How Circular 158 releases a blocked Lebanese deposit

If you are waiting on money from a Lebanese bank account opened before the end of October 2019, it cannot simply be instructed abroad. Since 2021 the central bank has run a mechanism that repays those deposits gradually, in a fixed monthly amount, and it names the forms the money may be taken in. One of those forms is an outgoing international transfer, so that mechanism, and not an ordinary payment instruction, is what decides how the deposit reaches an account in Australia.

Key Takeaways

• Basic Decision No. 13335 of 8 June 2021, Basic Circular No. 158, requires each bank in Lebanon to ensure the gradual repayment of foreign currency deposits in accounts opened before 31 October 2019.
• The holder opens a special sub-account, into which an amount of up to USD 54,200 is transferred, and that ceiling applies across all banks combined.
• The monthly release is paid in named forms, one of which is an outgoing international transfer, and another of which is card spending restricted to points of sale.
• Undrawn months are carried forward and remain in the account as an established right.
• The decision is stated to run for a modifiable or renewable period ending on 30 June 2027, and it has been amended repeatedly since 2021.

What the circular is for

Banque du Liban's Basic Decision No. 13335, published on the central bank's own site among its basic circulars and linked in full below, is titled Exceptional Measures for the Gradual Repayment of Foreign Currency Deposits, and its first article is a duty placed on banks rather than a right given to depositors. Each bank operating in Lebanon must act as necessary to ensure the gradual repayment of foreign currency deposits in accounts opened prior to 31 October 2019, under the conditions and mechanism the decision then sets out.

That date is the hinge of the whole arrangement. Accounts opened after it are outside the decision entirely. The English text published by the central bank is a consolidated version: its footnotes record every amending intermediate decision, the most recent being No. 13824 of 4 June 2026, Intermediate Circular No. 768, effective 1 July 2026.

Article 2 defines what counts. It takes the holder's foreign currency credit balances at each bank separately, as closed on 30 June 2021. The amount must still be available when the holder takes up the mechanism, and must not exceed the balance held on 31 October 2019. Two things are excluded: fresh accounts, and Lebanese pounds converted into foreign currency after that date. The balances are then reduced by what has already left, which the article lists as cash withdrawals in banknotes, outgoing international transfers including those to students, domestic transfers executed through a foreign correspondent, and amounts used abroad with bank cards.

Article 2 also provides for death: heirs, and legatees, meaning people named in a will, benefit from the decision up to the limits set out in article 4.

The sub-account and its ceiling

Nothing is released from the ordinary account. Article 3 requires a holder who intends to benefit to ask their bank to open a special sub-account, and requires the bank to satisfy that request under penalty of the sanctions the decision sets out. An amount equivalent to or below USD 54,200 is transferred into it, and the total benefited from at all banks combined may not exceed that figure.

Three conditions attach to the sub-account. No commissions or fees of any kind are charged on it or on any related account. It bears no interest. And the holder must waive banking secrecy on the special sub-accounts exclusively, and not on all their accounts, solely in favour of Banque du Liban and the Banking Control Commission of Lebanon.

Article 3 also closes the door on bank-level conditions: banks may not impose any obligation, condition, commitment or procedure the decision does not specify. Article 7 establishes a special sub-account registry at the central bank's banking department, and article 4 gives it the job of verifying misuse, particularly where a holder has exceeded the ceiling, in which case it notifies the Governor and the holder's right is suspended.

The monthly amount, and which parts can leave the country

Article 4 is the part that decides whether any of this reaches Australia. The amounts below are those in the consolidated text as amended to 1 July 2026. Withdrawals from the special sub-account take place as a monthly amount of USD 1,000, raised to that level by Intermediate Decision No. 13770 with effect from 1 December 2025, and not subject to any direct or indirect commissions or fees. The same decision set the annual ceiling from all banks at USD 11,000 for the cycle ending 30 June 2026; article 4 states the standing annual figure as USD 12,000.

The monthly amount is then split by the form it is paid in.

The decision adds that the amount may be modified by Banque du Liban according to its monetary policy.

