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The short version. Nine of the 27 most-used crypto exchanges hold no EU licence, three months after the last MiCA grace period ended on 1 July 2026. A tenth, Gemini, holds one but closed every EEA account in April. One of the nine, HTX, is under EU sanctions. Of the 17 that do serve EU customers, only 11 may serve all 30 EU and EEA countries. In the UK, 5 of the 27 are on the FCA register and 4 are on its warning list. In South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, none of the 27 is licensed in its own name.
We read the ESMA register on 29 October 2026, in its update of 20 October 2026, and the other registers on 26 October 2026. The data is free: download the CSV, 1,080 rows and 367 KB, or open the licence tracker, which we check against the EU register every week.
What we checked
We track 27 exchanges, the top of CoinGecko’s trust rank, across 30 EU and EEA countries, the UK and India. On 26 October 2026 we added eight Asian markets, which brought 11 local exchanges into the data. For each exchange and country we read the official register, not the exchange’s own website. Licensed means the firm is on that register on the day we checked. A local company such as Binance Japan counts for its own market only. The full table and the CSV are on our licence tracker, and we re-run the EU check every week.
Eighteen on the EU register, nine out
Eighteen of the 27 are on the ESMA register of MiCA licence holders. Crypto.com and OKX got theirs first, both in Malta on 27 January 2025. BingX got the newest one, in Austria on 13 October 2026. Seventeen of the 18 serve EEA customers. The exception is Gemini: Gemini Intergalactic EU Ltd got a Maltese licence on 21 August 2025, and the firm closed all its EEA accounts on 6 April 2026.
The nine without a licence are Binance, Bitfinex, Bitget, BitMart, CEX.IO, HTX, MEXC, Toobit and XT.COM. Binance stopped taking new EU sign-ups ahead of the July deadline. MEXC is on ESMA’s list of non-compliant firms, after a warning from the Dutch AFM on 16 September 2025. HTX is in the EU’s 21st sanctions package, adopted on 23 July 2026, which bars EU operators from dealing with it from 23 August 2026.
For scale, ESMA’s register listed 387 licensed crypto firms on 20 October 2026. The EU has licensed hundreds of small local firms, and a third of the big global names are still not among them.
A licence is not a passport to every country
A MiCA licence comes from one member state. The firm then names the other countries it wants to serve, and the licence is passported to them. Only 11 of the 17 licensed exchanges that serve the EEA cover all 30 EU and EEA countries. Bybit, KuCoin and WhiteBIT are not passported to Malta. Backpack dropped Hungary from its list on 13 October 2026. BingX’s new licence covers every state except Spain and Malta. Kanga, licensed in Latvia, covers 11 states, all in central and eastern Europe.
So a reader in Poland or Romania can choose from 17 of the 27, a reader in Germany or France from 16, a reader in Spain from 15, and a reader in Malta from 12. The ten states on Kanga’s host list get one more choice than the rest. Hungary, which Backpack dropped, gets 16.
Five on the UK register, four on the warning list
Five of the 27 are registered with the FCA under the UK’s money laundering rules. They are Bitstamp, CEX.IO, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Kraken. That is a registration, and it is less than a full licence. Gemini is on the register too, but it closed every UK account on 6 April 2026. Four of the 27 are on the FCA’s warning list. They are BitMart, HTX, MEXC and XT.COM. The FCA also took HTX to court in February 2026 over its UK promotions, and the UK put Huobi Global S.A. under sanctions in May 2026. Our UK page lists only the registered five.
India registers four and names nine
Four of the 27 are registered with India’s FIU-IND. They are Binance, Bybit, Coinbase and KuCoin. Nine were named in FIU-IND notices that asked for their websites or apps to be taken down, either on 28 December 2023 or on 9 September 2026. Those nine are Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Gate, HTX, Kraken, MEXC, Toobit, WhiteBIT and XT.COM. BingX and CEX.IO got notices for non-compliance in October 2025. Kraken, Bitstamp and WhiteBIT are licensed in the EU, yet they are on India’s takedown lists. The same name can be welcome in one country and barred in the next. See our India page.
