U.S. House Approves Housing Package That Bars Fed CBDC Issuance Through 2030
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a broad housing bill that also includes a temporary ban on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), marking a major win for lawmakers seeking to curb the Federal Reserve's role in issuing tokenized money. The legislation now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.
The House approved the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act 358–32 on Tuesday, according to the official roll call, after the Senate cleared the measure by a similarly large margin the previous day. While the package is aimed primarily at housing affordability, the CBDC language—and an explicit stablecoin exemption—has drawn the closest scrutiny from crypto and financial services firms.
Under the bill, the Federal Reserve would be prohibited from "directly or indirectly" issuing or creating a CBDC, or any digital asset "substantially similar" to a CBDC, until Dec. 31, 2030. The provision is designed to prevent the Fed from launching or materially advancing a tokenized form of central bank money for the rest of the decade.
For banks and other regulated institutions, the restriction could shape product planning and risk decisions by reducing the likelihood of a federally issued digital settlement rail. Even so, the phrase "substantially similar" may introduce compliance complexity, as firms may need to assess whether related digital-asset initiatives could be interpreted as CBDC-like activity.
The legislation also carves out certain stablecoins, allowing "dollar-denominated currency" described as "open, permissionless, and private." That exemption appears intended to preserve private-sector, dollar-linked tokens while restricting central bank issuance of a digital fiat instrument. The descriptors may still invite interpretation, especially for regulated entities balancing transparency, auditability, and AML obligations against systems marketed as "private."
The bill's swift movement reflects a late-stage agreement between House and Senate leaders that kept the CBDC language intact after earlier disagreements. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott described the outcome as a win for families and a long-sought policy objective.
Republican lawmakers have pushed similar CBDC limits for years. A recent precursor was Rep. Tom Emmer's Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, introduced in June 2025 and passed by the House in July, but it did not advance in the Senate. By embedding the CBDC restriction in a high-priority housing package, lawmakers appear to be using vehicle legislation to achieve digital-asset policy aims that have struggled as standalone bills.
For compliance teams, the immediate implication is not a change to AML/KYC or consumer-protection expectations, but a clearer congressional boundary around central bank digital money. The ban targets the Fed, yet it could influence how other regulators approach payments, tokenized assets, and stablecoins.
U.S. firms operating globally will still have to navigate divergent regimes, including the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, where rules on token classification, issuer obligations, reserves, authorization, and disclosures may not align with U.S. policy.
The next key step is presidential approval. If enacted, the market will look for clarity on what qualifies as "substantially similar" to a CBDC and how regulators interpret the stablecoin exemption. Longer term, attention will remain on how this constraint intersects with future U.S. legislation on crypto market structure, including trading, custody, and market conduct rules.
