Germany leads Europe’s crypto licences. Remove the banks and it doesn’t.
Europe now has 373 licensed crypto firms. Where they got their licence, how far it travels, and why the map is about to be redrawn.
First published on ja-content.xyz, 17 October 2026.
- 373
- Active MiCA licences in the EEA, 16 October 2026
- 28%
- Germany’s share, almost all banks and brokers
- 40%
- Firms that can serve 29 or 30 EEA states
- 6%
- Firms licensed to run a trading platform
Key findings
- ESMA’s interim MiCA register listed 373 licensed crypto-asset service providers on 16 October 2026 and 389 on 30 October, across 27 of the 30 EEA states.
- Germany leads with 106 entries (119 by 30 October), but most are banks and investment firms adding crypto services; excluding them, it has 24.
- 149 firms serve only their home market while 150 passport across most of the EEA, so several countries are supervised largely from abroad.
- Under the Council’s October 2026 position, ESMA would directly supervise only significant cross-border CASPs.
Europe’s crypto market now runs on 373 licences. Twenty-two months after MiCA licensing began, and three months after the last transitional window closed, ESMA’s interim register lists 373 active crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) in 27 of the 30 EEA states.
That is a fraction of the market that existed before. Shortly before the deadline, around 1,700 national registrations were still active, according to Notabene.
The headline number also hides more than it shows. This analysis goes through every row of the register as published on 16 October 2026, using the cleaned data from CASP Tracker, and asks four questions: where firms are really licensed, why they chose those countries, how far a licence travels, and what happens when ESMA takes over.
Every firm in the register is on the map below. Switch to “Can operate in country” to see the passports, filter by service, or search for a firm.
Where Europe’s crypto firms hold MiCA licences
373 firms licensed in 27 of the 30 EEA states. Register data to 15 October 2026. Hover a country, or select it to see every firm.
Licences by home state 373 firms
Where each firm got its MiCA licence. Select a country to see its firms.
Germany’s lead is a banking story
Germany holds 106 of the 373 licences: 28% of the register and almost three times France’s total. On paper it is Europe’s crypto capital.
The register’s own legal-basis column says otherwise. Of Germany’s 109 raw rows, 101 cite Article 60 of MiCA. Only 8 cite Article 63.
The difference matters. Article 63 is the full licence a crypto business has to win from scratch. Article 60 lets a bank or investment firm that is already licensed add crypto services by notifying its regulator. Germany’s numbers are savings banks, cooperative banks and brokers switching on crypto trading for existing customers, not a wave of new crypto companies.
Remove traditional finance and the ranking flips. Press the button on the chart to see it.
- Germany 24 native of 106/106
- France 32 native of 36/36
- Netherlands 24 native of 28/28
- Cyprus 19 native of 24/24
- Malta 21 native of 23/23
- Spain 10 native of 16/16
- Luxembourg 9 native of 13/13
- Austria 12 native of 12/12
- Latvia 11 native of 12/12
- Czechia 11 native of 12/12
- Liechtenstein 8 native of 12/12
- Ireland 7 native of 12/12
DE 
FR 
NL 
CY 
MT 
ES 
LU 
AT 
CZ 
IE 
LV 
LI 
IT 
HR 
DK 
LT 
NO 
SK 
BG 
FI 
SI 
GR 
EE 
BE 
IS 
PT 
SE 
HU 
PL 
RO France leads crypto-native licensing with 32 firms, followed by the Netherlands and Germany on 24 each, Malta on 21 and Cyprus on 19. Across the whole register, 246 licences belong to crypto-native firms and 127 to traditional finance.
That split has to be inferred, because the register doesn’t record it consistently. 179 of its 378 raw rows leave the legal basis blank, including every row filed by France, Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg and Ireland. For a dataset meant to give the market legal certainty, that is a real gap.
The licence-shopping map
If Germany is where banks notify, a handful of smaller countries is where the global exchanges went.
Not on the map: Binance, which withdrew its Greek application in June 2026 and holds no MiCA licence.
Three things shaped these choices.
- Speed. The Netherlands licensed MoonPay on 30 December 2024, the day the regime began. Malta licensed OKX, Crypto.com and Bitpanda on 27 January 2025.
- Language and law. English-speaking, common-law systems such as Malta, Ireland and Cyprus were familiar ground for global firms.
- Supervisory capacity. Luxembourg and Ireland already ran large fund and payments sectors and could handle complex group structures.
Speed had a cost. In July 2025 ESMA published a fast-track peer review of how Malta’s MFSA licensed one CASP. It credited the MFSA’s resources and expertise, but found that some material issues were not fully resolved when the licence was granted. ESMA sent its recommendations to every national regulator, not only Malta’s: a race to license first would be watched.
The biggest absence is Binance. It withdrew its MiCA application with Greece’s regulator on 24 June 2026 and began suspending services in markets including France. The world’s largest exchange by volume entered the post-transition era without a European licence.
One licence, thirty markets
MiCA’s central promise is the passport: get licensed in one member state, notify the others, and reach a market of about 450 million people. Firms are using it in two opposite ways.
The native and traditional split of the two middle groups is approximate.
The two camps are different businesses. Traditional finance makes up 84 of the 149 home-only firms, mostly regional banks offering crypto to their own customers. Crypto-native firms hold 121 of the 150 pan-European passports. For an exchange, a licence that doesn’t travel is worth little.
The result is that consumer protection in much of Europe is now imported. Poland, Hungary and Romania have no home-licensed CASP, yet 175 to 182 firms are cleared to serve each of them. Portugal has one home licence and 190 firms passporting in. Malta is home to 23 licensed firms, but 180 can operate there.
For those markets, the regulator that matters most sits in Valletta, Vienna, Luxembourg or Dublin. That imbalance is a big part of why Brussels wants supervision at EU level.