Asia, where the global names mostly stay out
Across eight Asian markets, the 27 global exchanges hold between zero and five licences each. In South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, none of the 27 holds a licence in its own name. Where a global brand is present at all, it is through a local company with its own licence, such as Binance Japan, Gate Japan or Gulf Binance in Thailand.
The regulators there have been busy. Malaysia’s Securities Commission ordered Binance in 2021 and Bybit in 2024 to shut their local access. Thailand’s SEC had Bybit and OKX blocked from 28 June 2025. The Philippine SEC named OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Bitget and MEXC as unregistered in August 2025 and had Bybit’s website blocked on 18 March 2026. South Korea’s FIU announced on 13 October 2026 the blocking of 27 websites tied to KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex and BingX. The list of who is licensed in each market is in the table below.
| Market | Licensed exchanges we cover, registers read 26 Oct 2026 | Of the 27 global names |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | bitbank, bitFlyer, Coincheck, GMO Coin, OKJ, Zaif, Binance Japan, Gate Japan | 3 |
| Singapore | Bitstamp, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Gemini, Independent Reserve, OKX, Upbit Singapore | 5 |
| Thailand | Bitkub, Bitazza, Upbit Thailand, Gulf Binance | 1 |
| South Korea | Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit | 0 |
| Hong Kong | HashKey Exchange, Bullish | 1 |
| Indonesia | Indodax, Bittime | 0 |
| Malaysia | Luno | 0 |
| Philippines | Coins.ph | 0 |
What changed since our last check on 29 September
BingX got its Austrian licence on 13 October, as MEGE zweite GmbH. Backpack’s host list lost Hungary the same day. South Korea’s FIU moved against sites tied to KuCoin, MEXC and BingX on 13 October. Gemini got its Singapore licence on 9 September. We added eight Asian markets, which is 216 new rows, and we wrote the EU and UK sanctions on HTX into the notes. Every one of these now has a dated line on the tracker, and the weekly register check will add the next ones.
What this means if you trade
Check the register before you trust an app store listing. A licence in one EU country does not cover every EU country. And a licence on the other side of the world does not help you at home. Our country pages list only the exchanges that are licensed where you live, and each one links to the register so you can check for yourself. Nothing on this page is financial, legal or investment advice.
The data
The data is a CSV with one row per exchange and country: 27 exchanges, 40 countries, 1,080 rows. Each row has the status, the legal entity, the regulator, the licence number where one exists, the date, the source link and the date we checked. Download version 2 of 29 October 2026. It is free to use under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Please credit ExchangeCatalogue and link to this page or the tracker. The three charts on this page are free to reuse on the same terms.
Cite it as: ExchangeCatalogue (2026). Crypto exchange licence status by country, version 2, 29 October 2026. exchangecatalogue.com/crypto-exchange-licences/. CC BY 4.0.
Sources
ESMA interim MiCA register, the CASPS file, and its list of non-compliant entities, the NCASP file, update of 20 October 2026, read 29 October 2026. FCA register of cryptoasset firms and FCA warning list. FIU-IND notices and Press Information Bureau releases of 28 December 2023, October 2025 and 9 September 2026. FSA Japan list of registered crypto-asset exchange service providers as of 30 September 2026. KoFIU registrations and announcements of 26 March 2025 and 13 October 2026. SEC Thailand list of licensed digital asset businesses. BSP list of virtual asset service providers of 15 July 2026 and SEC Philippines advisories. SFC Hong Kong lists of virtual asset trading platforms as of 16 October 2026. MAS Financial Institutions Directory and Investor Alert List. SC Malaysia media releases of 30 July 2021 and 27 December 2024. OJK list of licensed crypto asset trading platforms of 19 December 2025. Council of the EU, 21st sanctions package of 23 July 2026. Every row of the CSV carries its own source link.
Any exchange named here can ask us for a correction at info@exchangecatalogue.com. We answer within 24 hours and note the change on the tracker. Journalists can use the same address for the register extracts behind any row.
ExchangeCatalogue is run by Catalinq LLC.
Crypto is high risk. Prices can fall fast, and you can lose all the money you put in. This is not financial advice.