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The U.S. Department of the Treasury lifted the sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan public banking system on Tuesday by issuing General License No. 57 from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which authorizes financial transactions with the Central Bank of Venezuela and three other state institutions, reported EFE.
The measure, signed by Bradley T. Smith, director of OFAC, comes less than two weeks after Washington removed interim president Delcy Rodríguez from the sanctions list of that same office on April 1.
In addition to the Central Bank of Venezuela, the license benefits the Bank of Venezuela, the Digital Workers' Bank, and the Treasury Bank, as well as any entity in which these institutions hold directly or indirectly 50% or more of the ownership.
The General License No. 57 authorizes a wide range of operations that were previously prohibited: bank transfers, loans, payments, dollar correspondent services, currency exchange, transactions with debit and credit cards, digital wallets, ACH transfers, and wire transfers, as well as services related to payroll and pensions.
The document clarifies, however, that the license does not authorize the unlocking of properties blocked under the Chapter V of the Federal Regulations Code, nor any transactions prohibited by the sanctions regulations against Venezuela that are not expressly mentioned.
The lifting of these restrictions is part of an accelerated process of normalization between Washington and Caracas that began after the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. special forces on January 3, 2026 and his transfer to New York to face federal charges.
Since then, the Trump administration has taken a series of gradual steps: in February 2026 authorized oil operations for multinational companies such as Chevron, Repsol, BP, Eni, and Shell; on March 5, formal diplomatic relations were restored between both countries; on March 18, sanctions on the oil sector were further relaxed; and on March 24, the U.S. embassy in Caracas was reopened.
The sanctions on Banco Central de Venezuela were originally imposed in 2019, also during Trump's first term, as part of the maximum pressure policy against Maduro's regime, aimed at depriving it of access to the dollar and the international financial system.
The Central Bank of Venezuela reported an economic growth of 8.66% for the country in 2025, in a context of relative stabilization prior to these geopolitical changes.
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