Latvia Eyes Tokenisation Rules in First Half of 2027

Latvia could have rules for tokenising real-world assets in the first half of 2027, starting with commercial property, Economics Minister Viktors Valainis said in an interview with CoinDesk published on 25 October. “If everything goes smoothly, I think next year, first half of the next year, we will already have the regulation,” he told the outlet at the UN:BLOCK fintech conference in Riga.

The timetable is his expectation, not government policy. A legal assessment his ministry was due to deliver by 1 October is, in his words, “still ongoing”, his party won no seats in this month’s parliamentary election, and Latvia is forming a new government that will decide whether the work continues.

In brief

Valainis told CoinDesk he expects tokenisation rules in the first half of 2027, with commercial property a “good start”.
Tokenising Latvian government bonds is on the “priority list”, he said, but he gave no size or date for any issue.
The Cabinet’s action plan gave his ministry until 1 October to assess the legal changes; he says that work is still under way.
His party won no seats in October’s election, and the next government will set the agenda.

What the minister said

According to CoinDesk, Valainis said his ministry is working with the central bank, the Finance Ministry and industry representatives on a framework meant to attract investment, and that he expects the work to stay on the next government’s agenda. He also hopes to promote new products linked to the crypto industry early in 2027.

Asked where Latvia would begin, he called commercial property a “good start” and mentioned the possible use of cryptocurrency to buy or sell companies or invest in property, without giving further detail. Tokenising Latvian government bonds is also on the “priority list”, he said. Asked how long it would take to tokenise bonds and real estate once rules were in place, he answered: “I would like to say the first part of the next year. It could be done.” He did not name partners or an issuance size, and CoinDesk reported that the potential economic benefit has not been quantified.

He stressed caution. Anti-money-laundering controls are a central concern, he told CoinDesk. “We don’t want to create something with a big boom and then with a big collapse,” he said, adding that the government would act only when it is “1,000% sure” a solution is transparent and understandable.

What the government’s action plan requires

The task he described is written into the government’s action plan, approved by Cabinet Order No. 449 on 27 July 2026 and signed by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs. Item 20.5 instructs the Economics Ministry to draw up a conceptual proposal for the legal amendments needed to allow the tokenisation of real estate, property transactions and other assets that would be useful for a digital wallet (TSN’s translation). The expected result is listed simply as “assessment prepared”, with a deadline of 1 October 2026.

The Ministry of Justice, the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development, the Latvian Blockchain Association and Finance Latvia Association are named as co-responsible. The same item gives the Finance Ministry a separate 1 October deadline for a report on the tax treatment of selling crypto-assets in line with the EU’s MiCA rules.

CoinDesk said it asked whether the tokenisation assessment was complete; Valainis said it was “still ongoing”. TSN has not found a published version.

The political backdrop

The interview comes a week after a prime ministerial adviser told CoinDesk that Latvians could pay taxes in crypto next year. Valainis said of that plan: “We are at the moment working for the first decision to make it happen.”

CoinDesk reported that Valainis’s party won no seats in this month’s election as Latvia forms a new government. The Treasury and the ministry’s press office had not answered questions CoinDesk sent on the tokenisation efforts, the outlet said.

He also renewed his call for a national bitcoin reserve. “There is no way that it won’t happen. It will happen,” he told CoinDesk, which described it as his personal support for a small reserve, with no approved proposal or purchase timetable. He said a first step should involve “some common decision together” at European Central Bank level, but added: “I would be the one who would support faster steps.”

Latvia would not be the first European state to experiment. CoinDesk noted that Slovenia issued a €30 million digital sovereign bond in July 2024 as part of an ECB experiment, and TSN has covered Luxembourg’s plan for a sovereign bond issued natively on blockchain. Outside Europe, Malaysia’s central bank has opened a platform for tokenised bonds and sukuk.

A missed deadline makes the 2027 target harder to test

The minister’s own account sets up the problem. The action plan asked for an assessment by 1 October, and more than three weeks later it is unfinished, so nobody outside the ministry can yet see which laws would change, which assets would qualify or how the anti-money-laundering concerns he raised would be handled. A target of rules in the first half of 2027 assumes that assessment lands, that a proposal follows and that legislators pass it, all within months. Valainis framed it conditionally, “if everything goes smoothly”, and talked about acting only when “1,000% sure”. Those two positions sit uneasily with a firm half-year date, and the plan’s own wording, a conceptual proposal, describes an early stage of work.

The next coalition decides whether this survives

Every commitment in the interview depends on people who have not yet been chosen. The action plan belongs to the outgoing Kulbergs cabinet, and the minister’s party will not sit in the new parliament. The commercial-property start, the bond “priority list” and the bitcoin reserve are statements of intent from a minister whose term is ending, with no answer yet from the Treasury on tokenisation and no approved reserve proposal. The test is whether the next government’s own action plan carries item 20.5 forward with a new date and a named owner. If it does, the 2027 target has a route; if it does not, the interview will mostly record what one minister wanted.