Exam notes and older guides still give the EU list as 22 predicate offenses. That was the directive's 2018 count. Directive (EU) 2024/1226 added a 23rd category, the violation of Union restrictive measures, so a sanctions breach is now a listed predicate in every member state bound by the directive. The number was never the whole rule either. Article 2(1) first counts any offense that national law punishes with a maximum of more than one year of deprivation of liberty, and only then lists the categories that count in any case. A crime missing from the list can still be a predicate offense. And a team trained on 22 names is missing the one closest to its own sanctions screening.
What is a predicate offense?
A predicate offense is the crime that generates the proceeds a launderer later moves or hides. Predicate crime and underlying offense are other names for it. Fraud produces the stolen funds, drug trafficking produces the cash, and each of the laundering methods that follow a predicate offense, from structuring cash to false trade invoices, starts from proceeds of this kind.
The directive's own term is "criminal activity", and its recital 5 calls these criminal activities the predicate offenses for money laundering. The definition covers any kind of criminal involvement in committing the offense, so an accomplice's part counts as well as the main offender's.
Keep the two offenses apart. The predicate is where the money came from; the laundering offense is what someone does with it afterwards, such as converting, concealing or acquiring it. Without a predicate there is no money laundering to prosecute.
The EU list sits in Directive (EU) 2018/1673, the criminal law directive known as the 6AMLD, with a transposition date of 3 December 2020. One carve out sits in Article 1(2): laundering of property from offenses against the Union's financial interests, fraud with EU money among them, falls under Directive (EU) 2017/1371 instead.
In 77 seconds, the clip below places the list inside the directive, between the three laundering offenses and the rules on company liability.
What are the 23 predicate offenses under 6AMLD?
Table 1. The 23 categories of predicate offense in Directive (EU) 2018/1673, Article 2(1), as of November 2026. Category in the directive's words (US spelling); examples are illustrative.
| Point | Category | EU act named in the point | Illustrative example a compliance team meets | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (a) | Participation in an organized criminal group and racketeering | Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA | Takings from a protection racket paid into a cash heavy shop's account | |
| (b) | Terrorism | Directive (EU) 2017/541 | Small transfers from several senders pooled and sent on to a conflict zone | terrorist financing |
| (c) | Trafficking in human beings and migrant smuggling | Directive 2011/36/EU; Framework Decision 2002/946/JHA | One account pays the rent on several flats and also receives the wages of the workers housed there | human trafficking |
| (d) | Sexual exploitation | Directive 2011/93/EU | Card payments for online content that police link to the exploitation of children | |
| (e) | Illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances | Framework Decision 2004/757/JHA | Street cash split across several branches on the same day | drug trafficking |
| (f) | Illicit arms trafficking | None | An importer pays for "machine parts" that customs later identifies as firearm components | |
| (g) | Illicit trafficking in stolen goods and other goods | None | An online seller lists dozens of new phones a week and has no supplier invoices | |
| (h) | Corruption | The 1997 convention on corruption involving EU and member state officials; Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA (both read as Directive (EU) 2026/1021 since 2026) | A consultancy fee paid to a company owned by a procurement official's relative | corruption |
| (i) | Fraud | Framework Decision 2001/413/JHA | Many small payments from investment scam victims, moved on within hours | fraud and money laundering |
| (j) | Counterfeiting of currency | Directive 2014/62/EU | Fake banknotes exchanged for genuine currency at a bureau de change | |
| (k) | Counterfeiting and piracy of products | None | Marketplace sales of fake branded goods paid into a personal account | |
| (l) | Environmental crime | Directive 2008/99/EC; Directive 2009/123/EC (both read as Directive (EU) 2024/1203) | Fees for waste disposal where the waste is later dumped illegally abroad | |
| (m) | Murder, grievous bodily injury | None | A payment that a court later links to a contract killing | |
| (n) | Kidnapping, illegal restraint and hostage taking | None | A ransom paid for a kidnapped executive, then split across accounts | |
| (o) | Robbery or theft | None | Cash from a series of burglaries used to buy gold bars | |
| (p) | Smuggling | None | Cash takings from cigarettes brought in past customs | |
| (q) | Tax crimes relating to direct and indirect taxes, as laid down in national law | None: national law sets the offense | Sales kept off the books and moved to a relative's account | tax fraud |
| (r) | Extortion | None | Crypto paid by a company threatened with a leak of its stolen data | |
| (s) | Forgery | None | Forged invoices used to explain incoming payments | |
| (t) | Piracy | None | A ransom paid to pirates who seized a merchant ship | |
| (u) | Insider trading and market manipulation | Directive 2014/57/EU | Profits from shares bought through a relative's account days before a takeover is announced | market manipulation |
| (v) | Cybercrime | Directive 2013/40/EU | Money taken through hacked online banking logins and passed through mule accounts | |
| (w) | Violation of Union restrictive measures | None; point added by Directive (EU) 2024/1226 | Payments routed through a third country to a company owned by a person on an EU sanctions list | how to check a sanctions list |
The category column keeps the directive's wording, and the act column names the EU act each point refers to. Any offense set out in that act counts, while member states decide how wide a range of offenses each category covers (recital 5). The examples show how a category tends to surface in a compliance file. None is a real case.
