The United States finally has a stablecoin law. President Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, giving the industry something it has been asking for, and dreading, in equal measure: a federal rulebook.

The deadline that matters most is July 18, 2028. After that date, service providers cannot offer stablecoins to US users unless those coins are issued by a Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer, or PPSI, that meets the new federal standards.

What the law actually requires

The GENIUS Act, short for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, mandates one-to-one backing for every payment stablecoin in circulation. Reserves must consist of US dollars or short-term Treasury securities.

Issuers must also publish monthly disclosures about their reserve composition.

The Bank Secrecy Act obligations apply in full. In plain terms, stablecoin issuers will be treated like financial institutions for anti-money-laundering purposes.

The Act also draws a clear line: issuers cannot claim or imply that their stablecoins carry US government backing.

To qualify as a PPSI, an issuer must be a federally or state-regulated entity. That means bank subsidiaries and state-qualified nonbanks are in. Unregulated offshore entities are, by definition, out.

The timeline, broken down

Regulators have until July 18, 2026, to finalize implementing rules. The core statutory requirements then kick in by January 18, 2027, or 120 days after those final regulations are published, whichever comes later.

The bipartisan support behind the bill was notable. The Senate passed it 68-30 on June 17, 2025. The House followed with a 308-122 vote on July 17, 2025.

Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee sponsored the bill.

What this means for the market

The Act’s explicit exclusion of payment stablecoins from securities and commodities classifications also matters more than it might sound. Regulatory ambiguity about whether a stablecoin is a security has kept compliance departments at major financial institutions cautious about building on top of them. Removing that ambiguity opens a clearer path for banks, brokers, and payment processors to integrate compliant stablecoins into existing infrastructure.