Candidates standing for election in Monaco are forbidden from handling their own campaign funds, must have every expense logged daily by a Monegasque financial agent, and risk up to six years out of public life if their accounts are found to have been falsified — rules now published in full online for the first time.

The Campaign Accounts Verification Commission has brought its entire framework onto a single website, comptescampagne.gouv.mc, launched jointly with the Interministerial Delegation for Digital Transition. It gathers the obligations, deadlines and templates that candidates and their agents have until now had to piece together from legislation and past rulings.

Every euro through one account

The centrepiece of the system is the mandataire financier, the financial agent each list must appoint before a deadline that falls weeks ahead of polling day. The agent must hold Monegasque nationality, and no campaign money moves without passing through the single bank account they control.

What that agent keeps is closer to a bookkeeper’s ledger than a political record: a running daily log of every expense as it is paid or committed, identified by invoice number, method of payment and recipient. Equipment lent to a campaign has to be valued and declared, calculated using standard depreciation rules, so that resources a candidate already owns cannot quietly go unrecorded.

Campaign spending is capped by ministerial order, and lists that clear a minimum share of the vote can reclaim part of what they spend. Overspend, or file a defective account, and that reimbursement can be reduced or withdrawn.

Certified, posted, and published

Once results appear in the Journal de Monaco, the agent has two months to file. Every candidate on the list must sign the account and certify it accurate, a qualified accountant must endorse it, and it goes to the Commission by registered post with all supporting paperwork attached.

The Commission itself is a seven-member body appointed by Sovereign Ordinance, its membership including the president of the Supreme Audit Commission. It reports on every account, records any breach of the ceiling, and publishes what it finds.

Falsified figures carry a prison sentence and a fine, and the Court of First Instance can add a ban from standing for office lasting between one and six years. The same penalties reach anyone who spends on a candidate’s behalf without their agreement.

It is a substantial apparatus for an electorate of fewer than 8,000 registered voters — and one the Principality will next put to work at the communal elections expected in 2027.

See also: 

Monaco’s mayoral race begins as preparations gather pace for 2027 municipal elections

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Photo of the National Council headquarters in Monaco, credit: Cassandra Tanti