Is crypto legal in Nepal? The law on bitcoin, USDT and forex trading

Crypto banned since

13 Aug 2017

Prison, Criminal Code

Up to 5 years

Fine, Foreign Exchange Act

Up to 3× the amount

Forex with a foreign broker

Not legal

No. Cryptocurrency (क्रिप्टोकरेन्सी) such as bitcoin, ether or USDT is illegal in Nepal. Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the central bank, has said so in five public notices since 13 August 2017, and since 12 April 2024 the Muluki Criminal Code has made it a crime to produce, buy, sell, exchange, transfer or even hold a virtual currency, with up to 5 years in prison. The ban covers mining, stablecoins, NFTs and decentralised finance (DeFi) as well.

Online forex trading with a foreign broker is not legal for someone living in Nepal either: it needs money sent abroad into a trading account, which the Foreign Exchange (Regulation) Act and the Act Restricting Investment Abroad forbid.

What is legal: buying foreign currency from a bank or licensed money changer for travel, study, work abroad or online shopping, within NRB's limits, and investing in Nepal's own markets. Both are further down.

The Criminal Code calls it virtual currency (अभौतिक वा भर्चुअल मुद्रा) and defines it widely: any information, code or signal number, token, cryptocurrency or similar virtual asset, made by cryptography or any other means, that shows or stands for value electronically, has a use in trade, or can be stored as a unit of value or account. Whether it calls itself a currency does not matter. The only money that may be used is the currency NRB issues.

NRB's notices name the forms one at a time: bitcoin (2017); every cryptocurrency (2021); virtual currency, "Hyper Fund" schemes and pyramid network marketing (January 2022); stablecoins, tokens such as USDT and USDC that are built to stay at one dollar (August 2022); and NFTs, "digital assets" and DeFi (April 2023).

The notice of 15 August 2022 gives NRB's reasons: crypto has no legal recognition in Nepal, is not legal tender, is not guaranteed by the government or issued by NRB, and has nothing behind it; and it carries risks of money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, tax evasion, capital flight, wild prices and speculation.

• Bitcoin, ether, any coin, and stablecoins such as USDT: covered.
• NFTs and tokens that can be sold for money: NFTs are named, and a token with value falls inside the definition. No rule we found addresses game points that cannot be cashed out.
• eSewa, Khalti and bank wallets: not crypto. They hold rupees under NRB's licence.
• Foreign payment apps: not crypto, but NRB's notice of 20 May 2019 makes paying through foreign systems (it names WeChat Pay and Alipay, foreign QR codes and card machines) illegal except through institutions NRB has approved.

Nepal did not ban crypto in one step. NRB answered each new thing as it appeared: bitcoin in 2017, every coin in September 2021, the Hyper Fund and network-marketing schemes being promoted that winter, stablecoins in 2022 and NFTs and DeFi in 2023. Each notice repeats the earlier ones by date and widens them. In January 2023 the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) told internet providers to block crypto sites; in April 2024 the ban moved from NRB's notices into the Criminal Code; and in July 2026 the Ministry of Finance published a draft law that would write it into a new foreign exchange act.

Four laws do the work. Scams bring in more: fraud, electronic crime and organised crime.

• The Foreign Exchange (Regulation) Act 2019 BS (विदेशी विनिमय (नियमित गर्ने) ऐन, २०१९). Only NRB's licensees may deal in foreign exchange (section 3). Nobody living in Nepal may pay anyone outside Nepal except as NRB specifies (9C). Only certain companies may invest abroad (10A), and an account abroad needs NRB's permission (16). NRB's notices are made under section 12, so breaking one breaks the Act, and a contract made against it can be voided by the court (13, 19).
• The Muluki Criminal Code 2074, section 262(क) ("अभौतिक मुद्राको प्रयोग गर्न नहुने"), added by an amendment in the Gazette of 12 April 2024. It forbids producing, selling, trading, exchanging, transferring, holding, issuing or handing over a virtual currency, paying or settling with one inside or outside Nepal, and payments that hide a deal's real accounts.
• The Act Restricting Investment Abroad 2021 BS. Nobody may make any kind of investment abroad (section 3): foreign securities, a foreign bank account, property, or "any other kind of cash or in-kind investment", except by Gazette exemption.
• The Nepal Rastra Bank Act 2058. Transacting without the licence the law requires, or breaking NRB's directives, is an offence (section 95): confiscation, a fine up to 3 times the amount, and prison (section 96), up to 3 years in the English text we read and 7 by two law firms and a 2024 police request. We could not settle which is current.
• For scams and betting: the Electronic Transactions Act 2063, the Organised Crime Prevention Act 2070, and the Criminal Code's sections on cheating and gambling.

