#
Latvia enacted its national Law on Crypto-Asset Services (effective 30 June 2024), naming Latvijas Banka as sole competent authority. Latvia set one of the EU's shortest national transitional periods (6 months), closing 30 June 2025. By 30 September 2026, Latvijas Banka had issued 12 MiCA CASP authorisations, with 15 companies in active licensing and 29 in pre-licensing consultation. A parallel Credit Institution Law amendment (in force 6 January 2026) created a lower-capital 'specialised credit institution' bank licence.
By mid-2026, Latvijas Banka has issued approximately eight to ten CASP authorisations, a volume that positions Latvia among the more active MiCA licensing jurisdictions in the EU. This count is assessed rather than confirmed: no direct Latvijas Banka CASP register page was reached this cycle to verify the exact figure, and the count rests on convergent but independent vendor and law-firm secondary sources rather than a single authoritative primary count. The traffic-light assessment for this module is green, reflecting a fully implemented licensing regime with clear, already-passed transition deadlines and an active, ongoing authorisation pipeline, notwithstanding the residual primary-source verification gap on exact licence counts.
The practical implication of this completed transition is that Latvia's crypto-asset-service-provider population is now single-tier: authorised under MiCA CASP rules, or outside the regulated perimeter. There is no longer a legitimate intermediate category of legacy-registered-but-not-yet-CASP-authorised providers, since that transitional category closed definitively on 30 June 2025. Any entity providing crypto-asset services in Latvia without CASP authorisation today should be understood as an unauthorised, out-of-perimeter actor rather than as operating under some residual legacy permission.
It is worth being precise about what 'fully implemented' means in this context. The traffic-light green rating reflects that the licensing framework itself is settled and no longer in a transitional or ambiguous state. It does not by itself certify that supervisory capacity has kept pace with the resulting licensing volume; that is a separate, active-defence and compliance-technology question, and no Latvia-specific finding on supervisory capacity was available within the crypto_licensing module this cycle. Readers should also note the entity-level detail available this cycle: named CASP grantees include Backpack EU/Trek Technologies, Paybis Europe, TWINO Investments, BlockBen, Nexdesk, GR8 Pay, AlphaRoute and Neverless, spanning a range of business models from crypto exchange services to broader digital-asset infrastructure. This diversity of grantee business models is itself informative: Latvia's CASP licensing wave is not concentrated in a single crypto-asset-service niche, but spans the range of activities MiCA's CASP category covers, consistent with Latvia positioning itself as a general-purpose rather than niche crypto-licensing venue.
Outlook
The priority gap to close for this module is direct primary-source verification of the current CASP authorisation count, ideally via a Latvijas Banka register page rather than convergent secondary reporting. A confirmed, primary-sourced count would allow this module's licensing-volume finding to move from assessed to confirmed confidence. A secondary item to track is whether any of the roughly eight to ten authorised CASPs face a licence variation, suspension or revocation event, which would be the first test of Latvijas Banka's ongoing supervisory posture over the newly authorised population. No such event was evidenced this cycle.
Crypto Licensing
Latvia's crypto-asset licensing regime operates under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) as implemented nationally through the Law on Crypto-Asset Services, effective 30 June 2024, with Latvijas Banka as the single supervisory authority for crypto-asset service providers. Latvia chose to shorten its national transitional period for pre-existing providers to six months, closing 30 June 2025, considerably ahead of the MiCA-wide outer backstop of 1 July 2026 that applies by default under Article 143(3) to member states that did not legislate a shorter window. This early closure forced incumbent providers to secure full MiCA authorisation sooner than counterparts in jurisdictions running the full transitional period, and the subsequent authorisation data suggests the regulator absorbed that compliance load without a visible backlog.
By 30 September 2026, Latvijas Banka had issued twelve MiCA CASP authorisations, the most recent to Noah LV SIA. This count rests on vendor commentary rather than a directly retrieved Latvijas Banka register page, so the precise figure should be treated as probable rather than confirmed, though the underlying trend of sustained authorisation activity through the third quarter is corroborated by the pattern of individual, separately sourced licence grants to named entities across the same window. Running alongside the crypto-specific authorisation track, a Credit Institution Law amendment in force since 6 January 2026 created a 'specialised credit institution' category, carrying a reduced one-million-euro initial capital requirement against the standard five million, available to firms meeting at least one of three tests: a limited customer base, a digital-only channel, or an innovative business model. No source in this cycle's evidence base confirms a crypto-specific entity has used this route, so its relevance to the crypto-licensing pipeline remains structural rather than demonstrated.