So the outgoing international transfer is not a workaround. It is one of the four named ways the larger share may be taken, sitting alongside cash, cards and a fresh-account deposit, and the mechanics of that leg are ordinary once it starts: it moves the way any international transfer does. The smaller share cannot be taken as cash or as an outgoing transfer; article 4 confines it to card use at points of sale.

For a recipient in Australia, that fixes the shape of what arrives. The deposit does not come across as one sum. It comes as a monthly instalment capped by the article 4 amount and by the annual ceiling, for as long as the holder keeps drawing it and the sub-account has a balance left, and each instalment carries its own transfer costs once it leaves.

Article 4 also protects an unused month. The holder may withdraw all or part of the amounts at any time, and where the monthly limit is not drawn the undrawn amounts carry forward and remain in the account as an established right. Several untouched months are not lost.

Where the money to pay it comes from

Article 5 says where the money for each payment is found, splitting it by the size of the monthly payment and by when the customer joined. Mandatory placements, in the table below, are the foreign-currency reserves banks are required to hold at the central bank.

Article 5 therefore ties each payment partly to reserves the central bank itself releases, rather than only to what an individual bank holds.

How long it lasts, and how Circular 166 sits beside it

Article 11 states that the decision entered into force on issuance and applies for a modifiable or renewable period ending on 30 June 2027, remaining in force until all funds that may be transferred to the special sub-account are released.

It has been extended and amended more than once, and the amounts have moved. L'Orient Today reported in June 2024 that the circular had allowed withdrawals of USD 300 to USD 400 in fresh dollars from accounts opened before the end of October 2019, and that the extension then granted was the third since it began. In November 2025 the same publication reported that two new texts, intermediary circulars 746 and 747, took effect on 1 December and raised the monthly total under circular 158 from USD 800 to USD 1,000, and the limit under a companion circular, No. 166, from USD 400 to USD 500. The USD 800 in the table above is the transferable share of the larger total, not the superseded total.

There is one more constraint worth knowing. Article 2 records that a holder benefiting from this decision may not also benefit from Basic Decision No. 13611 of 2 February 2024, Basic Circular No. 166, on the same account. The two mechanisms are alternatives, not layers.

Where to look next

• Receiving money from Lebanon - the live reference rate for the Lebanese pound against the Australian dollar, struck and dated on the page.
• Sending money to Lebanon from Australia - the opposite direction, and the licensed cash-payout economy that runs beside the banking system.
• How international transfers work - the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it.
• Understanding transfer fees - the separate question of what moving money costs once it is free to move.
• AUD to LBP - the convert page for the pair, with the story of how the pound is quoted.

Sources

• Basic Decision No. 13335 of 8 June 2021, Exceptional Measures for the Gradual Repayment of Foreign Currency Deposits, Banque du Liban Basic Circular No. 158, consolidated English text - every article cited above: article 1 the duty of gradual repayment; article 2 the balances, exclusions and reductions, heirs and legatees, and the bar on also benefiting from Circular No. 166; article 3 the special sub-account, the USD 54,200 ceiling, the absence of fees and interest, the limited secrecy waiver and the bar on bank-imposed conditions; article 4 the monthly amount, its split by form, the annual ceilings, the carry-forward and the registry's suspension power; article 5 the liquidity split; article 7 the registry; article 11 the period ending 30 June 2027. The footnotes record the USD 1,000 amount set by Intermediate Decision No. 13770 of 28 November 2025 and consolidation to Intermediate Decision No. 13824 of 4 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026.
• BDL raises withdrawal limits on blocked deposits, adds safeguard, L'Orient Today, 29 November 2025 - circulars 746 and 747 taking effect on 1 December, raising the circular 158 total from USD 800 to USD 1,000 and the circular 166 limit from USD 400 to USD 500, and the origins of both.
• BDL extends Circulars No. 158 and 166 for one year, L'Orient Today, 28 June 2024 - the earlier USD 300 and USD 400 monthly amounts, the accounts they applied to, and the extension being the third since the circular began.

General information about how Banque du Liban's Basic Circular No. 158 releases foreign-currency deposits held in Lebanon. Not financial advice, not legal advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.