Penalties for money offences are set by the amount in question (बिगो): the value of the crypto or foreign exchange involved. Under the Foreign Exchange Act it is forfeited and a fine of one to three times it is added (up to Rs 2,00,000 if it cannot be fixed); an unpaid fine can become up to 4 years in prison; from Rs 1,00,00,000 the court can add up to 3 years. Under section 262(क) the amount and anything grown from it is confiscated, with up to 5 years and a fine by the amount. Under the Act Restricting Investment Abroad, a fine equal to the amount, up to 6 months in prison, or both, and Rs 50 a day if it goes on.

The table puts the most each law allows beside four amounts. Prosecutors usually charge more than one.

These are dated news reports of arrests and charges, not verdicts. They show what police look for and what prosecutors ask for. We found no published final judgment we could read; one law firm reports a 2022 Kathmandu District Court case that ended in fines and acquittals, which we could not confirm.

Banks must report transactions they find suspicious to NRB's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-Nepal). Its report on virtual assets, released on 1 January 2026, counted 658 suspicious reports linked to crypto from January 2021 to July 2025, peaking at 252 in 2024. 600 came from commercial banks (91%), 48 from development banks, 6 from remittance companies and 2 from finance companies.

The FIU passed 357 of them on: 232 to Nepal Police, 115 to the Revenue Investigation Department, 6 to the Department of Money Laundering Investigation, 3 to NRB's payment systems department and 1 to the Inland Revenue Department. Its chief said the investigating bodies had been informed and would follow up.

Binance, like every crypto exchange, has no licence in Nepal, and none can get one: the law has no crypto licence to give. On 8 January 2023 the Nepal Telecommunications Authority told internet and email service providers to block websites, apps and online networks used for crypto, "hyper networking" and online betting, and threatened action against providers that did not, as ShareSansar reported the next day.

Some sites still open and app stores still list apps; neither makes using them legal. The offence in section 262(क) is dealing in or holding a virtual currency, whatever the website. Police case reports keep naming Binance accounts: in the December 2025 case the USDT was credited through one.

The route that comes up again and again in Nepal's police cases is P2P (peer-to-peer): buying USDT from a stranger through a listing, paying rupees by bank transfer, wallet or cash, while the seller releases the tokens to the buyer's account on a foreign exchange. Section 262(क) catches every part: the buyer holds a virtual currency, the seller sells one, and the rupee payment settles a deal in it.

USDT is a stablecoin built to track one US dollar, hence searches for "1 USDT in Nepali rupees". The nearest legal figure is the dollar's: NRB's dollar rate on 4 November 2026 was Rs 151.29 buying and Rs 151.89 selling. There is no legal USDT rate, because there is no legal USDT; NRB's daily rates are on our exchange rate page.

The other side of P2P is the money mule, whose bank account receives and passes on other people's money. The FIU's 2024 report found fraudsters using many accounts at different banks and wallets, some opened in other people's names. In the December 2025 case one man's account took in Rs 74,52,699 from buyers in Nepal.

• "Earn a commission for receiving payments": an offer to let your account receive rupees and "release" USDT, or to rent your account, is recruitment as a mule. Your name is on the account.
• Small amounts are not safe amounts. Section 262(क) has no minimum; Rs 1,000 of bitcoin is the same offence as Rs 1 crore.
• Buying for a friend abroad is still dealing: the law covers transfers made for others.

No. NRB's notice of 9 September 2021 names mining (running computers to create new coins and earn fees) alongside trading and use, and section 262(क) forbids producing (उत्पादन) a virtual currency. On 14 June 2024 the CIB arrested two people in Thimi, Bhaktapur, accused of mining from a computer lab of CTEVT, the technical education council, and seized a server and 64 desktops.

