RALEIGH, N.C. — Cryptocurrency kiosks across North Carolina will operate under the state’s first set of consumer rules starting Jan. 1, 2027, when the Virtual Currency Kiosk Consumer Protection Act takes effect.
The machines resemble ordinary cash machines, but they convert paper money into cryptocurrency that moves almost instantly and is very hard to recover. Scammers posing as police officers or government agents have used them to drain victims’ savings, including a Johnston County woman who recently lost everything she had at a gas station kiosk.
House Bill 920 passed both chambers without a single no vote. The Senate approved it 49-0 on June 30 and the House concurred 115-0 on July 1. Gov. Josh Stein signed it July 7, and it became Session Law 2026-45.
In his signing statement, Stein said the law requires kiosks to be licensed and regulated by the state, caps daily transactions and makes operators post scam warnings, offer live customer service, hand out receipts and let users cancel a transfer that is still in progress. He cited federal figures showing more than $12 million lost to kiosk fraud in North Carolina.
The daily limits split customers into two groups. Anyone new to an operator, meaning a first transaction within the past 30 days, can move no more than $2,000 a day, while established customers are capped at $7,500. Customers whose first transaction came within the previous seven days face a mandatory 48-hour hold, and fees are limited to 12%.
Operators must also run an interactive fraud screen that customers cannot skip and disclose fees, exchange rates and refund policies before a deal is final. The state Commissioner of Banks oversees the industry and must adopt a procedure for deciding when a kiosk transaction was fraudulent.
Getting money back is not automatic. Scam victims have a 30-day window to file a fraud report with the state banking regulator, and only a finding of fraud by that office triggers a refund. For newer customers that means every dollar deposited; longtime users are limited to recovering the fees they paid.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson has said the federal Justice Department is investigating kiosk companies. The FBI counted more than 13,400 kiosk complaints nationwide in 2025 with losses topping $388 million, while North Carolina accounted for 491 of those complaints and roughly $12.6 million in stolen money.
Until the rules kick in, the FBI advice is blunt: genuine police and government agencies never ask anyone to pay them through a crypto machine. Anyone who has been targeted can file a report with local police, with the FBI online at ic3.gov and with the Federal Trade Commission.
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