CFTC Publishes its 2026 Regulatory Priorities Agenda

On July 7, 2026, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs published the list of regulatory changes the CFTC plans to propose and finalize within the 2026 calendar year.¹ This is the first regulatory priorities agenda from current CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, who was sworn into office December 22, 2025. Some items on the agenda reflect a continuation of rulemaking initiatives from then-Acting Chairman Caroline Pham’s Spring 2025 agenda, which was published in September 2025, while other agenda items are new.

As of the date of the publication of this Dechert Newsflash, proposed rulemakings on the CFTC’s list that have not already been addressed and are of likely interest to asset managers participating in the commodities and derivatives markets are as follows:

1. Commodity Pool Operator Exemption for Advisers to “Mutual Funds”. Since 2013, CFTC Regulation 4.5 has required the application of two alternative de minimis commodity interest trading tests and a marketing restriction to pools operated as registered investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940 to determine if the investment manager of the pool needs to register as a commodity pool operator (“CPO”). In 2020, the CFTC codified then-existing no-action relief to include business development companies (“BDCs”) for purposes of the CPO exclusion if they meet the tests. According to the agenda, the CFTC plans to rescind the CPO registration requirement for “mutual funds,” which presumably means any registered investment company and BDCs.²
2. Codification of Relief for Large Trader Report Filings. CFTC Letter No. 24-14 currently provides relief for answering certain questions that appear on the large trader report market participants file on a periodic basis on CFTC Form 40, and most importantly, provides relief from the obligation to keep a CFTC Form 40 filing continuously up-to-date. CFTC Form 40 provides the CFTC with data regarding ownership and control of positions and feeds into the CFTC’s Commitments of Traders Reports and Traders in Financial Futures Reports.³ A market participant can qualify as a “large trader” and be subject to an initial filing obligation with as few as 50 futures contracts during a single trading day. After an initial filing, the CFTC usually asks for a “refresh” of the filing every two to three years.
   When the CFTC overhauled CFTC Form 40 in 2014 and made it an electronic filing, some of the new questions caused confusion. The amended regulation also requires filers to keep the filing up-to-date on a continuous basis, which is operationally burdensome. In addition to the relief from answering specific questions, the relief under Letter No. 24-14 has allowed filers to wait for a “special call” from the CFTC before needing to do a refresh. The CFTC initially provided the market with no-action relief in 2014 and has since then rolled the relief forward every few years.⁴ The CFTC often codifies market-wide relief that has been in place over a number of years in a rulemaking.
3. Codification of Interpretation Regarding Regulatory Classifications of Certain FX Products. CFTC Letter No. 25-10 currently provides interpretive relief from the need to categorize as swaps (1) foreign exchange window forwards that may be settled on a series of specified dates (“Window FX Forwards”) and (2) package spot FX transactions, provided that the transactions are executed, confirmed, and settled as individual bona fide spot transactions (i.e., transactions that settle via an actual delivery of the relevant currencies within two business days of the transaction date or within the customary timeline for the relevant spot currency market) (“Package Spot FX”). Window FX Forwards are considered foreign exchange forwards, which are subject to some but not all swaps regulation. Package Spot FX transactions are not subject to any swaps regulation. Codification of this interpretive guidance would give market participants more assurance on the application of swaps regulation and the categorization of these contracts as commodity interests for CPO and commodity trading advisor classification, exemptions and registration.
4. Expansion of Permitted Repo Counterparties for Investment of Customer Funds. Currently, futures commission merchants and derivatives clearing organizations may invest customer funds by buying and selling certain permitted investments such as U.S. Treasuries through repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements (“repo agreements”), provided that those agreements meet certain conditions. One of those conditions is that the counterparties to the repo agreements are of the type listed in CFTC Regulation 1.25(d)(2). The CFTC would propose to include certain additional central counterparties as permitted counterparties for repo agreements. This appears to be an effort to align these permitted investments with current market structure.
5. Amendments to CFTC Form CPO-PQR. CFTC Form CPO-PQR is a risk report that registered CPOs file on a calendar quarter basis that provides the CFTC with information about the CPO and pools the CPO operates in its registered CPO capacity. The agenda indicates that the CFTC plans to propose “to revalidate and narrow certain entities from the ‘hedge fund’ definition and reporting.” The CFTC’s intent is not clear from the description of the rulemaking in the agenda as the term “hedge fund” only appears once in CFTC Form CPO-PQR in the Schedule of Investments; however, the CFTC may be considering aligning CFTC Form CPO-PQR with recent proposed amendments to Form PF.⁵

Other topics that the CFTC will be or is currently tackling with requests for comment, rule proposals and final rules include the U.S. person definition for certain cross-border swaps regulations, prediction markets, blockchain and digital assets and margin requirements for uncleared swaps.