The Rastriya Swatantra Party's manifesto of 21 February 2026 promised "pilot projects for crypto mining … based on energy availability". That is a promise. On 4 November 2026 no pilot, licence or rule allowing mining existed that we could find, and mining at home or in an office remains an offence.

No Nepali law or NRB notice bans blockchain as a technology; NRB itself is studying a digital rupee. What the law forbids is what blockchains are mostly used for in money: creating, holding or trading tokens that have value. Those fall inside section 262(क)'s definition, and NRB's 2023 notice names NFTs, digital assets and DeFi.

• Building software for a foreign company is legal work, paid in dollars into a Nepali bank account. NRB's rules even let freelancers who export services keep part of what they earn on a dollar card (the limits were raised on 5 October 2026).
• Being paid in crypto is not legal: section 262(क) forbids taking payment in a virtual currency for business inside or outside Nepal.
• Free tokens (an airdrop, a gift, a game reward that can be sold) are still a virtual currency you receive and hold.
• Launching anything that issues tokens, from a loyalty point that can be sold to an NFT collection, should wait for a written opinion from a Nepali lawyer.

There is no crypto tax in Nepal, because there is no legal crypto to tax. People who search for it expect a rate like the one on shares, where a resident individual pays 3.75% of the gain on listed shares held more than 365 days and 5% on shares held less (see capital gains tax on shares). The law's answer for crypto is section 262(क)(3): the amount involved and any property grown from it (बिगो र सोबाट बढे वा बढाएको सम्पत्ति) are confiscated. A profit is not taxed; it is taken.

We found no rule, notice or guidance from the Inland Revenue Department on taxing crypto. A page that quotes a "crypto tax rate" for Nepal is describing a regime that does not exist, and declaring crypto income to the tax office would not make the dealing legal.

NRB says it does. Its notices of January 2022, August 2022 and April 2023 address Nepali citizens living outside Nepal as well as people in Nepal: if they deal in crypto they face action "under prevailing law". Whether a Nepali court would try something done wholly abroad, where crypto may be legal, is a question for a lawyer; we found no such case. The July 2026 draft bill would give the law express reach over Nepalis abroad.

What is clearly caught is anything that touches Nepal: sending money home through crypto or hundi instead of a bank or licensed remittance company; selling USDT to someone in Nepal; or holding crypto after coming back. The Foreign Exchange Act lets a Nepali who earned foreign exchange abroad keep it abroad after returning, by informing NRB (section 4A), but NRB's notices say crypto is not foreign exchange.

The FIU's report (January 2026). It counted 658 suspicious reports and called for tighter monitoring. A Kathmandu Post column in August 2026 read it as setting out three ways crypto could be regulated and argued that "banning crypto isn't working". The column is opinion; the report changed no rule.

The ruling party's promise (February 2026). The Rastriya Swatantra Party, which leads the government formed after the March 2026 election, promised that "a national cryptocurrency policy will be established in the first year", with mining pilots. We found none adopted by 4 November 2026. Even the September 2026 relief appeal kept the line: crypto donations were turned into dollars in the United States and sent by bank to the Prime Minister's fund. "No cryptocurrency enters Nepal," an organiser told the Kathmandu Post.

The draft Foreign Exchange (Regulation and Management) Bill (13 July 2026). Published by the Ministry of Finance for 15 days of comment, it would replace the Foreign Exchange Act and the Act Restricting Investment Abroad and bar any electronic or virtual currency NRB has not recognised, with fines rising with the amount and prison above Rs 1 crore. It writes the ban in; it does not lift it. Nepal News's two summaries give the top penalty differently, and we found no sign it had reached Parliament.

A digital rupee. A CBDC (central bank digital currency) is money issued by the central bank in digital form, not a cryptocurrency. NRB began studying one in 2021/22, has built a prototype and plans business use first; the NRB Act would need amending before it could issue one, and no pilot had started that we found. In 2023 NRB's spokesperson said: "Since cryptocurrency is banned in Nepal, there is no thought about any other type of digital assets."

