EU MiCA: a complete guide to Regulation (EU) 2023/1114

The EU MiCA Regulation (Markets in Crypto-Assets) is a comprehensive law that regulates crypto-assets across the entire chain – issuance of stablecoins (crypto tokens designed to hold a steady value, typically pegged 1:1 to an official currency like the euro), operation of crypto exchanges and custodians, advisory services, transfers, market abuse – under one harmonised EU framework. Before MiCA, every Member State had its own patchwork of national rules; one country issued VASP registrations (VASP – virtual asset service provider, the label crypto firms were given before MiCA), another required a payment institution licence, and most of the market lived in legal grey zones. MiCA replaces that patchwork.

If you run a crypto exchange, custody service, broker, advisor or stablecoin issuer that touches the EU/EEA market – this regulation applies to you. The rules for stablecoin issuers (asset-referenced tokens, backed by a basket of assets or currencies, and e-money tokens, pegged to a single official currency) have applied since 30 June 2024; the rules for all other crypto-asset service providers since 30 December 2024. Operators that were active on the local market before 30 December 2024 could continue under national law during a transitional period that expired on 1 July 2026 – earlier in many Member States. Since that date there is no grandfathering left anywhere in the EEA: serving EU clients without a MiCA authorisation is a breach, and ESMA has told the firms that missed the deadline to wind down their EU business in an orderly way.

This page is the canonical klarproof guide – every key claim is sourced directly to EUR-Lex, ESMA, EBA, or named national supervisors.

Quick facts

Full name: Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on markets in crypto-assets
Published in OJ: 9 June 2023 (OJ L 150/40)
Entered into force: 29 June 2023 (twentieth day after publication, per Article 149)
Title III + IV applies (stablecoins – ART and EMT): 30 June 2024
Title V applies (CASPs and the rest): 30 December 2024
Transitional period for pre-existing CASPs: expired 1 July 2026; many Member States chose shorter periods (Netherlands 6 months, Germany / Ireland 12 months, France / Estonia / Italy 18 months)
Penalties: graduated tiers under Article 111 – for legal persons, the highest tier (serious market-abuse breaches under Articles 89-92) reaches at least €15,000,000 or 15% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher; for general issuer/CASP breaches the cap is at least €5,000,000 or a turnover-based percentage (3% / 5% / 12.5% depending on which obligation was breached); for natural persons, at least €5,000,000 for the most serious market-abuse breaches
Coordinating EU body: European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and European Banking Authority (EBA)
National enforcement: by the national competent authority (NCA) in each Member State – typically the financial-markets supervisor (BaFin in Germany, AMF in France, CONSOB / Bank of Italy in Italy, Central Bank of Ireland, Estonian Finantsinspektsioon, etc.)

What MiCA actually does

MiCA breaks the crypto industry into three groups of activities and applies a different rulebook to each.

1. Issuers of crypto-assets

Anyone who creates a crypto-asset and offers it to the EU public, or seeks admission to a trading platform, must publish a white paper describing the project, the issuer, the rights attached to the token, the underlying technology, the risks. For ordinary crypto-assets (Bitcoin-like tokens, utility tokens) the white paper is essentially a disclosure document – there is no prior authorisation, but the issuer is liable if the white paper is misleading.

For stablecoins (asset-referenced tokens – ART, e-money tokens – EMT), the bar is far higher: the issuer must be authorised by an EU competent authority before it can issue, must hold a reserve of assets backing the token, must provide redemption rights, and is subject to ongoing supervision.

2. Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs)

Anyone who provides one of the ten regulated crypto-asset services to the EU public – exchange, custody, brokerage, advisory, etc. – must be authorised as a CASP by an NCA in one Member State and can then passport the licence across all 27 Member States plus the three EEA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway). One licence, single market.

3. Market integrity

MiCA imports a market-abuse regime modelled on MiFID II / MAR: prohibition of insider dealing in crypto-assets, prohibition of unlawful disclosure of inside information, prohibition of market manipulation. NCAs investigate and sanction, ESMA issues coordinating guidelines.

The three categories of crypto-assets under MiCA

MiCA classifies every crypto-asset that falls within its scope into one of three categories – and the rules vary sharply by category.

Asset-Referenced Tokens (ART) – Title III

A token that purports to maintain a stable value by referencing any other value or right or a combination of them, including one or more official currencies (Article 3(1)(6)). In practice: a stablecoin pegged to a basket of currencies, a basket of commodities, or to gold. A token referencing one official currency – the euro, the US dollar or any other – is an e-money token, not an ART: Article 3(1)(6) excludes e-money tokens from the ART definition, and Article 3(1)(8) defines an official currency as the currency of a country, not only an EU one.

