5AMLD widened who is regulated; 6AMLD widened who can be prosecuted. A dated, jurisdiction-clear comparison, plus how the 2024 EU AML Package changes both.
5AMLD (Directive (EU) 2018/843) and 6AMLD (Directive (EU) 2018/1673) changed different things. 5AMLD widened AML scope and transparency, covering crypto, prepaid cards, and beneficial-ownership registers, with a 10 January 2020 deadline. 6AMLD is a criminal-law measure: it harmonised money-laundering offences, added corporate criminal liability and a four-year minimum sentence, applying from 3 June 2021.
| 5AMLD | 6AMLD | |
|---|---|---|
| Instrument | Directive (EU) 2018/843 | Directive (EU) 2018/1673 |
| Type of change | Scope and transparency of AML obligations | Criminal-law harmonisation |
| Adopted | 30 May 2018 | Published in the Official Journal 12 November 2018 |
| Transposition deadline | 10 January 2020 | 3 December 2020 |
| Application from | 10 January 2020 | 3 June 2021 |
| Primary focus | Crypto exchanges and wallets, prepaid cards, art and high-value dealers, public UBO registers, and enhanced due diligence for high-risk third countries | A common EU definition of money laundering, 22 predicate offences, aiding and abetting, and corporate liability |
| Penalties | Administrative, with tightened customer due diligence | Minimum four-year custodial maximum, and corporate criminal liability for legal persons |
| UK status | Implemented, via 2019 amendments to the Money Laundering Regulations | Opted out, as the UK judged existing law under POCA already compliant |
| Superseded by | AMLR (EU) 2024/1624 from 10 July 2027 | AMLR plus AMLD6-2024 (EU) 2024/1640 from 10 July 2027 |
5AMLD widened who is regulated and what they must check. It brought crypto exchanges and custodian wallet providers, prepaid instruments, and art and high-value dealers into scope. It tightened enhanced due diligence for high-risk third countries, and it required public beneficial-ownership registers, a direct response to the Panama Papers.
6AMLD widened who can be prosecuted, for what, and raised the penalties. It adds no new customer due diligence steps. It harmonises a single EU money-laundering definition, fixes 22 predicate offences (adding cybercrime and environmental crime for the first time), and criminalises aiding, abetting, inciting, and attempting. It introduces corporate criminal liability for legal persons, including a failure-to-prevent style exposure, and sets a four-year minimum custodial maximum, up from one year.
6AMLD is 5AMLD but with stricter due diligence.
6AMLD does not touch your onboarding checklist. It is a criminal-law instrument. It changes who can be prosecuted and how hard, not what you collect at onboarding.
The UK opted out of 6AMLD.
6AMLD sets a minimum custodial maximum of four years for money laundering, up from one year under the earlier regime. It introduces corporate criminal liability for legal persons, so a company can be prosecuted where a lack of supervision or control allowed laundering to happen.
Sanctions can extend beyond fines to exclusion from public funding, temporary or permanent bans from commercial activity, and judicial winding-up. The direction of travel is clear: the individual and the organisation are both in scope, and a supervisory failure is itself a source of exposure.
From 10 July 2027 the directly applicable AML Regulation, AMLR (EU) 2024/1624, becomes the single rulebook, and AMLD6-2024 (EU) 2024/1640 replaces the transposed pieces of the older directives. The EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority, AMLA, has been operational since 1 July 2025 and takes on direct supervision of selected entities from 2028.
Any 5AMLD-versus-6AMLD explainer that ignores this is already out of date. The obligations described here remain the baseline until 2027, but readiness work should assume the single rulebook is coming.
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No. The UK opted out of 6AMLD. Having left the EU, the UK judged that existing law, chiefly the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, already met or exceeded the directive, so it did not transpose it. UK firms operating in the EU must still meet 6AMLD-derived standards there.
Member states had to transpose 6AMLD by 3 December 2020, and it applied to obliged entities from 3 June 2021.
6AMLD fixed a harmonised list of 22 categories of criminal activity that count as money-laundering predicates, including corruption, fraud, tax crimes, market manipulation, and, for the first time at EU level, environmental crime and cybercrime.
For now, yes. The obligations remain the baseline until the AML Regulation single rulebook applies from 10 July 2027, when the directive regime is replaced by directly applicable rules alongside AMLD6-2024.
5AMLD widened who is regulated and what they must check, covering crypto, prepaid cards, and beneficial-ownership registers. 6AMLD is a criminal-law measure that widened who can be prosecuted and raised the penalties. It does not change your onboarding checklist.