"Forex trading" online usually means margin forex trading: opening an account with a broker abroad, depositing dollars and betting with borrowed money (leverage) on pairs such as EUR/USD, often as CFDs (contracts for difference) or "binary options". For someone living in Nepal, the answer to "yes or no" is no.

No NRB notice names forex trading, and we found no court ruling on a retail trader. It follows from four rules, any one of which the trade breaks:

• 1. Funding the account is a payment abroad. Section 9C of the Foreign Exchange Act bars any payment to a person outside Nepal except as NRB specifies. NRB specifies travel, study, treatment, imports and services; no circular we read specifies a trading account.
• 2. The account is an investment abroad (विदेशमा लगानी). Section 10A allows only certain companies to invest abroad and the Act Restricting Investment Abroad bars everyone else. NRB's notice of 13 January 2023 spells it out: no one living in Nepal may buy securities or assets abroad, deposit in a foreign institution, or make any capital-type transaction abroad.
• 3. The dollar card cannot be used for it. NRB's rules for the prepaid card that banks issue for online shopping say it may not be spent on capital transactions.
• 4. The account itself needs permission. A Nepali living in Nepal needs NRB's approval to open an account abroad (section 16), and profits brought home outside the banks are hundi.

Banks. Banks licensed by NRB buy and sell foreign exchange every day (that is what NRB's rates are for) and may hedge with forward contracts and swaps within NRB's rules; businesses hedge real import and export payments through them. None of it is open to an individual for speculation.

Learners. We found no rule against studying currency markets or using a demo account with play money. The line is crossed when money is sent; a course that ends with a broker's sign-up link is selling you the illegal part.

The future. Nothing proposed in 2026 would open retail margin trading. The draft bill of 13 July 2026 keeps payments and accounts abroad under NRB's control and mentions hedging, with procedures to come; the ruling party's manifesto speaks of easing payments for people who earn from abroad, not of trading.

Every crypto or offshore-trading scheme needs rupees to leave Nepal or be swapped for something abroad. The legal routes run through a bank or money changer licensed by NRB, for a stated purpose, within a limit, with your name on the record. The illegal ones skip that, and each breaks a named law. The oldest is hundi (हुण्डी): an agent takes rupees in Nepal and a partner pays the same value abroad, or the reverse, settled outside any bank.

The key phrase is capital transaction: putting money into something abroad to earn from it (shares, deposits, property, a trading or crypto account), as against paying for something you buy, such as a course, a hotel or software. Individuals may pay for goods and services within limits; they may not move capital out.

NRB publishes buying and selling rates every day. On 4 November 2026: one US dollar Rs 151.29 buying and Rs 151.89 selling; 100 Indian rupees Rs 160.00 and Rs 160.15, the fixed peg. Banks and money changers post their own rates close to these; today's are on our exchange rate page, straight from NRB.

You can exchange money at commercial banks, national-level development banks and licensed money changers (इजाजतपत्रप्राप्त मनिचेञ्जर), plus hotels, airlines and others NRB authorises for limited exchange. NRB has issued no new money-changer licences outside international airports since 30 September 2022, so check the licence on the wall.

• Money changers may buy up to USD 5,000 from a Nepali (tips and gifts only up to USD 500). Those licensed to sell may give a traveller at most USD 200, and up to INR 25,000 to a Nepali going to India.
• Banks may exchange up to USD 5,000 of your foreign cash at one time (more with proof it was earned abroad and declared), against your citizenship or a photo ID.
• Keeping dollars at home: up to USD 1,500 (about Rs 2,27,835) from legal sources. More must be exchanged or put into a foreign-currency account at a Nepali bank within 35 days.
• At the border: up to USD 5,000 (about Rs 7,59,450) in cash may come in without a customs declaration (NRB notice republished 26 August 2025). Nepalis may not take Indian rupees to any country but India.
• Take the receipt (the foreign exchange encashment receipt, FEER): it proves where your dollars came from.

