On April 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that would, if finalized, establish procedures for FinCEN’s whistleblower program. The NPRM’s proposed procedures clarify what information comes within the scope of the program and creates processes and requirements for whistleblowers to submit information about covered violations of law and receive financial awards. The NPRM also describes certain anti-retaliation protections afforded to whistleblowers.
FinCEN is requesting comments on all aspects of the NPRM, and comments must be submitted on or before June 1, 2026.
1. The NPRM operationalizes FinCEN’s whistleblower program more than five years after its creation, as the Government focuses on combatting financial crimes and public benefits fraud.
Congress created FinCEN’s whistleblower program as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AMLA”) and expanded it in 2022 through the Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act. Among other things, the Whistleblower Improvement Act provided for a dedicated funding mechanism and a mandatory monetary award range for whistleblowers. As currently constituted, the whistleblowing program provides incentives and protections to whistleblowers who provide original information leading to the successful enforcement, with penalties exceeding $1 million, of violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) and its implementing regulations, sanctions programs administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and other financial crime and national security laws.
While FinCEN has accepted whistleblower submissions since May 2021, it has not yet issued a public reward under the program and, until now, had not proposed the implementing rules contemplated by the statute.
FinCEN recently began promoting the program, and a dedicated whistleblower webpage to submit tips, as it takes other steps to implement the administration’s priorities related to combatting cartels and government fraud. The NPRM comes alongside Treasury Department actions aimed at using FinCEN’s authorities to combat perceived fraud and misuse of government funds. For example, the same day FinCEN announced the NPRM, it issued an advisory regarding government health care fraud schemes. Two months earlier, on January 13, 2026, the agency issued an expansive geographic targeting order directed at combatting benefits fraud in Minnesota.
2. The NPRM broadly interprets the scope of qualifying information eligible for an award.
To be eligible for an award, a whistleblower must submit “original information” to the Treasury Department or the Department of Justice (“DOJ”). The NPRM broadly defines “original information,” expanding on the AMLA’s statutory language.
The AMLA provides that original information must be “derived from the independent knowledge or analysis of a whistleblower,” not known to the Treasury Department or DOJ from any other source, and not exclusively derived from an allegation made in a judicial or administrative hearing, government report, audit, investigation, or news media. The NPRM adopts a similar definition of original information, however, the NPRM proposes to include within “independent knowledge” facts that are “not exclusively obtained from publicly available sources” (emphasis added), which may include information conveyed to the whistleblower by third parties. “Independent analysis” under the NPRM can include analysis conducted with others, and even evaluation of wholly public information, so long as the analysis results in “material insights” or interpretations of information not generally known or publicly available. “Original information” must have been provided after the relevant statutory enactments — January 1, 2021 (for information related to BSA violations) and December 29, 2022 (for information related to all other eligible laws).
FinCEN’s definition of “original information” is largely consistent with other financial-related whistleblowing regimes, including the Dodd-Frank Act whistleblowing programs administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
3. The NPRM creates specific procedural requirements pertaining to the submission of original information, award eligibility, and award amount.
Consistent with the statute, the NPRM provides for monetary awards amounting to between 10 percent and 30 percent of the total monetary sanctions imposed in the covered or related actions.
To be eligible for an award, a whistleblower will need to satisfy a series of procedural requirements. In particular, FinCEN remains the central receiving authority for financial fraud whistleblower tips. Accordingly, a whistleblower who submits information to their employer, a Treasury Department authority other than FinCEN, or to the DOJ, generally must also provide the same information to FinCEN to be eligible for an award.
In addition, certain employees who learn of reportable information via the operation of a company’s internal compliance and audit programs are subject to a 120-day waiting period before they may report the information and qualify for an award. The waiting period is intended to provide entities with strong compliance and audit programs the opportunity to review, address, and/or voluntarily disclose information to the government.
Further, awards are only warranted if FinCEN determines that the information provided was sufficiently specific, credible, and timely to lead to successful enforcement of a “covered action.” A covered action is defined as a successful judicial or administrative enforcement action brought by the Department of the Treasury or the DOJ under a covered statute that results in monetary sanctions exceeding $1 million. In turn, a successful covered action may serve as the predicate for additional rewards based on a “related action,” which includes successful judicial or administrative action brought by any federal or state authority that is based upon the same whistleblower information. Put differently, a whistleblower may receive payment for a successful DOJ action, in addition to a successful state bank regulatory or state attorney general action.
4. The NPRM includes anti-retaliation provisions that employers must be aware of.
The NPRM specifies that whistleblowers are protected from retaliation, and such protection may apply even if a whistleblower is ineligible for an award. Specifically, the NPRM defines “whistleblower” as any individual(s) who provide information relating to a violation of a covered statute to the Department of the Treasury, DOJ, or to the employer of the individual(s), including as part of the job duties of the individual(s). Thus, employees who report potential violations internally to their employer may be protected from retaliation even when they never submit information through FinCEN’s whistleblower portal or otherwise do not qualify for an award.
AMLA’s anti-retaliation provisions do not apply to employees of depository institutions or credit unions, who are instead protected under other, preexisting statutes.
5. The NPRM overlaps other available whistleblower programs.
If adopted, the NPRM would operate alongside a series of other existing whistleblower programs. Notably, whistleblowers may submit tips to the DOJ via the Criminal Division Corporate Whistleblower Pilot Program, as well as to various agency and authority programs, including, but not limited to, the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Section 21F of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission pursuant to Section 23 of the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, and the Internal Revenue Service pursuant to the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.
Based on information available to FinCEN, around 20 percent of tips FinCEN received from 2021 through February 2025 were also submitted to whistleblower programs administered by other federal agencies. While the NPRM does not prohibit whistleblowers from providing information to multiple whistleblowing programs, FinCEN will consider amounts paid by another whistleblower award program and may lower FinCEN’s award accordingly, provided that the total amount paid is not below 10 percent of the collected monetary sanctions.
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For more information about the NPRM, please contact the members of Covington’s Financial Services, Trade Controls and White Collar Investigations practice.
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