Crypto license in the EU (MiCA)

One authorisation, twenty-seven markets

The rules here are a regulation, so they are the same text in every member state. What differs is who applies them: authorisation is granted by the national competent authority of the state you pick, and that authority stays your supervisor. That is why the choice of home member state decides your timetable, examiner and working language.

What the regulation asks of the company

An authorised provider must have its registered office in a member state where it carries out at least part of its services. Its place of effective management has to be in the Union, and at least one director must be resident there. Claiming authorisation you do not hold is prohibited in its own right.

Ten services, three capital classes

The regulation names ten crypto-asset services, from custody and running a trading platform to both kinds of exchange, order execution, placing, order handling, advice, portfolio management and transfers. Permanent minimum capital follows the heaviest one in your authorisation.

What you actually hold is the higher of that figure and a quarter of last year's fixed overheads, reviewed annually. In the first year the projections filed with the application are used.

How the clock runs

Receipt is acknowledged within five working days. Within 25 working days the authority checks completeness and may refuse to review a file still incomplete past the deadline it sets. From a complete application it has 40 working days to grant or refuse. Further information can be requested up to the twentieth working day, suspending the count by up to 20 working days.

The passport, and what it does

To sell in other member states you tell your home authority which states, which services and from what date. It passes that on within 10 working days, and you may begin on its confirmation or, at the latest, on the fifteenth calendar day after filing. Authorised providers appear in a public register, and that is where a client checks you.

The transitional door closed on 1 July 2026

Providers operating under national law before 30 December 2024 could continue until that date or until their application was decided, whichever came first, and member states were free to shorten it. In June 2026 the European supervisor told unauthorised providers to stop onboarding, halt marketing and limit service to an orderly exit. Firms outside the Union cannot serve or solicit clients in it, business to business included, and custody cannot go to an unauthorised entity.

When a single country is the better answer

If your clients sit outside the Union, a smaller regime may cost less for the same result. Those alternatives sit under the licensing and compliance direction, and the crypto and fintech licensing page puts regimes next to each other.

Sources: Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, Articles 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 67, 109, 143 and 149 and Annex IV, Official Journal L 150 of 9 June 2023; European Securities and Markets Authority public statement ESMA75-113276571-1710 of 23 June 2026 on the end of the transitional period.