Issuers must be authorised, hold a reserve of liquid, low-risk assets equal to the value of tokens in circulation, and grant holders a right of redemption at any time – at the market value of the referenced assets or by delivering those assets (Article 39(2)). If the ART becomes “significant” (large user base, high transaction volume, etc. – Article 43), supervision shifts from the national authority to the EBA directly, and additional requirements apply (higher capital, stricter governance, reserve composition rules).

E-Money Tokens (EMT) – Title IV

A token that purports to maintain a stable value by referencing the value of one official currency (Article 3(1)(7)). The textbook example: USDT or USDC pegged 1:1 to the US dollar; a euro-pegged token like EURC.

EMT issuers must be either an authorised credit institution or an authorised electronic-money institution under the EU’s e-money rules. They must back the token 1:1 with funds, segregate the reserve, and provide redemption at par at any time. For significant EMTs issued by e-money institutions (Article 56) supervision is shared: the EBA supervises compliance with Articles 55 and 58, the national authority the rest (Article 117(4)).

Other crypto-assets – Title II

Everything else that is not an ART, an EMT, or already regulated under another EU financial-services regime (MiFID II, e-money, deposits, securitisations). Bitcoin, Ether, most utility tokens, governance tokens – they sit here. Where there is an identifiable issuer or offeror, it publishes a white paper and is liable for its accuracy, but needs no authorisation; a crypto-asset with no identifiable issuer, such as Bitcoin, falls outside the issuer rules altogether (Recital 22), while the rules for CASPs still apply.

What MiCA does NOT cover

Non-fungible tokens (NFT) – if genuinely unique and non-fungible (Recital 10). MiCA explicitly warns (Recital 11) that fractionalised NFTs or NFTs issued in a large series or collection may not qualify as truly non-fungible and could fall back into scope.
Crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments under MiFID II – they remain in the MiFID regime.
Deposits, e-money (other than EMTs as defined here), securitisations, insurance – already regulated by other EU rules.
Decentralised crypto-assets that are issued without an identifiable issuer – partially out of scope; market-abuse rules still apply, but issuer obligations cannot bind a non-existent issuer.

The 10 crypto-asset services (Article 3(1)(16))

A CASP authorisation covers one or more of the following ten services. Each service has its own ongoing prudential and conduct requirements:

Custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients
Operation of a trading platform for crypto-assets (i.e. running an exchange)
Exchange of crypto-assets for funds (fiat on/off-ramp)
Exchange of crypto-assets for other crypto-assets (e.g. BTC ↔ ETH)
Execution of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of clients
Placing of crypto-assets (helping issuers place new tokens with investors)
Reception and transmission of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of clients
Providing advice on crypto-assets
Providing portfolio management on crypto-assets
Providing transfer services for crypto-assets on behalf of clients

A CASP authorised under MiCA can request authorisation for one service and then add others; investment firms already licensed under MiFID II can extend into analogous crypto-asset services via a simpler 40-working-day notification to their home NCA – without a full CASP authorisation procedure (Article 60).

Phased timeline (Article 149)

MiCA does not switch on all at once. The phased schedule:

Date	What starts to apply
29 June 2023	The Regulation enters into force – most provisions still dormant
30 June 2024	Title III (asset-referenced tokens) and Title IV (e-money tokens) apply – stablecoin issuers cannot offer to the EU public without authorisation
30 December 2024	Title V (CASP authorisation and supervision), Title II (other crypto-assets, white-paper rules), Title VI (market abuse), Title VII (competent authorities, EBA and ESMA) and the rest apply
Until 1 July 2026 (max)	Transitional grandfathering for crypto-asset service providers that were active under national rules before 30 December 2024 – they could continue for as long as the Member State permitted, and in no case beyond the backstop of 1 July 2026 set by Article 143(3). That backstop has now passed

The critical date for most operators is 30 December 2024. From that day, providing any of the 10 regulated services to the EU public without a CASP authorisation (or without being inside a national grandfathering window that has not yet expired) is unlawful.

