Louisiana money transmitter license requirements

There is no single "crypto license" or "MSB license" in Louisiana. Two separate authorizations sit behind those phrases, and a crypto business usually needs both: federal registration as a money services business with FinCEN, and the Louisiana license issued by the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions. They are issued by different authorities, on different timetables, and one never substitutes for the other.

The federal half is a registration, not a license. FinCEN treats exchangers and administrators of convertible virtual currency as money transmitters for federal purposes, so a custodial crypto business registers on FinCEN Form 107, renews every two years, and runs a BSA and anti-money-laundering program behind it. That registration is free and comparatively fast, and it authorizes nothing at state level: it does not let a company serve Louisiana customers.

Louisiana licenses virtual currency business activity under its own statute, separate from the money transmitter license described above. Which authorization a crypto business needs depends on the activity: the virtual currency business license may be required instead of the money transmitter license, or in addition to it, so the activity analysis comes before the filing plan. Which of the two the business actually needs follows from that analysis, so settle the activity question first rather than scheduling both filings on the assumption that both apply.

This is general compliance information rather than legal advice, and classification depends on the specific model. For how the analysis runs across exchanges, custodial wallets, and stablecoin issuers, and for the federal registration itself, follow the links below.