CFTC Charitable Organization Exemption Act of 2025
Sponsored By: Representative McClain Delaney, April [D-MD-6]
Introduced
Summary
Expands targeted exemptions allowing charitable organizations to act as commodity trading advisors or pool operators while keeping unregistered activity restricted. The bill would bar unregistered CTAs and CPOs from using the mails or interstate commerce for their business and create five narrow exceptions under the Commodity Exchange Act.
Show full summary
- Charitable organizations: Would exempt CTAs or CPOs that are charitable organizations or their affiliates when advisory or pool activities are conducted only for the charity itself or for specified related trusts, plans, companies, or accounts.
- Small CTAs: Would exempt commodity trading advisors that in the prior 12 months furnished advice to no more than 15 persons and that do not hold themselves out generally to the public as CTAs.
- SEC-registered advisers: Would exempt entities registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as investment advisers when they are not primarily acting as CTAs and do not advise pools primarily engaged in trading commodity interests.
- Incidental business and farm groups: Would exempt persons whose commodity advice is solely incidental to being a dealer, processor, broker, or seller in cash-market commodities listed before 1974 and certain nonprofit, voluntary farm organizations.
- Compliance and disclosure: Maintains obligations under the Securities Act and Exchange Act and ties charitable exemptions to Investment Company Act definitions and disclosure requirements.
Your PRIA Score
Personalized for You
How does this bill affect your finances?
Sign up for a PRIA Policy Scan to see your personalized alignment score for this bill and every other piece of legislation we track. We analyze your financial profile against policy provisions to show you exactly what matters to your wallet.
Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 1 costs, 1 mixed.
New exemptions for charities and small advisers
This bill would create narrow exemptions from the ban for several groups. Charitable organizations (as defined in the Investment Company Act) and their trustees, officers, employees, or volunteers would be exempt when advisory or pool activities are only for those charities or certain excluded trusts or syndicates. The bill would also exempt plans or accounts described in section 3(c)(14), advisers whose commodity advice is solely incidental to being a dealer/processor/broker/seller or a qualifying nonprofit farm group, SEC-registered investment advisers that do not primarily act as CTAs, and small CTAs that advised 15 or fewer people in the prior 12 months and do not hold themselves out generally as CTAs. Persons in the incidental-business and charitable exemptions would be subject to proceedings under section 14, and some charitable-exempt advisers or pools would need to give disclosures like those in section 7(e) of the Investment Company Act.
Ban for unregistered advisers and pools
This bill would make it illegal for a commodity trading advisor (CTA) or commodity pool operator (CPO) who is not registered under the Commodity Exchange Act to use the mail or interstate commerce for CTA or CPO business. Registered CTAs and CPOs would not be affected by that ban. The bill would also say nothing in it would relieve any person of duties under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Commodity pools would still have existing SEC reporting rules and the SEC could still pursue remedies and private rights.
Rules on what counts as commodity activity
This bill would define what counts as "commodity interests." The list would include futures contracts, options on those contracts, security futures, swaps, leverage contracts, foreign exchange, spot and forward contracts on physical commodities, and money held in accounts used to trade those instruments. The bill would also say a person or pool is "engaged primarily" if it acts as, holds itself out as, or proposes to act mainly in advising on or trading those commodity interests. Those definitions would be used to decide whether an adviser or pool must register or can use an exemption.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
McClain Delaney, April [D-MD-6]
MD • D
Cosponsors
Messmer
IN • R
Sponsored 12/11/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov