The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of national and international policies to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

The FATF promotes international standards and the effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other threats to the integrity of the international financial system.

The FATF (i) issues Recommendations targeted at preventing and repressing such crimes (considered to be international standards in these matters), (ii) promotes mutual assessment of the observance of said standards (iii) establishes countermeasures with regard to jurisdictions with relevant deficiencies and (iv) identifies new risks and methodologies to fight these criminal activities.

As of 2012 FATF Recommendations are part of a single document available in ‘Related information’ on this page.

The FATF membership is currently made up of 34 countries and territories (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong (China), Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States) and two regional organisations (European Commission and Gulf Co-operation Council).

Portugal has been a member of FATF since 1990.

Assessment of the  Portuguese system as regards the prevention and repression of money laundering and terrorist financing

The Portuguese money laundering and terrorist financing prevention and repression system was assessed within the scope of the FATF in 1994, 1999, 2006 and 2017. The results of the 2017 evaluation are available in the Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures in Portugal – Mutual Evaluation Report (December 2017).