Recently passed legislation in Georgia and Florida, together with rules just proposed by the Department of the Treasury, mark the emergence of the state and federal regulatory frameworks for permitted payment stablecoin issuers under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. These laws and regulations, including statutes recently enacted in Alabama and Maryland and proposed in other states, as well as broader digital asset regulatory regimes like those in states like New York, will shape the landscape for U.S. payment stablecoin issuers going forward.
The Georgia and Florida laws, which await their respective governor’s signature, together with proposed Delaware legislation are early state efforts to establish licensing and supervisory frameworks that may qualify as “substantially similar” to the federal GENIUS Act framework currently under development by federal banking authorities.
Our previous advisories detailed the rules proposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal regulator principally charged under the GENIUS Act with the oversight of federal stablecoin issuers, and Treasury’s interpretation of what it means for a state framework to be substantially similar to the federal framework.
Background
A key feature of the GENIUS Act is its allocation of regulatory authority based on payment stablecoin issuer type and size. Section 4(c) of the GENIUS Act allows issuers that are not subsidiaries of insured depository institutions and that have less than $10 billion in outstanding stablecoin issuance to opt for state regulation so long as the relevant state framework is substantially similar to the federal framework as determined by a federal certification process. State issuers that cross the $10 billion threshold must either be transitioned to federal regulation or request a waiver to remain under state regulation.
Importantly, an issuer approved under a state’s GENIUS Act–compliant framework can carry out activities that are permissible for issuers under the federal framework and under the state’s framework (if different than the federal framework) in other states without the need for additional licensing in the other states. This allows issuers to conduct a nationwide issuance business by selecting a single state’s regulatory framework that best suits their issuance activities and operations, rather than pursuing multistate licensing or OCC approval as a federally authorized issuer. GENIUS Act preemption, however, is activity-specific and generally preserves host-state authority over activities outside the scope of payment stablecoin issuance.
Under the GENIUS Act, states will be required to submit initial and ongoing annual certifications to federal regulators attesting that their payment stablecoin regulatory framework satisfies the Act’s substantial similarity requirement. These regulators, acting through a new Stablecoin Certification Review Committee composed of the Treasury Secretary, chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or the Board’s vice chair for supervision, and chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, will either approve or deny submissions based on the standards being defined in the pending Treasury proposal.
The Georgia Act
On April 2, 2026, the Georgia General Assembly overwhelmingly passed, in exactly the form introduced, the Georgia Payment Stablecoin Act. Under the Georgia act, the Department of Banking and Finance (DBF) is authorized to license and supervise payment stablecoin issuers similarly to how the DBF approves of and supervises the state’s chartered banks and licensed money transmitters (MSBs). The Georgia act combines elements of the state’s bank and MSB licensing laws with elements of the GENIUS Act.
Notable elements of the Georgia act include:
- Licenses will expire on December 31 each year and must be renewed annually.
- Licensees must maintain a Georgia office and a minimum number of in-state employees, as specified by the DBF.
- The DBF may use the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and Registry (NMLS) to manage licensing applications and related matters.
- The DBF will have the same receivership and resolution authority over issuers that it has over Georgia banks and credit unions. This establishes a predictable insolvency framework for stablecoin holders and other potential creditors. While the GENIUS Act sets claim priority for stablecoin holders, it does not prescribe an insolvency framework and allows states to adopt their own consistent frameworks.
- A licensee and its officers have a fiduciary duty to preserve and account for reserves held “in trust” for the benefit of stablecoin holders.
- A licensee that fails to maintain at least 100% reserves on a mark-to-market basis must halt redemptions, hold reserves to maturity, and distribute reserves to stablecoin holders in accordance with the GENIUS Act, unless the deficiency is cured through permitted capital injection. This approach is more stringent than the OCC’s proposed rules.
- A permitted payment stablecoin issuer compliant with the Georgia act or the GENIUS Act is not considered a money services business (MSB) under Georgia law. The act also authorizes custodial and safekeeping services for stablecoins, reserves, and private keys, though related regulatory boundaries may be clarified through future guidance or regulations.
Georgia’s law pegs its effective date to the effective date of the GENIUS Act, which is the earlier of January 18, 2027, or 120 days after “any” final federal implementing rules are issued. On that date, it will be illegal under both Georgia and federal law for a person to issue a payment stablecoin in Georgia unless it has complied with the Georgia act (including under provisions reflecting the ability of issuers licensed in another state to operate lawfully there) and the GENIUS Act. The act’s provisions making the offer or sale of payment stablecoins in the state unlawful beginning July 18, 2028, mirror certain GENIUS Act provisions as well. These prohibitions do not apply to certain peer-to-peer and other nonintermediated transactions.