Authorisation and passporting

The EU offers a single market for crypto-asset services under MiCA. The mechanics:

The CASP applies to the NCA in one Member State of its choosing.
The NCA assesses the application against MiCA’s prudential criteria – fit-and-proper management, capital requirements set in three classes under Annex IV (€50,000 for advice / RTO / execution / placing / transfer / portfolio management; €125,000 if custody or exchange services are added; €150,000 if a trading platform is operated), governance, custody segregation, complaint handling, and so on.
Once authorised, the CASP tells its own NCA in which other Member States it intends to provide services; that NCA passes the information on within 10 working days, and the CASP can start there once informed, at the latest from the 15th calendar day (Article 65) – without a second authorisation procedure.

This is the same passporting model already familiar from MiFID II investment firms and from the EU banking and insurance frameworks. In practice it has driven a regulator-shopping race: as of 1 October 2026 the ESMA MiCA Register held 364 CASP entries across the EU/EEA. Counted by company, Germany leads with 96, followed by France (36), the Netherlands (29), Cyprus (25), Malta (23), Spain (15), Luxembourg (13), Czechia (12), Ireland (12), Liechtenstein (12), Austria (11) and Latvia (10). Coinbase chose Luxembourg (CSSF), Bitpanda added a German licence to its Austrian base (Coindesk, January 2025), and Kraken went through the Central Bank of Ireland, which authorised both Payward Global Solutions and Payward Europe Solutions on 25 June 2025.

Stablecoins under MiCA: stricter rules

The stablecoin regime is the part of MiCA with the most observable effect on the live market. Three big practical consequences:

Authorisation is mandatory

An EMT issuer must be a credit institution or an authorised e-money institution under the existing EU e-money framework, and must notify and publish a crypto-asset white paper (Article 48(1)); there is no separate MiCA authorisation for it. An ART issuer must be authorised specifically as an ART issuer under MiCA. The carve-outs are narrow: no ART authorisation is needed if the average outstanding value stays below €5 million over 12 months or the offer is made only to qualified investors (Article 16(2)).

Reserve assets must back the token 1:1

The reserve must be held in low-risk, highly liquid assets, segregated from the issuer’s own assets, custodied with regulated custodians; for ARTs, the amount and composition of the reserve must be published and updated at least monthly (Article 30(1)). EMT holders have a right to redeem at par at any time (Article 49(4)); ART holders can redeem at the market value of the referenced assets (Article 39(2)).

The share kept as deposits in credit institutions has a legal floor: EMT issuers must deposit at least 30% of the funds received (Article 54); for ARTs, MiCA requires the EBA’s technical standards to set deposits at no less than 30% of the amount referenced in each currency (Article 36(4)) and no less than 60% for significant tokens (Article 45(7)(b)).

Real-world impact: USDT removed from EU exchanges

The most visible effect of MiCA in 2025 was the removal of Tether (USDT) from EU users by the major exchanges. Tether has no MiCA authorisation as an EMT issuer. Coinbase announced in October 2024 that it would remove non-compliant stablecoins for EEA users by the end of the year (CryptoSlate, October 2024); Crypto.com stopped offering USDT from 31 January 2025 (DL News) and Kraken scheduled the end of the delisting for 31 March 2025 (DL News). Details in our registry of the USDT delisting.

In parallel, MiCA-authorised stablecoins – Circle’s USDC and EURC, Société Générale’s EURCV – became the default fiat-backed crypto-assets in the EEA market.

Governance: who supervises and who enforces

MiCA uses a three-tier governance model.

EU level

European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) – coordinates national supervisors, drafts the regulatory and implementing technical standards (RTS/ITS) that flesh out MiCA, maintains the public MiCA Register of authorised CASPs and white papers, and runs the market-abuse coordination work. Chaired by Verena Ross until 31 October 2026 (she chose not to seek a second mandate); the European Parliament confirmed Carlo Comporti as her successor on 15 September 2026, with the formal appointment for the Council of the EU (Eunews). More in the ESMA profile.
European Banking Authority (EBA) – directly supervises issuers of significant asset-referenced tokens and, for significant e-money tokens, shares supervision with national authorities (Article 117); runs the prudential rule-making for stablecoin reserves and capital; coordinates with ECB on monetary-stability concerns. Chaired by François-Louis Michaud since 16 April 2026 – he succeeded José Manuel Campa, who left at the end of January 2026. Full profile: Who is the EBA.
European Central Bank (ECB) – has consultation rights on significance designations and on monetary-stability assessments for stablecoins.