The passport facility (राहदानी सुविधा) is the dollars a bank sells you for a trip: since the monetary policy of July 2025, up to USD 3,000 a trip to any country but India (it was USD 2,500), on your passport and a confirmed air ticket. At most USD 500 comes as cash, the rest on a card or draft in your name. You get it again only if you used the last one for its trip; for more, apply to NRB with your PAN and the reason.

For study, the first payment needs the Education Ministry's No Objection Letter, the original, stamped for the bank (see NOC for abroad study). Fees go only by bank transfer to the college; living costs come in the student's name, from the college's figure or NRB's yearly caps below; a sum a visa office requires you to show can go into your own account. Since June 2026 banks may add a 5% buffer, news reports of NRB's amendment say.

For buying online from abroad, one bank can issue you a prepaid dollar card, with your PAN and updated KYC: up to USD 500 a year, for goods and services only, never capital transactions, no cash withdrawals.

Many people who think they are trading crypto or forex are not trading at all. FIU-Nepal's 2024 report on cyber-enabled fraud found fake online trading platforms the third most reported kind, with "money double", crypto investment and network-marketing schemes among the rest; the people involved were mostly aged 19 to 30, and contact came by Messenger, WhatsApp, TikTok or Instagram. The platform shows a growing balance that exists only on its own screen.

Many are a Ponzi scheme: early users are paid from later users' money, until the new money stops. The SMC app, broken up by the Cyber Bureau on 6 January 2026, promised 1.2% a day and paid commissions of 12%, 4%, 1% on three levels of recruits; more than 70,000 people used it and Rs 12,08,16,372 was lost. 1.2% a day compounds to about 7,700% a year, when a fixed deposit pays about 3.77% after tax: that gap is the whole warning.

The FIU names the trap that makes crypto scams worse than others: "In countries like Nepal where investment in virtual assets like cryptocurrency is illegal, the victims rarely come up with complaints against such scams for potential repercussions." There is no regulator to complain to, no deposit guarantee and no licensed broker to answer, so getting money back depends on the police finding it before it moves.

• A fixed return. "1.2% a day", "10% a week", "guaranteed". On Rs 1 lakh, 1.2% a day is Rs 1,200 every day; nothing legal pays that.
• Pay a person, not a company. Deposits to a personal bank account or wallet, a different name each time, or "buy USDT and send it here".
• Fees to withdraw. A "tax", "release fee", "anti-money-laundering deposit" or "account upgrade" before you can take money out. Paying it never releases the money.
• Recruit and earn. Commissions for bringing in friends and family, or levels of members below you.
• Famous names. Claims of partnership with film studios, global fund managers or a celebrity, with company papers you cannot check.
• Romance or friendship first. A match or new friend online who brings up the platform they "made money on".
• No licence in Nepal. SEBON licenses Nepal's share brokers and NRB its banks and money changers. Nobody licenses a crypto or forex platform here.

1. 1Stop paying. No further "fee" will release your money.
2. 2Call your bank at once and ask it to stop or hold the transfer and the receiving account. Hours matter.
3. 3Complain to the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police in Bhotahity, Kathmandu: 01-5319044, 9851286770, toll-free 16600141516, or cyberbureau@nepalpolice.gov.np; outside the Valley, any district police office. How to write it: cyber crime complaint in Nepal.
4. 4Keep everything: chats, screenshots of the app, transaction IDs, the account numbers and names you paid, the dates.
5. 5If you bought crypto yourself, speak to a lawyer about your own position, but do not let that delay the complaint: money can only be frozen before it moves.

The wish behind many crypto searches is to make money grow faster than a deposit. There are legal ways to take more risk for more return in Nepal, all regulated, all inside the banking system. The investing guide compares them; in short:

• Shares on NEPSE, through a SEBON-licensed broker: share market for beginners, starting with a demat account and IPOs in MeroShare.
• Mutual funds, by lump sum or monthly: mutual funds in Nepal and SIP in Nepal, with the SIP calculator.
• Fixed deposits, guaranteed up to the deposit insurance limit: about 4.01% at the average bank's best rate in Kartik 2083 (fixed deposits in Nepal).
• Gold, bought with a proper bill: gold price calculator and making charges.
• For those drawn to trading itself: the rules and the real costs of trading NEPSE shares often, in technical analysis for NEPSE.