Trump considers ordering banks to verify customers' citizenship status

On Feb. 24, 2026, the Wall Street Journal, Semafor, CNN, and Bloomberg reported the Trump administration is exploring an executive order requiring banks to collect citizenship documentation from all customers — new and existing. The White House said any reporting about unofficial policy is 'baseless speculation' but didn't deny the reports.

Currently, U.S. banks are not required to determine or verify citizenship status, and there is no law prohibiting non-citizens from opening bank accounts. Banks follow Know Your Customer rules under the Bank Secrecy Act — collecting names, Social Security numbers, and addresses — but these rules exist to prevent money laundering, not track immigration status.

The proposal would be retroactive. Banks would have to solicit new documentation from existing customers in addition to requiring it for new ones. REAL IDs would not count because they prove identity but not citizenship.

Banks pushed back hard. Industry sources told CNN the mandate is 'unworkable' and expressed concern that banks would be forced to close accounts for customers who can't produce citizenship documents. Some major banks — including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — don't require Social Security numbers to open accounts, highlighting how far current practice is from citizenship verification.

Roughly 49% of U.S. citizens don't own a valid passport, according to State Department data. Any passport-based citizenship requirement could lock millions of American citizens — disproportionately lower-income and rural — out of their own bank accounts if they can't quickly produce documentation.

In January 2026, Treasury Secretary SBScott Bessent's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued geographic targeting orders requiring banks in two 🦆Minnesota counties to report overseas transactions over $3,000 as part of a fraud investigation. Legal experts say the PATRIOT Act's Know Your Customer authority was designed for anti-money-laundering, not immigration enforcement, and applying it this way would likely face legal challenge.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton previously asked Treasury to explore whether existing rules could block undocumented immigrants from opening accounts, but his own letter acknowledged there was no clear legal authority for such action, suggesting any executive order would face immediate court challenge.