For Money Transmitters in Eight Border Counties, the Cash Reporting Threshold Is $1,000, Not $10,000. It Has Just Been Renewed for 180 Days.

The default rule in U.S. cash reporting is $10,000. A financial institution that handles a currency transaction above that figure files a currency transaction report. In a set of counties along the southwest border, for a set of businesses, the number is $1,000 - and on September 2, the day the previous order expired, FinCEN renewed it for another 180 days.

The instrument is a geographic targeting order. It is a time-limited, place-limited directive that imposes extra recordkeeping and reporting on named categories of business, and it does not require notice-and-comment rulemaking. The reissued order was published in the Federal Register at 91 FR 56776.

Who it covers and what they must do

The covered institutions are money services businesses - the category that includes money transmitters, remittance operators and check cashers - located in the designated areas. Under the order as previously written, a covered business handling a cash transaction of $1,000 or more but not more than $10,000 must verify the customer's identity before the transaction concludes and file a currency transaction report with FinCEN within 30 days. Records must be kept for five years after the order expires.

The reissued order names Bernalillo, Doña Ana and San Juan counties in New Mexico, and Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick and Webb counties in Texas, with specific ZIP codes applying within them.

Today's reissued Geographic Targeting Order will ensure law enforcement has the actionable data they need to follow the money.

The order it replaces was larger on its face

The order that expired on September 2 had taken effect in March. As published, it covered the same three New Mexico counties and the same five Texas counties, and additionally Maricopa, Pima, Santa Cruz and Yuma counties in Arizona and named ZIP codes in Imperial and San Diego counties in California.

That earlier order carried exemptions of its own. Parts of the California coverage were suspended pending the lifting of a court injunction, and some Texas businesses were exempted on the same basis. Money services businesses challenged the border GTO programme in litigation, and the geography that is actually enforceable at any moment has been a moving figure.

Why $1,000 is the number that matters

Structuring - breaking a large cash movement into pieces below the reporting threshold - is the behaviour a lower threshold is meant to catch. At $10,000, a courier splits a sum into two or three transactions. At $1,000, the same sum requires ten times as many, at ten times as many counters, each generating an identity check and a filing. The economics of the technique change rather than the legality of it.

The cost lands on the businesses. A remittance operator in El Paso sending $1,200 to a family member is now generating a federal filing on a transaction that in Albuquerque's neighbouring counties, or a mile the wrong side of a ZIP code line, would generate none.

What to check

Covered businesses should read the order text rather than the announcement, and confirm whether their ZIP code is inside the designated area. FinCEN maintains a frequently-asked-questions document for the southwest border GTO alongside the order itself.