Recital 161

(161) The use of large cash payments is highly vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing, and that vulnerability has not been sufficiently mitigated by the requirement for persons trading in goods to be subject to anti-money laundering rules when making or receiving cash payments of EUR 10 000 or more. At the same time, differences in approaches among Member States have undermined the level playing field within the internal market to the detriment of businesses located in Member States with stricter controls. It is therefore necessary to introduce a Union-wide limit to large cash payments of EUR 10 000. Member States should be able to adopt lower thresholds and further stricter provisions to the extent that they pursue legitimate objectives in the public interest. Given that the AML/CFT framework is based on the regulation of the business economy, the limit should not apply to payments between natural persons who are not acting in a professional capacity. In addition, in order to ensure that the Union-wide limit does not unintentionally create barriers for persons who do not use or do not have access to banking services to make payments, or for business to deposit the income from their activities in their accounts, payments or deposits made at the premises of credit institutions, payment institutions or electronic money institutions should also be exempted from the application of the limit.

← Recital 160 · All articles · Recital 162 →

Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-09-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.