Taken together, the picture is one of an in-force, comprehensive national regime with an authorisation pipeline that is functioning rather than merely nominal: multiple named entities received authorisations across the reporting window, and the regulator appears to be processing CASP and adjacent payment-institution or electronic-money-institution licences as parallel, compatible tracks rather than sequential gates.
Outlook
The principal open question is whether Latvijas Banka's authorisation throughput, which produced twelve CASP licences by the end of the third quarter of 2026, continues at a comparable pace into the fourth quarter, and whether the specialised-credit-institution category draws any crypto-specific applicants. No further national transitional deadline remains outstanding for Latvia, since its own window closed in June 2025; the only remaining date of note is the EU-wide 1 July 2026 backstop, which does not alter Latvia's position but will bring other member states' transitional regimes into alignment with Latvia's already-closed one.
1 earlier distinct update(s)
Crypto Licensing
Latvia's crypto-asset licensing regime operates under the full force of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), implemented domestically through the national Law on Crypto-asset Services, effective 30 June 2024. Providing any of the ten MiCA-scoped crypto-asset services within Latvia requires CASP (crypto-asset service provider) authorisation from Latvijas Banka, the national competent authority. As of mid-2026, Latvijas Banka had granted at least eight CASP authorisations, a cohort that includes Backpack EU and SIA Paybis Europe among named authorised entities. This authorisation count is a probable finding, corroborated by trade-press analysis, though it should be understood as a floor rather than a precise count given the absence of a Tier-1 registry citation reaching this cycle.
Latvia's national transitional regime, which had permitted legacy pre-MiCA firms to continue operating without full CASP authorisation, closed on 30 June 2025 according to the primary trade-press source reached this cycle. A separate aggregator source references a 1 July 2026 date, which appears to describe the EU-wide transitional deadline rather than Latvia's own national closure date; this is a genuine discrepancy in the evidence base and has been flagged rather than resolved, pending confirmation against likumi.lv or a direct Latvijas Banka publication. Operators should not treat either date as fully settled without further primary-source confirmation.
Outlook
The principal item to watch is resolution of the transitional-period closing date discrepancy through a primary Latvian source. Continued CASP authorisation volume, and any Tier-1 confirmation of the exact authorised-entity count, would further firm up this cycle's probable-confidence findings.
1 further periodic run re-emitted the standing brief unchanged and is not shown.
Sources and findings (6)
- T1 · Latvijas BankaLatvijas Banka — A legal person whose occupation or business is the provision of crypto-asset services on a professional basis must be authorised by Latvijas Banka under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 to lawfully provide those services in Latvia.retrieved M5bindingin force
- T1 · Latvijas BankaLatvijas Banka — CASPs authorised in Latvia must maintain own funds of EUR 50,000-150,000 depending on service type, or a quarter of the preceding year's fixed overheads if that amount is higher, per Annex IV of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114.retrieved M4bindingin force
- T1 · Latvijas BankaLatvijas Banka — Latvijas Banka charges licensed CASPs an annual supervision fee of up to 0.6% of gross income from crypto-asset services, subject to a minimum of EUR 3,000 per year.retrieved M3bindingin force
- T1 · Latvijas BankaLatvijas Banka — A CASP authorised by Latvijas Banka may passport its services throughout the EU under MiCA's cross-border activity notification mechanism once authorised in Latvia.retrieved M4bindingin force
- T1 · Latvijas BankaLatvijas Banka — On 3 December, the Supervision Committee of Latvijas Banka issued the first Latvian MiCA CASP licence to BlockBen SIA, evidencing an operative licensing pipeline.retrieved M2non-bindingour coverage gap, expected to resolve on a re-run
- T1 · European Securities and Markets AuthorityEuropean Securities and Markets Authority — MiCA Article 143(3) grandfathering allowed entities providing crypto-asset services under pre-existing Latvian law before 30 December 2024 to continue operating without MiCA authorisation until 1 July 2026 or until their authorisation application was granted or refused.retrieved M3non-bindingexpected to resolve as the cycle horizon moves