National level

The actual day-to-day authorisation of CASPs and ordinary ART/EMT issuers is done by national competent authorities (NCAs):

🇩🇪 Germany – BaFin. Highest count of CASP authorisations of any Member State – 96 companies, 99 of the 364 entries in the ESMA MiCA Register as of 1 October 2026.
🇫🇷 France – AMF handles CASP authorisation and supervision; ACPR (alongside the Banque de France) supervises ART and EMT issuers on prudential grounds. The French EMT issuers, all supervised by the ACPR, include Circle, Société Générale-Forge and Salvus, which trades as Schuman Financial and issues EURØP.
🇮🇹 Italy – CONSOB and the Bank of Italy split the supervision. Italy started later than most large Member States: the first authorisations came through between 27 April and 30 June 2026, right up against the close of its 18-month national window, and the ESMA MiCA Register now lists nine Italian CASPs – Banca Sella, CheckSig, Olliv Italia, RIV-Digital, Conio, Cryptosmart, Young Platform, Hodlie and Hercle.
🇮🇪 Ireland – Central Bank of Ireland; the national transitional window ran 12 months. It has authorised 12 CASPs, among them Kraken’s two Irish entities, Payward Global Solutions and Payward Europe Solutions, both on 25 June 2025 (ESMA MiCA Register).
🇪🇪 Estonia – Finantsinspektsioon. Estonia chose the full 18-month grandfathering window for existing operators.
🇳🇱 Netherlands – AFM (conduct) + DNB (prudential). Chose one of the shortest grandfathering windows, just 6 months – and was not alone in that.

Significance criteria

For ART and EMT, a token becomes significant (bringing in EBA supervision) if it meets at least three of seven criteria – more than 10 million holders; value, market capitalisation or reserve above €5 billion; more than 2.5 million transactions and €500 million a day; an issuer designated as a gatekeeper under the DMA; international significance; interconnectedness with the financial system; and an issuer that issues further tokens and provides crypto-asset services – set out in Article 43 (for ART) and Article 56 (for EMT), with details in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1506. The largest globally-relevant stablecoins are designed to fall into this category.

Penalties (Article 111)

MiCA leaves the choice of administrative-fine architecture partially to Member States, but it sets minimum levels that every NCA must be empowered to impose. The structure does not run on a single ladder – it depends on which category of breach is at stake. The headline figures:

Legal persons (Article 111(3) and 111(5)):

Breaches	Minimum maximum fine
Issuer obligations for ordinary crypto-assets – Articles 4-14	At least €5,000,000 or 3% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher
Issuer obligations for ART (selected provisions of Articles 16-47) and EMT (Articles 48-51, 53, 54 and 55)	At least €5,000,000 or 12.5% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher
CASP authorisation and conduct obligations – Articles 59, 60, 64 and 65-83	At least €5,000,000 or 5% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher
Public disclosure of inside information – Article 88	At least €2,500,000 or 2% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher
Insider dealing, market manipulation, unlawful disclosure – Articles 89-92	At least €15,000,000 or 15% of total annual turnover, whichever is higher

Natural persons (Article 111(2)):

Breaches	Minimum maximum fine
General issuer/CASP obligations	At least €700,000, or twice the profit gained / loss avoided
Public disclosure of inside information – Article 88	At least €1,000,000
Market-abuse breaches – Articles 89-92	At least €5,000,000, or three times the profit gained / loss avoided

Member States may go higher, and they choose how to apportion fines between administrative and criminal penalties. Beyond fines, NCAs have the power to withdraw a CASP authorisation, prohibit individuals from holding management positions, suspend trading in a token, and order public statements identifying the breach – sanctions that in practice often hit harder than the monetary fine.

How MiCA overlaps with other EU regimes

GDPR – applies in parallel. CASPs hold customer KYC and transaction data; data protection obligations sit on top of MiCA. See our GDPR pillar.
AML / CTF (AMLR / AMLD6) – every CASP is also an “obliged entity” under EU anti-money-laundering rules. CASP authorisation under MiCA does not replace AML/CFT obligations and supervision; the two regimes apply together.
DORA – operational resilience for financial entities, including CASPs (DORA explicitly lists CASPs as in-scope). See our DORA pillar.
MiFID II – crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments stay under MiFID. The boundary between “MiCA crypto-asset” and “MiFID financial instrument” is set by ESMA guidelines and remains an active area of supervisory clarification.
EU Travel Rule (Transfer of Funds Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1113) – applies to transfers of crypto-assets between CASPs from 30 December 2024.

