FINTRAC's 2025–26 Annual Report: What It Means for Canada's AML Compliance Sector
FINTRAC's 2025–26 Annual Report, Safe Canadians, Secure Economy, marks the year Canada's financial intelligence unit stopped warning and started enforcing at scale. Released on October 26, 2026, it covers April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026, and practically every headline number is a record.
For compliance officers, the message is plain. Canada's AML regime has moved from a guidance-led culture to a consequence-led one. Penalties are larger, examinations are more targeted, and FINTRAC is tying its supervision directly to national crime priorities such as extortion, illegal fentanyl, and fraud.
Record intelligence output, aimed at national priorities
FINTRAC produced 3,007 unique disclosures to law enforcement and national security partners, packaged into 7,214 disclosure packages. That is the highest annual volume in the Centre's history, and those disclosures contained 1.68 million financial transactions. They supported 348 major project-level investigations, and 38% were sent proactively rather than in response to a police request.
The priority areas tell the real story:
Extortion: 122 disclosures tracing roughly $1.6 billion in financial flows across 75,204 transactions and 336 subjects.
Illegal fentanyl: 268 disclosures naming 1,051 subjects and supporting more than 40 project-level investigations, plus over 20 intelligence exchanges with the U.S. (FinCEN) and Mexico.
Fraud: the underlying crime in more than 31% of all disclosures, making it the single most common predicate offence.
Auto theft: 27 disclosures identifying 90 subjects.
The Financial Action Task Force's 2026 evaluation of Canada reinforced this picture. It rated FINTRAC substantially effective at producing intelligence, finding that police used it in 94% of money laundering and criminal possession investigations.
Why does this matter to reporting entities? Because that intelligence is built from your reports. Every Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) feeds a system that is now measurably producing arrests and seizures, and FINTRAC is judging report quality accordingly.
Enforcement the priority
FINTRAC issued 35 notices of violation worth more than $247 million, up 52% from the previous year, which is a ten times increase in dollar terms.
Fiscal year | Notices of violation | Total penalties |
2025–26 | 35 | $247 million |
2024–25 | 23 | $25 million |
2023–24 | 12 | $26 million |
2022–23 | 6 | $1 million |
2021–22 | 15 | $3.5 million |
A majority of that total came from crypto. FINTRAC imposed a $176 million penalty on Xeltox Enterprises (operating as Cryptomus), the largest in its history, alongside a $20 million penalty against KuCoin's operator. Failures included not filing STRs where there were grounds to suspect links to child sexual abuse material, ransomware, fraud, and sanctions evasion.
It was not only crypto, however. Financial entities drew the most notices (12), followed by money services businesses - MSBs (8), casinos (5), and real estate (5).
Supervision volume also rose sharply:
4,874 assessment and monitoring activities, including 812 self-attestations and 984 risk questionnaires
625 targeted examinations and information demands (433 on MSBs, 129 on financial entities, 26 on casinos)
89 full-scope examinations, led by precious metals and stones (34), real estate (29) and mortgage brokers (9)
294 voluntary self-declarations of non-compliance received
82 MSB registrations revoked, up from 12 the year before
31 cases of potentially criminal non-compliance referred to law enforcement, 28 of them MSBs
MSBs absorbed more than 55% of all assessment activity, reflecting FINTRAC's view of the sector as very highly vulnerable. Nine MSBs were penalized a combined $198 million or more.
What this means for the future
Penalties will get significantly larger. The 2025–26 totals were set under the old caps. Legislation passed in March 2026 raised administrative penalties by up to 40 times, lifting the per-violation maximum for an entity from $500,000 to $20 million. A deficiency that drew a six-figure fine last year could reach eight figures next year. Non-compliance can no longer be priced in as a cost of doing business.
Universal enrolment will end the era of flying under the radar. FINTRAC is building a program requiring every reporting entity to enrol with it, and its own supervision leadership has called this a game changer. Expect sharper risk profiling, more information demands, and fewer businesses that FINTRAC simply does not know exist.
Supervision capacity is expanding. FINTRAC says supervisory resources will grow by 60% ($37 million) over the next two years to oversee roughly 38,000 regulated businesses. More examiners means more examinations, including in sectors that have historically seen little attention.
Reporting quality is the new battleground. With intelligence now tied to national priorities, FINTRAC will look harder at whether STRs are timely, detailed, and linked to typologies such as extortion, fentanyl, and fraud. Defensive or boilerplate reporting will be harder to justify.
Crypto and MSBs remain the front line. Record crypto penalties and an almost sevenfold rise in MSB licence revocations show where scrutiny is heaviest. Foreign platforms serving Canadians are clearly in scope.
The FATF follow-up is coming. Canada must show progress against the 2026 evaluation's recommendations, which keeps pressure on FINTRAC to demonstrate results, and on reporting entities to deliver them.
What to do now
The gap between a strong compliance program and a weak one has never been more expensive. Before your next examination, it is recommended that your organization:
Refresh your risk assessment so it explicitly addresses extortion, fentanyl-related financing, and fraud typologies.
Test your STR process end to end: are your alerts catching these patterns, and do your narratives explain why you are suspicious?
Commission an independent effectiveness review before your two-year review comes due, and close gaps early.
Prepare for universal enrolment by confirming your registration status, business activities, and ownership information are accurate.
Consider a voluntary self-declaration if you uncover past non-compliance. 294 businesses did so last year, and early disclosure is far better than discovery at examination.
FINTRAC's 2025–26 report is a clear signal that Canada's AML landscape has changed. Organizations that treat compliance as an investment, not a checkbox, will be best placed for what comes next. If you would like help assessing where your program stands, our team is here to help.
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