The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) removed the Democratic Republic of Congo from its grey list on 30 October, four years after placing it under increased monitoring in October 2022. Côte d’Ivoire, Bulgaria and Monaco came off the list at the same plenary in Paris, the US Treasury’s FinCEN said.
The FATF said Kinshasa completed a 23-point action plan, documented in ten progress reports and checked during an on-site assessment in September, according to a statement quoted by Actualité.cd. Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba Likunde Li-Botayi said the exit should lower the cost and friction of cross-border payments for Congolese banks and businesses and support their correspondent banking ties.
What changes, and what does not
A grey listing brings no sanctions. Its cost is indirect: banks examine transactions more closely, which can dampen investment and capital flows. US banks should now factor the delisting into their risk assessments, FinCEN said, while still meeting their due diligence duties and avoiding blanket de-risking of whole countries.
The European Union runs its own list. The European Commission has listed the DRC as a high-risk third country since 16 March 2023, and its latest published update, from January 2026, still includes it. Delisting is a separate Commission decision. In the last update, Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/83, adopted on 4 December 2025, the Commission removed six African states: Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania.
Africa’s grey list shrinks
Four African states remain on the FATF list: Angola, Cameroon, Kenya and South Sudan, the FATF’s current list shows. Algeria and Namibia left it in June. The list now holds 18 jurisdictions, down from 22 before the plenary.
What the numbers show
The Finance Ministry says regulators carried out about 540 inspections between October 2022 and December 2025. It says 246 investigations led to roughly 100 prosecutions, with 31 seizures and 13 confiscations worth about $46.75 million.
Analysis: These figures count activity, not outcomes. They do not say how many prosecutions ended in convictions. The FATF process also assesses the state’s own system, not what happens where the state has no control. M23 has held Goma since January 2025, and on 28 October Washington sanctioned Rwanda’s defence ministry and a Rwandan lender over alleged support for the group, as Afrikeye reported.
What to watch
Three signals will show whether the exit changes anything on the ground: whether correspondent banks cut costs or restore lines to Congolese banks, whether the European Commission moves to delist the DRC, and whether Kinshasa publishes conviction and asset-recovery data. The FATF expects the DRC to keep working with its regional bodies, GABAC and ESAAMLG, to sustain the reforms. For African business and investment, the test is practical: whether a cleaner listing lowers the price of doing business with one of the continent’s largest mineral economies.
