News Desk · FATF

FATF takes Bulgaria, DR Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and Monaco off its grey list

The Financial Action Task Force removed four countries from its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring on 30 October 2026, FinCEN said. Iran, North Korea and Burma (Myanmar) remain on its call-for-action list.

FATFGlobal30 Oct 20262 min read

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setter for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT), removed Bulgaria, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Monaco from its list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring on 30 October 2026. This list is often called the "grey list". The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stated the four removals in a release on 30 October 2026, and Reuters and AFP also reported them.

FinCEN said the FATF's list of high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action, often called the "black list", remains the same: Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Burma, also known as Myanmar. According to FinCEN, the FATF continues to call for countermeasures on Iran and North Korea, while Burma remains subject to enhanced due diligence but not countermeasures.

FinCEN told US financial institutions to consider the FATF's stance toward these jurisdictions when reviewing their obligations and risk-based policies, procedures and practices. For the four removed jurisdictions, FinCEN said institutions should take the FATF's decisions and the reasons behind the delistings into account when assessing risk. FinCEN also said risk-based due diligence should not be used as a basis for wholesale or indiscriminate de-risking of whole classes of customers.

Monaco's Christophe Mirmand said the decision recognised more than two years of coordinated work by the state's authorities, Reuters and AFP reported. The FATF's own October 2026 statements could not be accessed for this story, so the full grey list and the FATF's findings for each country are not included here.

Why it matters to AML professionals

Grey list and black list changes feed directly into country risk ratings, which drive customer risk scores, enhanced due diligence triggers and transaction monitoring rules. When a country leaves the grey list, AML professionals usually need to review whether internal country risk ratings and related controls should change, following their firm's own policy rather than removing controls automatically.

Red flags in this case

Payments routed through a lower-risk jurisdiction when the underlying parties are based in a high-risk jurisdiction
Customers who change their stated country of operation or residence soon after a country's risk rating changes
Corporate structures that add layers in jurisdictions with known AML/CFT weaknesses without a clear business reason
Transaction patterns that do not match the customer's stated business or the trade flows typical for the countries involved

If this landed in your queue

Check whether your firm's country risk methodology uses the FATF lists and when the next scheduled update is due
Confirm with your compliance team whether rules or risk scores tied to the delisted countries will change, and when
Keep existing enhanced due diligence on individual customers until a documented review says otherwise
Continue applying enhanced measures to any exposure to jurisdictions that remain on the FATF black list

Key terms

Grey list: The FATF's list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, which are working with the FATF to fix strategic weaknesses in their AML/CFT systems.
Black list: The FATF's list of high-risk jurisdictions with serious AML/CFT weaknesses, for which it asks members to apply enhanced due diligence or countermeasures.
Country risk rating: A firm's internal score for how risky a jurisdiction is for money laundering and terrorist financing, used in customer risk scoring and monitoring.

Interview angle

A country your bank rates as high risk has just been removed from the FATF grey list. What would you do?

Explain that FATF lists are one input to the country risk methodology, not the only one. Describe reviewing other factors such as sanctions, corruption indices and the firm's own experience, documenting the decision, and updating customer risk scores and monitoring rules through governance rather than overnight.

Sources

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Every fact in AMLift News Desk stories comes from an official source: a regulator, court, government gazette or the company's own filing.