), peso funding via bank transfer (CBU/CVU) and sometimes cash or card, and data-sharing with ARCA, so on-platform activity is visible to the tax authority.

The big shift here is the foreign-exchange backdrop. For years Argentina ran strict currency controls (the "cepo") that limited dollar purchases and opened a wide gap between the official rate and parallel rates such as the "blue dollar" and the MEP rate. From 2025, backed by an IMF agreement, the government lifted most of these controls for individuals and moved toward a managed float, and the various dollar rates have converged much closer together. That trims some of the arbitrage that once drove crypto demand, though stablecoins remain a fast way to hold and move dollars. FX rules can shift again, so verify the current regime with the BCRA before large conversions. A typical compliant buying path is: choose a CNV-registered platform, complete KYC, fund in pesos, place your order (often a stablecoin first for dollar exposure), then either keep funds with a regulated custodian or withdraw to a personal wallet and back up your recovery phrase offline. Keep records of every transaction for tax reporting.

Bitcoin mining is legal in Argentina, and the country has drawn attention as a potential mining hub thanks to its energy resources, especially abundant natural gas. A notable trend is using stranded and flared gas to power mining rigs: gas that would otherwise be burned off at remote oil-and-gas sites is converted into electricity to run miners. The most cited examples sit around the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Neuquén province, where energy and mining ventures have argued this monetises wasted energy and reduces emissions from open flaring.

For miners, the practical considerations include energy cost and access (the economics hinge on cheap or wasted power, and grid costs and subsidies have shifted under recent reforms), taxation (mined coins are generally taxable income at their value when received, and later disposals can trigger further tax), and hardware and setup (importing equipment and formalising a business entity carry customs and compliance requirements). There is no single settled mining-specific law covering every scenario, so larger operations typically seek local legal and tax guidance before deploying capital.

The direction of travel is toward formalisation rather than prohibition:

• PSAV regime in force. CNV General Resolution 1058/2025 tightened the rules for crypto providers, who were required to register and adapt their operations, with the framework taking full effect from the end of 2025. More than one hundred providers had entered the registry in its first phase.
• Currency controls relaxed. The 2025 easing of foreign-exchange controls reshaped the market, narrowing the dollar gap that once supercharged crypto demand, while interest in dollar savings and fast cross-border transfers remains strong.
• Banks moving into crypto. The BCRA has been finalising a framework that would let regulated banks offer crypto custody, trading and related services through separate legal units subject to capital, security, liquidity and AML/KYC requirements. This would reverse a May 2022 rule that had barred banks from handling crypto. That April 2026 date passed with no rule published, and it never came from the BCRA: it was attributed to an unnamed exchange in a December 2025 press report that itself noted there was no official communication. As of 3 August 2026 the prohibition stands. The BCRA's own criptoactivos page still states that financial entities under its regulation may not participate, directly or indirectly, in offering crypto assets to clients, and the extension barring payment service providers from facilitating crypto operations also remains. The central bank has announced no date for a replacement framework. Banks wanting exposure today must work through a separately CNV-registered PSAV.
• International tax transparency. Argentina is preparing to adopt the OECD CARF standard for cross-border reporting of crypto accounts.

Because these reforms are still being implemented and timelines have moved, treat any specific date as provisional and confirm it with the official source.

Crypto in Argentina carries the usual hazards plus some country-specific ones. The general risks include price volatility, scams and fraudulent "investment" schemes, exchange or custodian failure, and the responsibility that comes with self-custody, where losing your keys means losing your funds. Argentina-specific factors include macroeconomic instability, the possibility that currency or capital rules tighten again, and a regulatory framework that is still being built out.

To reduce risk, use only CNV-registered platforms (check the official PSAV registry), be wary of guaranteed-return promises, secure your own keys carefully, and keep thorough records. The new PSAV rules add protections such as custody and cybersecurity standards and risk disclosure, but registration is not a guarantee against loss, and crypto holdings are not covered by bank-deposit guarantees. Never invest more than you can afford to lose. This page is informational only and is not legal, tax or financial advice.

Because Argentina's crypto landscape changes faster than most, always confirm current rules with primary official sources rather than secondary summaries. The most useful starting points are:

• Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV), the lead crypto regulator, including its PSAV registry to check whether a platform is authorised.
• Banco Central de la Republica Argentina (BCRA) for monetary, banking and foreign-exchange rules.
• Boletín Oficial (CNV Resolución General 1058/2025) for the official text of the PSAV rules.

For tax questions, consult ARCA, the national tax authority, or a qualified Argentine accountant. You can also browse our wider crypto regulation hub for other countries. Remember: this guide is general information as of 2026 and is not legal advice, and you should verify your specific situation with the named official regulators.

Facts reviewed: 5 August 2026. Page updated: 5 August 2026.

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