The deadline effect
MiCA was meant to give Europe one rulebook, but each member state set its own transition period. Under Article 143(3), countries could let existing firms keep operating on national registrations for up to 18 months: six in the Netherlands, Poland and Finland; twelve in Germany, Ireland and Austria; eighteen in France, Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg.
44 entries are dated December 2025, as the 12-month windows closed. 75 are dated June 2026, the last month before the 18-month windows shut. Together that is 119 of the 371 dated entries, almost a third of the register.
The pattern holds country by country. France authorised 12 firms in June 2026 alone, a third of its total. Cyprus authorised 9, and Malta 7, including FalconX, Strike and Bequant.
The wave didn’t stop on 1 July. Germany added 48 entries between July and October 2026, almost all bank notifications. Notifications aren’t bound by the transition clock, so that tail will likely keep growing.
What Europe’s licences actually allow
MiCA defines ten crypto services, and the register records which ones each firm may offer. The picture is an industry built around access, not venues.
- Custody and administration 62% (230)
- Transfer services 58% (216)
- Execution of orders 56% (209)
- Exchange for funds 50% (187)
- Exchange for other crypto 41% (153)
- Reception and transmission of orders 27% (101)
- Portfolio management 16% (58)
- Advice 12% (45)
- Placing 9% (35)
- Operating a trading platform 6% (22)
Running a trading platform carries MiCA’s heaviest obligations, from operating rules to market-abuse surveillance. Most brokers route orders to a few venues instead. The licensed venues include Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitvavo, OKX and Gate, alongside regulated infrastructure such as Börse Stuttgart’s operator and 360T. Price formation for European retail crypto sits in very few hands.
Licence breadth tracks firm type. Crypto-native firms hold four services on average; banks and brokers hold two. Banks add a thin layer of custody and execution to an existing relationship. Crypto firms apply for the full stack because the stack is the product.
Stablecoins are narrower still. The register lists 25 e-money token issuers, including Circle, Paxos and Société Générale Forge, and no asset-referenced token issuer at all. USDT, the largest stablecoin in the world, has been progressively delisted for EU users because its issuer didn’t seek authorisation.
The map is about to be redrawn from Paris
Everything above rests on national choices: national windows, national review standards, national speed. That is now in question.
On 4 December 2025 the European Commission proposed a market integration package that would make ESMA, based in Paris, the direct supervisor of every CASP. Member states have since narrowed that. In the Council’s position of 9 October 2026, ESMA would directly supervise only significant CASPs, those large enough or active enough across borders to matter at EU level, while national regulators keep the rest. Parliament has yet to adopt its position, so the final line is still open, but the largest passporting firms are the ones most likely to end up in Paris.
The register itself makes the case. ESMA’s list of non-compliant entities names 178 firms offering crypto services without a licence, and 169 of them, 95%, were reported by Italian authorities. Either unlicensed activity is overwhelmingly an Italian problem, or most regulators aren’t reporting it. The second is more plausible.
Data quality is the other gap. ESMA planned to move its interim files into proper IT systems by mid-2026. In October the register still ships as weekly spreadsheets, nearly half its rows omit the legal basis, and some entries carry authorisation dates weeks in the future.
For the hubs, central supervision changes the competition. Malta, Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria won their exchanges partly on speed at the licensing stage. Under ESMA that edge narrows, and firms licensed quickly may face a second, harder look. What remains is what a regulator can’t export: talent, banking relationships, legal services, language and a good place to operate.
What this means
The first map of MiCA is not the one its headline numbers suggest. Germany’s lead is a banking phenomenon. The real contest for crypto firms played out among a few smaller states, and Malta, Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria won the biggest brands. The passport split the market into firms that stay home and firms that cover all of Europe, leaving several countries supervised almost entirely from abroad. A third of all licences were issued against the clock.
None of this is a failure of MiCA. It is what one rulebook looks like when thirty regulators administer it at thirty speeds. The next phase will test whether one supervisor can turn that rulebook into one market.
Questions readers ask
How many crypto firms are licensed under MiCA?
389 crypto-asset service providers on ESMA’s interim register of 30 October 2026, up from 373 on 16 October.
Which country has the most MiCA licences?
Germany, with 119 register entries on 30 October 2026, followed by France (36), the Netherlands (29), Cyprus (25) and Malta (23). Most German entries are banks and investment firms.
Which EU countries have no MiCA-licensed crypto firms?
Hungary, Poland and Romania had no licensed CASPs on the 30 October 2026 register.
Will ESMA supervise crypto firms directly?
The Commission proposed in December 2025 that ESMA supervise all CASPs. The Council’s position of 9 October 2026 limits direct ESMA supervision to significant CASPs; Parliament has not yet adopted its position.
How we did this
We analysed every active row of ESMA’s interim MiCA CASP register (16 October 2026 file), using CASP Tracker’s cleaned version, excluding revoked authorisations. Firm type is our classification by entity name. Passport counts use the notified host states in the register.
Sources
- Council of the EU: savings and investments union, Council position (9 October 2026)
- ESMA interim MiCA register
- CASP Tracker (cleaned register data)
- ESMA list of grandfathering periods, Article 143(3)
- ESMA peer review of a Maltese CASP authorisation
- Notabene: what the end of MiCA grandfathering means
- Decrypt: Binance withdraws its Greek MiCA application
- Regulation Tomorrow: Commission’s market integration package
- FinTech Global: USDT delisting for EU users
The tables behind our charts are in the Data Room. To cite this article: Jake Aquilina, “Germany leads Europe’s crypto licences. Remove the banks and it doesn’t.”, Signal and Noise, 17 October 2026, https://signalandnoise.xyz/stories/mica-licence-map/.