Exam questions that ask which of the following is a predicate offense are answered by the letters. An offense that national law places in one of points (a) to (w) counts in every member state bound by the directive, whatever its sentence. Some of the named acts have since been replaced: those in point (h) are now read as Directive (EU) 2026/1021 and those in point (l) as Directive (EU) 2024/1203.
Point (w) is the newest row and the one a firm can test on its own books. A customer, owner or counterparty on an EU list is now a laundering risk as well as a sanctions risk, and the control is screening at onboarding and again whenever a list changes. complead, formerly Sanction Scanner, runs that client screening and ongoing monitoring, scanning 3,500+ sanctions, PEP and watchlists from 220+ jurisdictions, refreshed every 15 minutes.
Why do sources say 21, 22 or 23 predicate offenses?
Each number is right for a different text.
21 is the FATF count. The FATF glossary lists 21 designated categories of offenses, from participation in an organized criminal group and racketeering to insider trading and market manipulation. It has no cybercrime category and no sanctions category, and each country decides under its domestic law how to define the offenses inside each one.
22 is the 2018 count. Points (a) to (u) of the directive as adopted follow those 21 categories one for one, and point (v), cybercrime, including any offense in Directive 2013/40/EU on attacks against information systems, is the 22nd. That text is where the 22 in exam notes and older summaries comes from.
23 is the count today. Article 18 of Directive (EU) 2024/1226, the directive on violations of EU sanctions, added point (w): "violation of Union restrictive measures". Its recital 37 gives the purpose, that such a violation "will be considered a predicate offence for money laundering". The amendment entered into force on 19 May 2024, and member states had until 20 May 2025 to bring their laws into line.
Is the 6AMLD list exhaustive?
No. Article 2(1) opens with a threshold: any offense that national law punishes by deprivation of liberty or a detention order for a maximum of more than one year is criminal activity. Member states whose systems work with minimum sentences use a second test, a minimum of more than six months. The 23 categories then count in any case, even where a national sentence falls below those lines. The directive sets minimum rules (Article 1(1)), so a state may cover more. As adopted, it did not bind the United Kingdom, Ireland or Denmark, and Framework Decision 2001/500/JHA still applies to Denmark (recitals 23 and 24).
Some national laws go further. In Germany, Section 261 of the Criminal Code applies to an object that derives from a rechtswidrige Tat, an unlawful act of any kind, so a firm under the AML rules in Germany has no catalog to check against.
The United Kingdom gets to the same place by definition. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 defines criminal conduct in section 340(2) as conduct that is an offense in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, or would be one had it happened there. Every offense counts. The United States works the other way. Its federal laundering offense in 18 U.S.C. 1956 needs proceeds of "specified unlawful activity", a defined list that starts with the racketeering offenses of section 1961(1).
For any one country, whether Luxembourg inside the EU or the Philippines outside it, the answer sits in that country's own statute. What a prosecutor must then prove about the laundering itself is a separate question.
