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Under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (28 U.S.C. 2461 note), as strengthened by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 114-74 § 701), all federal agencies are required to publish annual inflation-adjusted civil monetary penalty ceilings no later than January 15 of each calendar year. FinCEN calculates the adjustment using the October-to-October change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 2022 adjustment reflected the October 2020 → October 2021 CPI-U change of approximately 6.22%, codified as adjustment multiplier 1.06222 per OMB Memorandum M-22-07 (December 15, 2021).
The rule amends 31 CFR § 1010.821 (Penalty Adjustment and Table) and is effective on the date of publication. It is issued as a final rule without prior notice-and-comment under the non-discretionary "good cause" exemption — the adjustment formula is set by statute and leaves no agency discretion.
The adjusted amounts supersede the previous penalty maxima for any penalty assessed on or after January 24, 2022, irrespective of when the underlying violation occurred (subject to applicable statutes of limitations).
| U.S. Code | Penalty description | Statutory baseline | 2022 adjusted max |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 U.S.C. 1829b(j) | Recordkeeping violations for funds transfers | $10,000 | $23,011 |
| 12 U.S.C. 1955 | Willful or grossly negligent recordkeeping | $10,000 | $23,011 |
| 31 U.S.C. 5318(k)(3)(C) | Failure to terminate correspondent relationship with foreign bank | $10,000 | $15,565 |
| 31 U.S.C. 5321(a)(6)(A) | Negligent violation by financial institution or non-financial trade/business | $500 | $1,253 |
| 31 U.S.C. 5321(a)(6)(B) | Pattern of negligent activity | $50,000 | $97,529 |
| 31 U.S.C. 5321(a)(7) | Due diligence, correspondent accounts, and special measures violations | $1,000,000 | $1,556,481 |
| 31 U.S.C. 5330(e) | Failure to register as money transmitting business | $5,000 | $9,250 |
The 2022 multiplier (1.06222) is the same multiplier applied to OFAC's CMP schedule in the companion February 9, 2022 final rule (87 FR 7369, filed under `2022-02-09-us-ofac-civil-monetary-penalties-inflation-adjustment-2022`).
This filing is one in an annual series of mandatory inflation adjustments to the BSA civil penalty schedule codified at 31 CFR § 1010.821:
(filed under 2023-01-19-us-fincen-bsa-cmp-inflation-adjustment-2023)
(filed under 2024-01-25-us-fincen-bsa-civil-penalty-inflation-adjustment-2024)
The 2022 adjustment was notably larger than the 2020 and 2021 cycles, consistent with the broader 2021 CPI-U surge, and is the first in what became a multi-year elevated-adjustment series before returning to lower single-digit multipliers.
January 24, 2022 onward; financial institutions, MSBs, investment advisers, and payment processors calibrate compliance-program risk budgets and reserve provisions against these figures.
§ 5321(a)(7)) is the operative worst-case reference for FinCEN enforcement actions against financial institutions with deficient correspondent-account due-diligence programs.
sub-2% annual adjustments in the 2016–2020 period; compliance teams that had calibrated contingent-liability reserves to 2020-era maxima required upward revision.
continuing-violation scenarios; the per-day rate increase compounds exposure materially for multi-month BSA compliance gaps discovered in examination.