What’s actually happening as of September 2026

The transitional regime is over and the authorisation race has run its course. As of 1 October 2026 the ESMA MiCA Register held 364 CASP entries – by company, Germany 96, France 36, the Netherlands 29, Cyprus 25, Malta 23, Spain 15, Luxembourg 13, Czechia 12, Ireland 12, Liechtenstein 12, Austria 11, Latvia 10, Italy 9. A large share of them (76 entries) were registered in June 2026, in the rush before the window shut. Since 1 July 2026 there is no grandfathering left anywhere in the EEA, and ESMA has called on unauthorised providers to wind down in an orderly way – no new EU clients, and activity limited to what an orderly exit needs.
The stablecoin market re-formed around MiCA-authorised issuers. USDT was removed from major EU exchanges in late 2024 / early 2025; USDC, EURC and a small number of other authorised stablecoins now dominate EEA on-ramps. Full timeline and the EBA significance test: MiCA stablecoins register.
No token has been designated significant yet. Articles 43 and 56 let the EBA classify the largest ART and EMT issuers as significant and take over their supervision, but no such decision has been announced. The ART register is still empty: not one asset-referenced token issuer has been authorised in the EU (ESMA registers).
Enforcement is the open question. With the transition closed, the obvious next move for national regulators is action against firms still serving EU clients without authorisation. As of October 2026 we have found no such decision made public.

What this means for you

If you issue a stablecoin (ART or EMT) intended for EU users:

Authorisation is not optional. EMTs must come from a credit institution or an authorised e-money institution; ARTs require a separate MiCA authorisation. Plan a multi-month application cycle.
Reserve composition, segregation and, for ARTs, monthly disclosure are continuous obligations, not one-off.
If your token is large enough to meet three of the seven significance criteria – assume EBA will eventually take over supervision and budget for the higher prudential bar.

If you operate a CASP (exchange, custody, broker, advisor, transfer service):

Pick your home NCA strategically. BaFin, AMF, Central Bank of Ireland and Luxembourg’s CSSF are the big established hubs; smaller NCAs may approve faster but offer less institutional weight.
The grandfathering question is settled: every national window has closed, the last of them on 1 July 2026. Serving EU clients without a MiCA authorisation is now simply unlawful.
A MiCA authorisation is not a complete licence. You also carry AML/CFT obligations, GDPR compliance for customer data, and (where applicable) DORA operational-resilience controls.

If you are a retail user or a custodian of crypto-assets for clients:

Use only MiCA-authorised CASPs for EEA business. The ESMA MiCA Register is the authoritative public source.
Stablecoins available in the EEA should now be EMTs from authorised issuers. Licensed CASPs may no longer offer non-authorised stablecoins such as USDT to the public, but custody and transfer of them remain possible (ESMA statement of 17 January 2025).

TL;DR

MiCA is the EU’s comprehensive crypto regulation, applied in two waves: stablecoins (ART, EMT) since 30 June 2024, all other crypto services and issuers since 30 December 2024. Existing operators could continue under national rules through transitional periods, all of which expired by 1 July 2026. Three regulated categories of crypto-assets (ART, EMT, other); 10 regulated services from custody and exchange to advisory and portfolio management; CASP authorisation is by a single national regulator and passports across the EEA. Stablecoin issuers face the strictest regime – authorisation or e-money licence, reserve, redemption rights (at par for EMTs); significant ART issuers go under EBA supervision, significant EMTs under shared EBA and national supervision. Penalties run up to €15M or 15% of turnover for the most serious legal-person breaches (market abuse – Articles 89-92), with €5M minima for natural persons in the same category. Real-world impact in 2025: USDT removed from major EU exchanges; Coinbase, Bitpanda and Kraken authorised in different Member States; the rest of the market still working through the authorisation pipeline.

Sources

Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 – full text on EUR-Lex – official source of MiCA
ESMA’s MiCA hub – coordinating role, technical standards, MiCA Register
EBA’s supervisory role under MiCA – direct supervision of significant issuers
European Commission – summary of the crypto-assets regulation
ESMA list of MiCA grandfathering periods (Article 143(3)) – Member State by Member State
ESMA Chair Verena Ross to step down at the end of her current term
François-Louis Michaud takes up role as EBA Chair (April 2026)
Coindesk – Bitpanda secures MiCA license from BaFin (January 2025) – the early CASP authorisation race
aosphere – Member State Implementation of MiCA tracker – grandfathering periods country by country
ESMA Databases and Registers (MiCA Register) – pan-EU register of authorised CASPs and stablecoin issuers; the country-by-country counts cited above were taken directly from the official CASPS.csv file downloaded on 1 October 2026
CONSOB – MiCAR CASP regime – Italian fee schedule and authorisation phases
AMF – MiCA Regulation: AMF now accepting applications for authorisation as a CASP – French CASP authorisation