The Secretary is authorized to require any âresident or citizen of the United States or a person in, and doing business in, the United States, to keep records, file reports, or keep records and file reports, when the resident, citizen, or person makes a transaction or maintains a relation for any person with a foreign financial agency.â The term âforeign financial agencyâ (FFA) applies to an action outside the United States of a âfinancial agency,â which the statute defines as âa person acting for a person . . . as a financial institution, bailee, depository trustee, or agent, or acting in a similar way related to money, credit, securities, gold, a transaction in money, credit, securities or gold, or a service provided with respect to money, securities, futures, precious metals, stones and jewels, or value that substitutes for currency.â The Secretary is also authorized to prescribe exemptions to the reporting requirement and to prescribe other matters the Secretary considers necessary to carry out 31 U.S.C. 5314. The regulations implementing these authorities to require reports of transactions with FFAs are found at 31 CFR 1010.360.
FinCEN estimates reflect a number of changes since the most recent prior OMB control number renewal which affected both the anticipated time burden associated with regulatory compliance activities and the expected costs.
The estimated total annual burden hours increased from an estimate of 11,914 hours in 2022 to 40,500 hours in 2025. This is due to several factors, but most notably reflects updating on the basis of the most recent period of historical data used to estimate the anticipated annual response burden of FFA requests. In the most recent three-year look-back period, FFA regulations have been issued with greater frequency and with respect to a larger number of FFAs per regulation, on average. Due to the increased frequency in the issuance of FFA regulations, FinCENâs estimate of the number of regulations per year increased to 4 from the estimate of approximately 1.33 in 2022. The average number of FFAs covered per regulation also increased from an average of 7 per request in 2019-2021 to an average of 50 per request in 2022-2024. Consequently, the average time estimated to respond to an FFA regulation increased by approximately 872 hours per regulation per respondent.
Separately, FinCEN has updated the wage rate utilized to estimate costs from $95 in the 2022 OMB control renewal to $120, which primarily reflects increases in average wages as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but also reflects a methodological shift to apply FinCENâs standard annual index wage rate to this analysis.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
PC_202507-1506-003_080625_053848_1.pdf
1506-0055 FFA supporting_statement 7_30_2025 FINAL.docx
Complying with recordkeeping requirements that apply to FFA reports