Investing in Venezuela: Treasury says Maduro's regime is gone; the OFAC block is not

The law the United States uses to limit investments by U.S. persons in sensitive technologies names six "countries of concern." Five are states: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia. The sixth is "the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros," the only entry on the list that depends on who governs.

On October 26, the Treasury Department published in the Federal Register its proposed rule to implement that law, known as the COINS Act. In the preamble it set down its reading of the Venezuela clause: that regime no longer exists. According to Treasury, the government Washington has recognized since March 5, 2026, that of Delcy Rodríguez, is not the Maduro regime. In the questions-and-answers document it released with the proposal on October 22, Treasury draws the conclusion: Venezuela does not meet the definition of a country of concern.

Outside the definition, not outside the text

The proposal does not erase Venezuela.

The defense authorization act for fiscal year 2026 (Public Law 119-60) set the clause in those words, and the proposed rule copies it verbatim into its list. What changes is the reading: for Treasury, the phrase describes a regime that no longer exists.

Nor does it shut the door entirely. The same Treasury document warns U.S. investors to carefully ascertain whether the rule reaches their investments in Venezuelan entities, because it can apply outside a country of concern. The proposed text shows one route: a covered foreign person includes an entity owned 50 percent or more by a person of a country of concern — a Chinese or Russian company, for example — wherever it is incorporated.

And the rule watches only six sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, super intelligence systems, quantum technologies, high-performance computing and supercomputing, hypersonic systems and biotechnology. Oil, gas, mining and banking are not on the list. All of this, moreover, is a proposal: it does not apply until the final rule, and comments are due by December 7.

The block that does not ask who governs

For doing business with the Venezuelan state, the barrier is a different one, and it does not depend on names. Executive Order 13884, of August 2019, blocks all property of the "Government of Venezuela" that is in the United States or held by a U.S. person. And it defines that Government starting with "the state and Government of Venezuela," with the central bank and PdVSA included. Maduro also appears in that text, but differently: his regime is an example of who acts on the Government's behalf, not the condition for the block.

That block still operates.

General License 52C, of September 14, 2026, authorizes established U.S. entities to engage in the dealings with PdVSA that Order 13884 prohibits, on two conditions: contract disputes must be resolved in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Singapore, and payments to blocked persons must go into the Foreign Government Deposit Funds specified in Order 14373 of January. The same license states that it does not unblock property. On October 16, OFAC repeated in its FAQ 1263 that those payments must continue to go into that account.

Removals from the sanctions list do not touch that definition either. Delcy Rodríguez left the SDN List on April 1 and Jorge Rodríguez, President of the National Assembly, on October 14. Those are removals of individuals; the 2019 block falls on the state.

Two readings within one Treasury

The result is two readings of Venezuela within a single department. Its Office of Investment Security looks at who governs, and by that test leaves the country outside its definition. OFAC looks at the state, and by that test the state remains blocked, with licenses that open specific dealings and set where a contract is litigated and where the money goes.

For anyone weighing an investment, the difference sets the order of due diligence. The outbound investment rule carries little weight in Venezuela: Treasury says the country does not meet its definition, its sectors are technological and it is still a proposal. The cost of entry lies in the other regime: the license, the forum outside the country and the custody account. Whoever contracts with the state pays it, and the March recognition did not remove it.

What could move this reading

Three documents. The final rule, with no date set, which will say whether Treasury keeps its reading of the clause. A presidential order lifting or modifying the 2019 block: no license replaces it, because licenses authorize dealings, they do not unblock the state. And any change in the March recognition, on which Treasury's reading of the clause as a phrase without a subject depends.

Until one of the three arrives, the word that decides an investment with the Venezuelan state is still "license."