The DBF may enforce the Georgia act similarly to how it may enforce its MSB laws, including through cease-and-desist orders, the imposition of fines and penalties, license suspension and revocation, and removal of a licensee’s directors, officers, employees, ultimate beneficial owners, and controlling shareholder, as well as initiation of receivership or conservatorship proceedings when warranted.
The Georgia act also specifies baseline criteria, including management experience, financial condition, and criminal background checks, that the DBF must consider when evaluating license applicants, while also providing the DBF broad discretion to promulgate related application requirements and standards. These include rules addressing liquidity, governance, vendor management, operational risk, and information technology risk standards.
Consistent with the general federal–state framework established by the GENIUS Act, the Georgia act authorizes the DBF to enter into a memorandum of understanding, and otherwise share information, with the Board for the supervision and examination of its licensees. These provisions appear designed to facilitate the transition of Georgia-licensed issuers from state to federal oversight as contemplated by the GENIUS Act on either a voluntary or mandatory basis once the issuer has $10 billion in outstanding payment stablecoins. The DBF may also rely on these coordination mechanisms to make arrangements for the authority of the OCC and Board under the GENIUS Act to take enforcement action against state-qualified payment stablecoin issuers under certain “unusual and exigent circumstances” following prior notice to the applicable state regulators.
The Florida Act
Florida’s legislature passed its payment stablecoin bill on March 5, 2026—like the Georgia act, without meaningful opposition.
The Florida act requires both MSBs and trust companies that engage in payment stablecoin activities to, respectively, be licensed by or obtain a certification of approval from the Office of Financial Regulation (OFR), unless exempt. The Florida act creates a new category of MSB under the state’s MSB licensing law specific to payment stablecoin issuers. This suggests the OFR will generally leverage existing license application processes (including biennial renewal requirements) that apply to other types of MSBs under Florida law. Similarly, Florida-chartered trust companies are subject to separate authorization and oversight provisions of Florida law, and its new stablecoin law addresses payment-stablecoin-related activity as part of this separate, existing construct.
Federally qualified issuers and out-of-state state-qualified issuers are exempt from licensing or other approval requirements under the Florida act. However, notably, out-of-state state-qualified issuers must provide written notice to the OFR within 30 days of engaging in payment stablecoin activity in Florida, reflecting Florida’s intent to preserve supervisory visibility even if licensure is preempted.
Like the Georgia act, the Florida act broadly imports the definitions, exclusions, requirements, and prohibitions of the GENIUS Act into the Florida statutes that apply to MSBs and trust companies. It also revises Florida’s AML laws that apply to MSBs and trust companies by expressly recognizing payment stablecoins as a form of value (e.g., for purposes of particular transaction-reporting requirements) and requiring Florida-qualified stablecoin issuers to comply with the AML requirements of the GENIUS Act, as well as requiring these issuers to provide the OFR with an annual certification of its AML and economic sanctions compliance programs as required by Section 5(i) of the GENIUS Act.
Florida’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), which oversees the OFR, has rule-writing authority under the Florida act to adopt rules covering capital, liquidity, and risk management as required by Section 4(a) of the GENIUS Act. The FSC is also authorized to adopt rules establishing standards for the conduct, supervision, examination, and regulation of qualified payment stablecoin issuers, including requirements for reserves, customer-asset protection, reporting, and compliance, in order to meet the requirements for certification of Florida’s framework to the federal Stablecoin Certification Review Committee.
If enacted, the substantive requirements of the Florida act, including the requirement to be licensed, approved, or exempted from license or approval to engage in stablecoin activity in the state, become effective October 1, 2026. This early compliance date may be intended to position Florida as the default state for qualification for any existing issuers that have activities in the state and that do not plan to be qualified at the federal level. In practice, this may make Florida an early home-state option for sub-$10 billion issuers seeking regulatory certainty.
The Delaware Bill
A substitute version of the Delaware Payment Stablecoins Act was passed by the Delaware Senate on April 23, 2026. Unlike the Georgia and Florida acts, the Delaware bill was introduced after the release of the OCC’s proposed implementing rules and so reflects concepts of both the GENIUS Act and the OCC’s proposed rules. The Delaware bill has also been accompanied by the Delaware Banking Modernization Act of 2026, which is intended to more generally update Delaware’s banking laws for digital assets and other matters.
