Latin America and the Caribbean
Source tier A. Conventions checked 2026-07-29.
Drug and firearms law in El Salvador: statutes on record and in force
El Salvador, in Latin America and the Caribbean, is party to all four of the instruments tracked here, the last of them since 2004. It appears on neither FATF list. Its confirmed instrument on record is the Ley Reguladora De Las Actividades Relativas A Las Drogas Del 5 De Marzo De 1991 of 1991. The record is set out in the order the obligations arrive: treaty first, statute second, enforcement last.
International framework
El Salvador is bound by all four instruments this dataset tracks, the earliest from 1993 and the most recent from 2004.
| Instrument | Adopted | Ratified or acceded | Depositary reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 Convention | 1988 | 21 May 1993 | Chapter VI-19 |
| UNTOC | 2000 | 18 Mar 2004 | Chapter XVIII-12 |
| UNCAC | 2003 | 1 Jul 2004 | Chapter XVIII-14 |
| Firearms Protocol | 2001 | 18 Mar 2004 | Chapter XVIII-12-c |
What each instrument obliges a party to do is set out once, per instrument, in the conventions reference. The dates above are what is specific to El Salvador: they are the points from which each obligation began to bind, taken from the depositary's own status tables.
National legislation
Below are the confirmed instruments, given in their enacted titles. Where a register supplies a citation number it is carried through unchanged.
Ley Reguladora De Las Actividades Relativas A Las Drogas Del 5 De Marzo De 1991 — A principal drug control instrument, carrying the 1988 Convention's trafficking and confiscation obligations into domestic law. Confirmed against asamblea.gob.sv, checked 2026-07-30.
Enforcement authorities
3 bodies are named in the record for El Salvador, each confirmed on El Salvador's own government domain. Naming the body matters because the treaty obligations above bind the state, while the powers to act on them sit with particular institutions under national law.
| Body | Function | Confirmed on |
|---|---|---|
| Policía Nacional Civil | criminal investigation | pnc.gob.sv |
| Dirección General de Migracióny Extranjería | named in the legislation | migracion.gob.sv |
| Aduanas de El Salvador | customs and border control | sitio.aduana.gob.sv |
Ratification sequence
How a state assembled its treaty position is itself a fact about the position. El Salvador came to these instruments over 11 years, beginning with the 1988 Convention in 1993 and ending with the Firearms Protocol in 2004. Measured against each instrument's own adoption, the shortest gap was the UNCAC at 1 year, the longest the 1988 Convention at 5.
El Salvador became a party to the 1988 Convention in 1993, 5 years after it was adopted — exactly the median lag across the jurisdictions in this dataset.
A complete treaty position assembled over decades is not the same as one assembled at once. For the 11 years between 1993 and 2004, El Salvador was bound by the 1988 Convention but not yet by the UNTOC, the UNCAC or the Firearms Protocol. The practical effect is on what could be charged, and on what could be confiscated, in the years before the later instruments arrived.
On coverage, El Salvador is one of 81 jurisdiction s here party to 4 of the four, against 81 party to all four. Within Latin America and the Caribbean the dataset holds 33 jurisdictions, of which 3 are currently under FATF increased monitoring.
Position on the trafficking corridors
El Salvador sits on the central american isthmus, one of the six corridors profiled here. The record above is what a consignment moving along it encounters here.
The Central American isthmus — 9 jurisdictions, carrying cocaine. The legs either side of El Salvador in the reporting are Honduras and Guatemala. Across the corridor as a whole, 7 of the 9 legs are party to all four instruments, 2 sit outside the Firearms Protocol, every leg carries a confirmed national instrument , and none is under increased monitoring. El Salvador clears all three of those checks. The profile for this corridor compares all of its legs on the same three checks.
Financial-crime monitoring
As of the FATF plenary statements of 2026-06-19, El Salvador is recorded as Not listed . Nothing here is a finding about El Salvador's financial controls; it records only that neither statement names it. The current statement and what it changed are tracked on the FATF grey list tracker.
Questions about drug and firearms law in El Salvador
Which drug-control conventions has El Salvador ratified?
All four: the 1988 Convention on 21 May 1993, the UNTOC on 18 Mar 2004, the UNCAC on 1 Jul 2004, the Firearms Protocol on 18 Mar 2004.
Is El Salvador on the FATF grey list?
No. El Salvador appears on neither the increased-monitoring list nor the call-for-action list in the FATF statements of 19 June 2026.
What national drug legislation is on record for El Salvador?
Ley Reguladora De Las Actividades Relativas A Las Drogas Del 5 De Marzo De 1991, confirmed against asamblea.gob.sv.
Which register confirms the legislation on this page?
Each instrument names its own. For El Salvador that is asamblea.gob.sv. The entry links straight to the document, so the wording can be checked rather than taken on trust.
What is source tier A, and why is this record in it?
Tier A means a national instrument has been confirmed against an official register — for El Salvador, 1 of them. The treaty dates and the listing status are separately sourced, so all three layers of this record carry a citation.
Why does the ratification date matter?
The date is the point from which the obligations bind. El Salvador's earliest of these commitments dates from 1993, its most recent from 2004; the gap between them is a rough measure of how long the framework took to assemble.
Sources
- Ratification dates: United Nations Treaty Collection, depositary status tables (chapters VI-19, XVIII-12, XVIII-14, XVIII-12-c). Checked 2026-07-29.
- Listing status: FATF, Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring and High-Risk Jurisdictions subject to a Call for Action, 2026-06-19.
- Ley Reguladora De Las Actividades Relativas A Las Drogas Del 5 De Marzo De 1991: asamblea.gob.sv, checked 2026-07-30.