Does the predicate offense have to be proven first?
Picture a payment firm in an EU member state (illustrative). A customer receives 40,000 euros from a company abroad, and press reports later say the sender's owner is under investigation for tax fraud at home. No court anywhere has convicted anyone, and the analyst wants to know whether the money can be the subject of a laundering case at all.
Article 3(3) of the directive answers yes:
- (a) A conviction for the predicate, earlier or at the same time, is not a prerequisite for a laundering conviction.
- (b) A court can convict once it is established that the property came from criminal activity, without every fact of that activity being established, including who committed it.
- (c) Conduct abroad counts when it would be criminal activity had it happened at home.
For case (c), Article 3(4) lets a member state add a condition, known as dual criminality: the conduct must also be an offense where it took place. The option cannot be used for six categories, points (a) to (e) and (h): organized crime and racketeering, terrorism, trafficking in human beings and migrant smuggling, sexual exploitation, drugs and corruption. A tax crime is not among them. So the answer for this customer turns on how the firm's own state wrote the directive into law and on what counts as a tax crime there. The directive leaves that definition to each state; its recital 8 says it does not aim to harmonize the definitions of tax crimes. Had the money come from a bribe abroad, the state could not add the condition.
Article 3(5) closes the last gap. A person who committed the predicate and then converts, transfers or conceals the proceeds is punishable for self laundering as well. For the payment firm, the analyst escalates on what is known about the source of the 40,000 euros, with or without a verdict abroad.
What does the list mean for your screening and reporting?
The directive binds member states, not firms, yet its categories shape what a firm looks for and how it describes what it found. Five points for a screening and reporting team:
- Tag findings with a category letter. When an analyst records an adverse media hit or an internal referral, note the point it falls under, (i) for fraud or (h) for corruption, beside the source. Why: a policy can then say which categories trigger enhanced checks, and a reviewer can count where the risk sits.
- Treat point (w) as a laundering risk too. Screen customers, owners and payment counterparties against EU lists at onboarding and on every list change. Why: since 2024 a missed match can leave the firm holding the proceeds of a predicate offense.
- Escalate on where the money came from. Article 3(3)(b) lets a court convict without every fact of the predicate established. Why: if a court can work without every detail of the crime, an escalation can go ahead before those details are known.
- Know what makes the penalty heavier. Article 6(1)(b) makes it an aggravating circumstance when the launderer is an obliged entity acting in its professional activities, and Article 6(2)(b) lets states treat proceeds of points (a) to (e) and (h) the same way. Why: the directive treats laundering by an obliged entity in the course of its own business as the more serious offense, and staff training should say so.
- Read the national law that transposes the directive. Prosecutors charge the national offense, and transposition is uneven: on 29 April 2026 the Commission sent letters of formal notice to Germany, France and Austria for incorrect transposition, including on definitions (INF/26/720). Why: a policy that quotes only the directive's list can be wrong for the state where the firm operates.
The definition is also moving into a regulation that firms apply directly. Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, the AMLR, governs most obliged entities from 10 July 2027 and defines criminal activity as Article 2(1) of the directive plus fraud, corruption and misappropriation affecting the Union's financial interests under Directive (EU) 2017/1371.
What moved on the predicate offense list in 2026?
- 29 April: the Commission opened infringement proceedings against Germany, France and Austria over their transposition of Directive (EU) 2018/1673, naming definitions and the liability of legal persons, and gave them two months to respond.
- 11 May: Directive (EU) 2026/1021 on combating corruption appeared in the Official Journal. For the member states it binds, it replaces Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA and the 1997 convention, so point (h) now reads as a reference to it. Most of it must be transposed by 1 June 2028.
- 21 May: the transposition deadline of Directive (EU) 2024/1203 on environmental crime passed. For the member states it binds, it has replaced Directives 2008/99/EC and 2009/123/EC since its entry into force in May 2024, and point (l) refers to it.
Knowing the predicate answers where the money came from. A case needs more. A prosecutor still has to show what the person did with the property and what that person knew about its origin, and each legal system frames those elements its own way.
