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Cyprus tabled the Markets in Crypto-Assets Bill of 2026 in Parliament on 8 October 2026, to build out CBC/CySEC's domestic enforcement powers and penalties under MiCA.
The most significant development in this cycle concerns the Article 143(3) national transitional regime -- the mechanism that had allowed crypto-asset service providers operating under pre-MiCA Cypriot law to keep serving clients while their MiCA authorisation applications were pending. That transitional window has now concluded. ESMA's own statement on the end of transitional periods under MiCA confirms the EU-wide backstop expired on 1 July 2026, and Cyprus-specific reporting adds operational detail: CySEC set 27 February 2026 as the deadline for providers relying on the transitional relief to submit a MiCA authorisation application, required a formal wind-down plan from any provider that had not applied by that date, and issued a post-deadline AML circular on 9 July 2026 addressing the compliance state of providers moving through or past the transition. Read together, these facts establish that Cyprus's transitional period is a closed chapter rather than a live one: any entity providing crypto-asset services to EU clients without a MiCA licence after 1 July 2026 is now in breach of EU law and must either have ceased those services or be actively executing an approved wind-down plan.
This closure sits alongside continued licensing activity on the other side of the ledger. CySEC has granted MiCA CASP authorisations to major platforms including Revolut and eToro, each of which is now positioned to offer regulated crypto services across the EEA on the strength of its Cypriot authorisation -- a concrete illustration of MiCA's passporting design operating as intended and of Cyprus's role as an EEA-wide licensing gateway for at least some large platforms. One caution from this cycle's review process is worth flagging explicitly: Taurus, a crypto custodian previously associated with Cyprus in some reporting, holds a MiFID II licence rather than a MiCA CASP authorisation, and should not be read as evidence of MiCA-operative licensing activity. The distinction matters because MiFID II and MiCA authorisations carry different scopes, obligations, and supervisory consequences, and conflating the two would overstate the breadth of CySEC's MiCA-licensed population.
Outlook
The crypto-licensing picture in Cyprus is now best read as settled-and-enforced rather than transitional. The open question going forward is less about the rules themselves -- which are fully in force -- and more about compliance outcomes: how many providers that relied on the Article 143(3) transitional window actually completed wind-down versus converted to full MiCA authorisation, and whether CySEC's 9 July 2026 AML circular signals a broader supervisory posture toward post-deadline non-compliance. Continued monitoring of CySEC's authorisation register and enforcement actions over the coming quarters should clarify both points. No change to the green traffic-light rating is indicated by this cycle's findings, but the shift from transition pending to transition concluded and enforced is itself the substantive development worth carrying forward into subsequent cycles.
Crypto Licensing
Cyprus's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation transitional period closed on 1 July 2026, marking the end of the full eighteen-month national grandfathering window that began on 30 December 2024. Cyprus adopted this transitional window in full, the maximum period permitted under the regulation, and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission set 27 February 2026 as its internal cut-off for existing national-registrant crypto-asset service providers to file a complete application for authorisation. A pending, incomplete application did not extend the right to continue operating past the 1 July 2026 deadline; non-filers were required to submit wind-down plans. This is now a settled, in-force feature of the Cyprus licensing landscape rather than a live development, but it frames the baseline against which the current legislative move should be read.
The current live development is the Markets in Crypto-Assets Bill of 2026, submitted to the House of Representatives on 8 October 2026 following Cabinet approval on 10 September 2026. The bill would formalise the domestic enforcement architecture underpinning the regulation, granting the Central Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission powers to investigate, conduct inspections, issue compliance orders, and restrict, suspend, or withdraw a crypto-asset service provider's authorisation. The proposed penalty structure is significant in scale: corporate fines of at least five million euro for specified infringements, rising to fifteen million euro or more on a turnover-linked basis for serious market abuse, with individual fines of up to five million euro and the possibility of temporary management restrictions for responsible individuals. No primary bill text or House of Representatives committee record has been retrieved this cycle, so the figures and powers described here should be read as the bill as tabled in press reporting, not as settled, enacted law; the final version may differ following parliamentary scrutiny.
Separately, Cyprus's standing licensing architecture continues to operate via two parallel routes: Article 63 authorisation by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission for new crypto-asset service providers, and an Article 60 notification route available to entities already regulated under another licence, such as existing investment-firm, electronic-money-institution or payment-institution authorisation holders. CySEC maintains separate registers for each route. This structure is unchanged this cycle and continues to govern market entry independently of the pending enforcement bill.
Outlook
The Markets in Crypto-Assets Bill of 2026 is expected to progress through further House of Representatives stages, though no specific enactment date is confirmed; the regulatory horizon estimate places material impact around the first quarter of 2027, with a half-year uncertainty band reflecting the absence of a confirmed legislative timetable. Confidence in the bill's final scope, including the precise fine thresholds, will firm once the official parliamentary text and any committee-stage amendments become available. In the meantime, the existing Article 63 and Article 60 licensing routes, and the July 2026 transitional-period closure, remain the settled baseline for market access in Cyprus.
