New Legal Changes May Put a Stop to Debanking Sex Workers
Debanking is a devastating and all too common reality for sex workers. Financial institutions have harshly discriminated against sex workers and the adult industry for years. Now, new laws are being introduced that may help to eliminate the risk of debanking for some sex workers. I remember hearing a story from my former employer, a small business adult website, about a bank closing their business account and taking with it tens of thousands of dollars in the process. There was zero recourse. While working for the same company, PayPal closed my personal account, citing the shared IP address with the adult business as their reason. I was lucky enough to be able to contest the decision and have my account reinstated, but not without a lot of stress and fucking about.
While losing my PayPal didn’t cost me anything, and I was able to reverse the decision, financial discrimination can have catastrophic effects on sex workers—denying them the ability to participate in the economy.
Living in a world where digital financial participation is almost mandatory, what do you do if you can’t get a bank account? Or if a digital payment service closes your account? Sex workers live with this precarity daily, and these new changes may help to relieve some of this concern.
What is debanking?
Debanking is a form of financial discrimination. It is the shutting of accounts and denial of services to certain individuals and companies that the banks deem “a risk” in some way: financially, reputationally, or legally. It is usually done at the discretion of the financial institution and without recourse. Financial discrimination is so damaging because it prevents the “debanked” party from engaging in traditional banking, and excludes them from many aspects of society where financial services are necessary.
What if your landlord doesn’t take cash? How can you get a payout from your fansite without a bank account? Or build a credit score when you’ve been denied service by all the banks? Debanking is often applied as a blanket rule across an entire industry, without any regard for individual circumstances.
What’s changing?
In August of 2025, President Donald Trump (boo, hiss!) issued an executive order “to ensure that federal regulators do not promote policies and practices that allow financial institutions to deny or restrict services based on political beliefs, religious beliefs, or lawful business activities, ensuring fair access to banking for all Americans.” While this order was made with political affiliation discrimination (i.e.: MAGA and other right-wing groups) and the digital assets industry (i.e.: crypto) in mind, it will have the added and most likely unintended upshot of benefitting sex workers too.
After the order was signed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a review of banking discrimination by major banks in the US. The adult industry was directly named as an industry in which customers were subjected to discrimination by at least one major bank, alongside payday lending, tobacco, crypto, and firearms, with certain banks denying debanking activities they had conducted publicly, in plain sight. Under the executive order, “reputational risk” can no longer be used by federal regulators or banks as a basis for denying financial services to individuals or businesses for banking services—with institutions in violation facing fines or other disciplinary actions.
What does it mean for sex workers?
The new laws are no golden ticket to all the financial services of your dreams, but it’s something. It means that some kinds of sex workers are legally entitled to be given access to banking services, and they do have recourse if they are denied. The banks can no longer claim reputational risk or morality concerns to deny services to anyone in an industry they deem too much of an icky threat to their precious reputation.
Why do I say some kinds of sex workers? It’s because the order prohibits the banks from discriminating against those engaged in legal forms of business. So while the law is beneficial to porn performers and online workers who create content, it doesn’t help in-person sex workers in the USA who are still criminalised—the order applies only to “lawful” businesses.
Banks aren’t likely to suddenly welcome sex workers with open arms—reputational risk is still a deeply entrenched concern in financial institutions. You can’t just change the culture of discrimination within an institution overnight, even if you are Donald Trump. The order just means that the discrimination is no longer legal. It gives some sex workers a leg to stand on and legal backing if they should be denied banking services, merchant services, or have their accounts closed.
For more on sex work and discrimination, see The Challenge of Community Care for Criminalized Workers and Creating Safety for Sex Workers in Higher Education.
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