The Delaware bill would establish a licensing framework for payment stablecoin issuers and assign authority to the state bank commissioner to regulate and oversee them. It would also establish a voluntary registration for digital asset service providers (DASPs), which were subject to a separate type of required licensure under this bill as originally introduced.
Subject to a safe harbor and compliance transition provisions to be established by the commissioner by rule, Delaware MSB licensees engaged in DASP activity would be exempt from issuer licensure. Persons with a total payment stablecoin issuance of $5,000 or less annually would also be exempt from licensure. Federally qualified payment stablecoin issuers and subsidiaries of depository institutions that are approved to issue payment stablecoins would be exempt from licensure but would be required to register with the commissioner at least 30 days before issuing payment stablecoins to Delaware residents.
Under the bill’s voluntary registration framework, a DASP would be able to register with the commissioner and hold itself out to the public as registered. The primary benefits of this registration appear to be that (1) the DASP would qualify for expedited review of any subsequent issuer licensing application filed with the commissioner; and (2) the portions of the bill preempting any county, city, or other local Delaware licensing or similar requirement would apply to activities covered by the DASP registration, just as those local requirements would be preempted by the state’s licensed issuers.
Registered DASPs would generally not be subject to examination or similar substantive supervision like a licensee would, but the bill would reserve the commissioner’s authority to investigate consumer complaints, share registration information and complaint records with federal and other state regulators about the DASPs, and establish minimum fee, terms of service, and consumer rights disclosures that apply to them.
The Delaware bill would also provide for a reciprocal licensing regime for applicants licensed in another state under a framework the commissioner determines is substantially similar to that of the Delaware bill. Out-of-state state-qualified issuers that are interested in switching to a Delaware license would be “eligible for a license [under the Delaware bill] without full duplicative review” so long as the applicant holds a valid license in good standing, the “other state’s framework provides consumer protections materially equivalent” to those of the Delaware bill, and the applicant provides evidence of its out-of-state license with its application. The commissioner would be permitted to impose additional conditions on those licensees only to address “material differences in consumer protection, solvency protection, or custody safeguards between the other state’s framework” and Delaware’s.
The Delaware bill would also establish requirements for issuer license applications and investigations of applications, rules that apply during a licensee’s transition to federal oversight, and processes for converting from a federally qualified payment stablecoin issuer to a Delaware issuer.
The Delaware bill would largely track the GENIUS Act’s requirements for issuer reserves, capital requirements, redemption policies, and custody requirements for reserve assets. The Delaware bill would follow the OCC’s proposed issuer rules by imposing a two-business-day deadline for honoring redemption requests, generally prohibiting any unilateral limitation on or suspension of redemption requests, and providing additional time to honor redemption requests that exceed 10% of outstanding issuance value within a 24-hour period.
Also in line with the OCC’s proposed rules, the Delaware bill would require new issuers to meet a fixed capital requirement of at least $5 million and would require all issuers to meet ongoing capital requirements. The commissioner would also be required to establish regulations governing concentration limits for and custody of reserve assets, capital standards, and risk management principles.
The Delaware bill would also prohibit payment of interest or yield on payment stablecoins unless federal law, regulation, or guidance permits federally chartered or licensed payment stablecoin issuers to do so. In that case, Delaware issuers would be automatically eligible to make such payments subject to the federal standards.
The commissioner would have authority to examine issuers and enforce the Delaware bill through cease-and-desist orders, the imposition of civil money penalties up to $1 million per day, license suspension and revocation, and injunctions. Issuing a payment stablecoin without a required license would be considered a Class F felony under Delaware law. Further, any violation of the Delaware bill by an issuer would be a violation of the Delaware Consumer Fraud Act, making it subject to the enforcement authority of the state’s attorney general.
Conclusion
In parallel with these state legislative efforts and as required by the GENIUS Act, Treasury has proposed broad-based principles for determining whether state-level frameworks are substantially similar to the federal framework. The Georgia and Florida acts and the Delaware bill are early examples of state legislatures’ pursuit of these regimes. They also represent how the states are positioning themselves to attract prospective payment stablecoin issuers. How they are permitted, and ultimately attempt, to differentiate their frameworks from one another and from the federal framework is a function not only of these initial legislative efforts but also of pending OCC, Treasury, and other federal rulemaking, as well as their own future rulemaking and interpretation initiatives.