This has been the law in the US for a long time already. Not exactly illegal, but any cash transaction $10k+ legally requires federal documentation. This gets at what people misunderstand about crime and money laundering. Money laundering=paying taxes. Once you are making real money "under the table", you have to find ways to pay taxes, if you want to be able to buy cars/houses/etc
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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I've never paid for anything that expensive in cash. To those opposing the idea: Have you? Did it need to be cash?
Bought my first car using cash, this was the early 2000s - and was (at the time) the most available way for a teenager to transfer funds to another person.
I will say, my heartbeat walking out of the bank and to my mum waiting in her car would have set a world record high.
When i was like 18, my coworker who was maybe 23 told me that he's gonna buy a car, and if i would go to the bank with him, because he felt weird walking around with 20k in cash. I nodded, so we went to the bank. Like a bank robber, he nervously talked to the bank teller mumbling: i need 20 thousand chfr. She was like: sorry what? And he looked around and mumbled again 20 thousand. And he needs big bills. As big as possible. She probably thought he was disabled or something and started to smile and said: i'll get you the biggest bills i can find, and came back with a 20 dollar bill. He snatched it and walked out in embarrassment. I had to laugh so goddamn hard.
Another step towards the digital EU, where the banks can track all of your movements and the government can deny any purchases they donβt like.
Get fucked.
This is basically the Scandinavian model. Have never had a transfer blocked in the last decade. Good thing we don't have US government here in Europe, so we don't need to adopt the US scepticism of government.
Are you serious? Lime 50% of EU states are about to elect facist governments. Italy already has.
There should be more skepticism of government in Norway. These past few years there have been a lot of instances of insider trading, nepotism, and tax fraud across both aisles of parliament. Very few of them had any negative consequences for the perpetrators. Prominent members of both political parties also have well documented connections to Jeffrey Epstein. As does the royal house.
Edit: I also don't trust the Norwegian legal system. Because apparently if you say something people don't like, they are allowed to commit violence against you. And sharing a URL can also be punishable, which to me seems just as innocuous as sharing the street address of a place.
How the hell am I supposed to get my drug deals done now?
Crypto, as scamy as the crypto scene is anonymous payments are what Monero was made for. People should use Monero, fuck ur government spying
As long as you buy less than 4k NOK each time, no worries. That is the limit where corruption is caught.
In the US the cops just steal it. Then in order to get it back, you have to go to court and prove that your money didn't commit a crime. Yes, really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
Margarita machines dont pay for themselves.
Yea i love when most police raids for suspicion of drug dealing end up being something along the lines of "we broke into this person house and he had one half smoked joint and 10,000 dollars in bills" which of course means that the money is now proof of crime and belongs to the cops now
They don't need to say anything other than that they suspect it was used or going to be used illegally, but yeah they usually cite drugs. Like I said, there's no court process because they don't charge you with a crime, they charge the money. So fucked.
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Interestingly (or not), we also mostly (or is it totally?) got rid of 500 β¬ bills because they made moving around large amounts of cash too easy.
Welcome to Scandinavia, where I have seen cash in the last five years, but only from dealers.
As if rich scum haven't been paying each other with "gifts" that were awfully money-shaped already. This fixes nothing.
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This sort of thing would make crypto like Monero become a necessity. I think the way things are going, especially in the US, we will see crypto become a semi-legitimate currency, simply because governments can't be trusted to let the poors handle their business in a way that makes sense.
For example, MasterVisa barring transactions involving adult materials, LGBTQ+, and so forth. No choice but to use fiscal instruments that aren't controlled by the powers above.
how is this supposed to be enforced?
They will not let businesses invoice large cash amounts.
It's a tack on charge, it's not supposed to be enforced
Isn't this the case for like a decade already?
Stupid law
Money can be changed into something that isn't money, yet functionally works the same for a single transaction, very easily
Especially if you're already committing crimes
This is as effective as DRM; it hurts law abiding citizens more than those breaking the law
No that's not stupid. It adds a layer of friction for criminals. In Italy where this law already applies for 5000β¬ (before it was 2000) it helps reduce black market.
Source: I used to be paid in cash (illegally) and it was a pain in the ass to do anything so now I get paid lawfully and my boss pays taxes
Cash only tax free jobs are great IDK what you're on about
No thatβs not stupid. It adds a layer of friction for criminals.
True criminals do not care. Mafia do not write invoices to sell/buy drugs or to pay a killer.
Source: I used to be paid in cash (illegally) and it was a pain in the ass to do anything so now I get paid lawfully and my boss pays taxes
Then the problem was not that your boss was paying you in cash but that he had the possibility to pay you under the table without (basically) any kind of risk.
Money can be changed into something that isn't money, yet functionally works the same for a single transaction, very easily
Shops usually don't accept "something that isn't money" as payment.
This measure aims to make it harder for criminals to wash their illicit money using legit businesses.
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Good. In Italy we have a 5,000 limit and it indeed prevents some illegal payments.
The limit only make some illegal payments (like under the table payments) only a little more inconvenient, it does not prevent them.
Bad, because running all payments through banking system is a systemic safety risk.
If banking gets paralyzed like in Greece during debt crisis you'll be fucked.
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