Alabama (AL): Bitcoin and virtual-currency law

Summary

Alabama's money-transmitter statute has covered virtual currency since it was written. It defines "monetary value" as "a medium of exchange, including virtual or fiat currencies," so a business that receives bitcoin for transmission needs an ASC money-transmitter license. In 2026 the legislature added two crypto-specific laws, both effective 2026-10-01: a crypto-kiosk anti-fraud law (HB303) and a state stablecoin-issuer licence under the federal GENIUS Act (HB259). A third 2026 law (HB104) has abandoned digital assets delivered to the State Treasurer in native form, and lets the Treasurer sell them. Every 2025 bill on a bitcoin reserve, on investing state funds in digital assets, or on exempting virtual currency from tax died. No bitcoin bill is pending, because the 2026 regular session has ended.

1. Money-transmitter licensing and virtual currency

• Statute: Alabama Monetary Transmission Act, Ala. Code § 8-7A-1 et seq.; the ASC administers it.
• Virtual currency is covered in the statute itself. § 8-7A-2(8) defines "MONETARY VALUE" as "A medium of exchange, including virtual or fiat currencies, whether or not redeemable in money." § 8-7A-2(10) defines "MONEY TRANSMISSION" as "Selling or issuing payment instruments, stored value, or receiving money or monetary value for transmission." Source: the ASC's posted copy of the chapter (asc.alabama.gov, saved as sources/states/al/ASC-Ala-Code-8-7A-Monetary-Transmission-Act.html).
• UMSA / URVCBA / MTMA: none adopted (see the table above). The CSBS chart, last updated 2026-10-08, leaves Alabama's MTMA row blank.
• Stablecoins: a separate licence now exists under HB259 (see section 2).

2. Virtual-currency-specific statutes and regulator guidance

The ASC has published no general guidance on whether particular bitcoin activities need a licence. The statute's definition is what governs.

3. Crypto ATM / kiosk law

HB303 (2026), Act 2026-369, Ala. Code § 8-7A-28. Effective 2026-10-01. Sponsor: Rep. Russell Bedsole. First read 2026-01-21; enacted 2026-04-08 (ALISON).

What the enrolled text requires: - Disclosures before each transaction: the US-dollar amount, fees, the total in both crypto and dollars, and the difference between market price and the price charged. Fraud warnings must be shown and accepted before the transaction runs. - Receipts: physical or digital. A digital receipt must include the transaction hash and must also be sent to the ASC. - Blockchain analytics: the kiosk "shall not execute" a transaction to an address detected as associated with fraud or other criminal activity. - Limits: - New consumer: no more than $1,000 per day and $10,000 per calendar month. A "new consumer" means the first transaction and the 30 days after it (ASC release). - Existing consumer: no more than $10,500 per day. - Every consumer's identity must be verified for each transaction. - Refunds after a fraudulently induced transaction: - New consumer: full refund plus all fees. - Existing consumer: one-half of the transaction value plus fees. - To qualify, the consumer must contact the operator, law enforcement and the ASC within 60 calendar days, and file a report. - Other duties: - Enhanced due diligence for consumers aged 60 or over, under ASC rules. - Operators headquartered in the US must run a live, US-based, toll-free help line. - Operators must comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), FinCEN and OFAC requirements. - Operators may not deal in privacy coins. - Penalties: the ASC may assess civil penalties under § 8-7A-19.

Sources: enrolled text; ASC release, 2026-09-30 (saved as ASC-2026-09-30-kiosk-act-takes-effect.pdf); ASC release on the bill's introduction, 2026-01-21. AARP's state tracker (updated 2026-09-14) lists Alabama as "Law enacted", with daily limits, refunds, receipts, live support and licensing (AARP).

4. Tax treatment

• No Alabama-specific guidance found. A search of the Alabama Department of Revenue site for "virtual currency" on 2026-10-09 returned no results (ALDOR search). Alabama income tax generally follows federal concepts, under which IRS Notice 2014-21 treats bitcoin as property. (Unverified that Alabama has adopted the IRS treatment by rule.)
• Failed 2025 bills: HB483 and SB282 would have "exempt[ed] virtual currency from ad valorem" taxation. Both were indefinitely postponed in 2025 (HB483's last action was 2025-05-06) (ALISON).

5. Notable enforcement

6. Bills, 2025 and 2026 sessions

All statuses below come from the ALISON GraphQL bill database, queried 2026-10-09 (ALISON bill search). Alabama's 2026 regular session has ended, so every bill not enacted is dead and must be refiled in 2027.

Pending: none (the session is over). Watch for 2027 refiling of the reserve, preemption and "public blockchain" bills.

7. Contested and fringe claims

• Privacy-coin ban "on online platforms". The ban in HB303 (§ 8-7A-28(m)) reaches beyond kiosks: it covers "online platforms in any capacity" for kiosk operators. Whether it reaches non-kiosk exchanges is open to argument, since the section governs "operators" as defined. This is our reading of the text; we found no ASC interpretation.
• Industry position on kiosk laws. Kiosk operators and trade groups argue that kiosks serve unbanked cash users and that fraud originates with callers, not machines. Consumer advocates (AARP) and regulators argue the machines are disproportionately used to collect scam payments. Both positions are summarised in crypto.news's kiosk page, a secondary source. That page also contradicts itself on which states have banned kiosks (Connecticut and Vermont in one place, Indiana and Tennessee in another), so its claims are treated as leads only.
• "Preemption" bills (HB483 / SB282). They would have stopped local governments regulating crypto and exempted it from property tax. Pro-bitcoin advocacy groups promote this kind of model bill as protecting the "right" to hold and use bitcoin; critics say it strips local authority. (We did not verify which model bill these copied.)

Saved sources (sources/states/al/)

See sources/states/al/INDEX.md.

Gaps

• Alabama's 2017 enactment history of the Monetary Transmission Act (act number) was not pulled.
• ~~Whether Alabama was among the 34 states in the Coinme settlement.~~ Resolved: it was (consent order, Appendix A).
• No ASC rule implementing the HB303 enhanced due diligence for consumers 60+ was found yet.