2 earlier distinct update(s)
Crypto Licensing
The defining event in Cyprus's crypto-licensing regime this cycle is the complete expiry of the MiCA Article 143(3) national transitional window on 1 July 2026. This transitional regime had permitted crypto-asset service providers that were operating under Cyprus's prior national registration framework to continue doing so for a limited period while pursuing full MiCA authorisation. The mechanism required a complete MiCA authorisation application to be submitted to CySEC by 27 February 2026; entities that did not file by that date were required to submit a wind-down plan and cease CASP operations by 1 July 2026. For entities that did file, continued operation under the national framework was permitted only until CySEC reached a decision, approval or refusal, or until 1 July 2026, whichever came first. That final cutoff has now passed, meaning the transitional pathway is entirely closed: only full MiCA authorisation or an Article 60 cross-border notification now provides a lawful basis for CASP activity in Cyprus.
This closure is structurally significant because it eliminates an entire category of lawful operating basis rather than incrementally raising a compliance bar. A CASP that relied on the transitional window and did not secure either full authorisation or an Article 60 notification by the deadline has, as a matter of law, no remaining basis to continue operating under the prior regime from 1 July 2026 onward. The general prohibition on unauthorised provision of CASP services under MiCA Article 111 applies to any such firm continuing to operate post-deadline, though the exact Cyprus-specific administrative fine maxima implementing Article 111 were not located this cycle; the national fine-maxima table and CySEC's own implementing directive remain a research gap.
Own-funds requirements for Cyprus CASPs follow the standard MiCA tiered structure under Article 67 and Annex IV: approximately EUR 50,000 for firms providing reception and transmission of orders, EUR 125,000 for firms providing execution of orders or exchange services, and EUR 150,000 for firms operating a trading platform for crypto-assets. These figures derive from vendor and consultancy commentary rather than from CySEC's own authorisation directive, which was not independently retrieved this cycle, so they should be treated as probable rather than confirmed pending primary-source verification.
The practical effect of the transitional-regime closure is a narrowing of the Cyprus-domiciled CASP population to those entities that cleared the full MiCA authorisation bar, a materially higher threshold than the prior national registration standard. This narrowing is consistent with the broader EU-wide MiCA rollout pattern, in which national transitional regimes of varying length have been progressively closing across member states through 2026, with Cyprus's 1 July 2026 cutoff representing one of the standard-length transitional windows rather than an outlier.
Outlook
The near-term question for Cyprus's crypto-licensing regime is whether CySEC takes visible enforcement action against any entity that continued CASP operations past 1 July 2026 without having secured authorisation or filed a wind-down plan; no such enforcement action has been identified within this cycle's research. A further open item is confirmation of the Cyprus-specific administrative fine maxima implementing MiCA Article 111, which would give a fuller picture of the enforcement exposure facing any residual unauthorised operator. Firms considering Cyprus as a CASP licensing jurisdiction should now treat full MiCA authorisation as the only available pathway, with no further national grace period remaining.
Crypto Licensing
Cyprus's crypto-asset service provider licensing regime completed its transition to full MiCA authorisation this period. Crypto-asset service providers operating in Cyprus must now hold MiCA authorisation from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC); the pre-MiCA national CASP registration regime, which had provided a lawful transitional operating basis, expired on 1 July 2026. Firms registered under that national regime were required to have filed a complete MiCA authorisation application by 27 February 2026 in order to continue operating through to the 1 July 2026 cutover; those that did not file were expected to wind down national-regime activity.
This is a confirmed, T1-sourced development directly from CySEC's own published guidance, and it settles what had previously been a transitional and therefore inherently temporary regulatory position. From 1 July 2026 onward there is no parallel national registration track running alongside MiCA authorisation in Cyprus: MiCA is the only lawful basis for CASP activity. The regime is now settled rather than transitional, which is the basis for a green traffic-light rationale on this module notwithstanding the significant procedural change that occurred to reach that settled state.
Outlook
With the transitional pathway now closed, the near-term watch item is enforcement visibility: whether any national-regime holdouts continued CASP activity in Cyprus without MiCA authorisation past 1 July 2026, and if so, what enforcement response CySEC takes. No such finding has surfaced this cycle.
1 further periodic run re-emitted the standing brief unchanged and is not shown.
Sources and findings (4)
- T1 · ESMAESMA — CySEC is the designated competent authority for authorisation of crypto-asset service providers under Title V of MiCA in Cyprus, while CBC handles Title IV (ARTs/EMTs) and credit institutions/EMIs under Title V notification.retrieved M5bindingin force
- T1 · ESMAESMA — Crypto-asset service providers that provided services in Cyprus in accordance with pre-30 December 2024 national law may continue to do so under Article 143(3) transitional measures until granted or refused MiCA authorisation, or until 1 July 2026, whichever is sooner.retrieved M4bindingin force
- T1 · ESMAESMA — The EU-wide MiCA transitional period expires on 1 July 2026; after this date any entity providing crypto-asset services to EU clients without a MiCA licence is in breach of EU law and must cease such services.retrieved M5bindingin force
- T3 · CoinDeskCoinDesk — CySEC has granted MiCA CASP authorisations to major crypto platforms (e.g., Revolut, eToro), enabling regulated crypto services across the EEA, evidencing an operative licensing regime in Cyprus.retrieved M3non-binding