The Digital Assets (Scotland) Act 2026 places certain digital assets on an express statutory footing in Scots private law. The measure was introduced on 30 September 2025 and passed by the Scottish Parliament on 5 March 2026 after the Scottish Government argued that Scots law lacked settled case law on the status of these assets. (parliament.scot) This is not a market-conduct code or a financial-services regime. The Act is a property-law measure: it defines the assets it covers, classifies them within Scots law, sets a presumption of ownership, and provides rules on acquisition and transfer. (parliament.scot)
Coverage is narrower than the phrase digital asset might suggest. Under section 1, a covered asset must arise from an electronic system that makes it rivalrous and must exist independently of the legal system; the Act says rivalrousness depends on an immutable transaction record that prevents the same holder from transferring or spending the asset in the same way twice. (parliament.scot) In practical terms, that points towards token-like assets rather than every electronic file or database entry. Electronic trade documents governed by the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 are excluded expressly, which keeps this Act focused on assets whose scarcity is created by the system itself rather than by documentary status alone. (parliament.scot)
Section 2 classifies covered digital assets as incorporeal moveables. In plain terms, Scotland is treating them as a kind of moveable property without physical form, and the general law applies on that basis so far as that fits the assets' nature. (parliament.scot) Section 3 then creates a rebuttable presumption: the person with control is presumed to own the asset unless the contrary is shown. That will help in litigation and enforcement, but it is not absolute; supporting explanatory material makes clear that control and ownership can come apart, including where keys or transaction capability sit with a custodian or software provider. (parliament.scot)
The most important operative rule sits in section 4. For acquisition of ownership, the law treats a digital asset as though it were a corporeal moveable and treats control as the equivalent of physical possession. (parliament.scot) The same section also gives significant protection to good-faith purchasers. A transferee can become owner even if the transferor was not the owner, and can take title free of an earlier defect, provided the asset was taken in good faith and for value. The Scottish Parliament's research briefing notes that this departs from the normal starting point and is intended to protect innocent acquirers in a market where transfers can occur quickly. (parliament.scot)
Control is defined functionally. A person has control if they can initiate a transfer transaction within the system or, where the system does not support transfers, a divestiture transaction that leaves no person able to make further transactions in relation to the asset. (parliament.scot) That matters for custody, exchange and multi-signature structures. The revised explanatory notes say the relevant question is who can initiate the transaction: a co-signer who cannot initiate is not treated as controlling the asset for the Bill's purposes, while a person who can initiate may count even if another signature is needed to complete the transaction. (parliament.scot)
The Act is also carefully limited in its interaction with other law. Section 4 applies rules on acquisition only at common-law level and not on the basis of enactments, while the added provision now numbered section 6 in the enacted Act states that sections 2 to 4 are subject to any other enactment whenever passed or made. (parliament.scot) The practical consequence is that this is not a blanket instruction to read all legislation on physical goods across to digital assets. Scottish Parliament research notes, for example, that statutory schemes such as the Sale of Goods Act 1979 do not automatically govern acquisition of ownership under this Act. (parliament.scot)
In practical terms, Scotland has chosen a more rule-based model than the rest of the UK. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland states that a thing is not excluded from personal property rights merely because it fits neither a thing in possession nor a thing in action; the Scottish Act goes further by defining the relevant assets and spelling out control and transfer consequences. (lawcom.gov.uk) The final point for practitioners is timing. Under the Act, only the ancillary, regulation-making, commencement and short-title provisions take effect on the day after Royal Assent; the substantive property rules require separate commencement regulations from Scottish Ministers. The Economy and Fair Work Committee has already warned that this is a fast-moving field likely to need further legislation, so commencement and any follow-on guidance will matter as much as the Act's text itself. (parliament.scot)