Poland Crypto & Digital Asset Regulation

Crypto Licensing

Poland has no domestic statute designating any authority with CASP-authorisation or enforcement powers under MiCA. The Crypto-Asset Market Act, the bill that would establish this framework, has been vetoed three times by the President. A Sejm vote to override the most recent veto took place on 4 September 2026 and failed, with 241 votes for and 198 against out of 442 voting, 25 votes short of the 266-vote threshold required for an override. In direct response, the President transmitted a second counter-bill to the Sejm Marshal on 8 September 2026. This second presidential bill is built largely on the government's own twice-vetoed text, but diverges on two provisions carrying direct supervisory weight: the duration for which a supervisory authority could block a suspect account (the presidential text proposes 3 months, versus 6 months in the government's version), and the cap on supervisory fees chargeable to CASPs (0.1% versus 0.4% of average revenues in the government's version).

The practical consequence of this three-times-vetoed, now twice-countered legislative standoff is that Poland has gone without a functioning domestic CASP licensing regime through the entire period in which MiCA's transitional provisions were winding down elsewhere. Specifically, MiCA's Article 143(3) transitional treatment for entities already registered in Poland's pre-MiCA virtual-currency register (RDWW) before 30 December 2024 ended Union-wide on 1 July 2026. Because Poland never enacted implementing legislation, there is no domestic pathway allowing an RDWW-registered virtual-currency business to convert that registration into a MiCA CASP authorisation. Entities that were operating lawfully under the old national virtual-currency-business registration regime therefore face a cliff-edge: the transitional cover that let them continue trading while MiCA bedded in has lapsed, and no domestic authorisation route has opened to replace it.

Press reporting from late September 2026 indicates the government intends to bring a fourth version of the Crypto-Asset Market Act to a Council of Ministers sitting in October 2026, described as a tightened draft carrying enhanced penalties relative to earlier versions. This remains, as of this cycle, an unconfirmed intention: no source located this cycle confirms that the October sitting took place or discloses the draft's actual content. Given the pattern of the preceding three attempts, each of which fell to a presidential veto, there is no basis in the available evidence to forecast whether a fourth attempt would fare differently, particularly since the core points of disagreement (account-blocking duration, supervisory fee levels) remain unresolved between the branches.

No PL-specific national guidance elaborating MiCA's token-classification tests, nor any dedicated national MiCA-implementing statute establishing KNF's broader CASP-supervision competence, was located this cycle; KNF's existing competence over e-money-token issuers derives from its pre-existing financial-instrument and e-money supervisory remit rather than from crypto-specific national legislation. This underlines that the licensing gap is not confined to new entrants seeking first-time authorisation — it extends to the absence of a clearly designated authority for the custody, exchange and trading-platform activities that would fall under a CASP authorisation once one becomes available.

Outlook

Whether Poland closes its CASP-authorisation gap turns on the fate of the reported fourth government draft, which press sources describe as expected at a Council of Ministers sitting in October 2026 but which remains unconfirmed as tabled. The specific terms on which any future version resolves the account-blocking-duration and supervisory-fee-cap disputes will determine the practical shape of whatever enforcement regime eventually emerges. In the meantime, the lapse of the MiCA Article 143(3) transitional treatment on 1 July 2026 leaves previously RDWW-registered virtual-currency businesses without a confirmed lawful operating basis inside the MiCA framework, a condition that persists for as long as the Crypto-Asset Market Act remains unenacted.

Crypto Licensing

Poland has no domestic CASP authorisation pathway. Entities that were on the RDWW virtual-currency register before 30 December 2024 could continue operating only until the MiCA Article 143(3) transitional deadline of 1 July 2026, or until obtaining CASP authorisation, whichever came first. That transitional deadline has now passed without a functioning domestic authorisation mechanism in place, because the Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF) has not been designated as the competent authority empowered to accept CASP authorisation applications. The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF) has confirmed that this deadline cannot be extended by national law or by KNF decision, which means the gap is not an administrative delay capable of being smoothed over by regulatory discretion, but a structural absence of enabling legislation.

The legislative history behind this gap is one of repeated failure to enact. A national Crypto-Asset Market Act was vetoed by the President for a third time, and a subsequent override vote in the Sejm failed by 25 votes. On 8 September 2026, the President submitted a second presidential draft of the Act to the Sejm. That draft proposes administrative fines of up to PLN 20 million for unauthorised CASP activity, and would grant KNF powers to block accounts and transactions, as well as to order domain blocking, with a 48-hour compliance window imposed on telecoms undertakings to give effect to such blocking orders. None of these enforcement provisions is currently in force; they exist only within a bill still before the Sejm, and their eventual form may change before enactment.

Pending enactment, UKNF has adopted an informal supervisory tolerance toward entities that held legacy VASP registrations, allowing them to continue limited operation while the legislative process continues. This tolerance is discretionary rather than a legal entitlement, and firms relying on it face genuine exposure should UKNF's posture change or should the gap between MiCA's directly-applicable obligations and Poland's domestic enforcement machinery be tested in a specific case.

Within this general vacuum, one authorisation route does function: e-money-token issuance. KNF's competence over e-money-token issuers is derived from its pre-existing supervision of financial instruments and e-money institutions, not from the unenacted Crypto-Asset Market Act, so EMT issuers today have an operative domestic pathway that asset-referenced-token issuers and other CASP activities do not.

Outlook

The second presidential draft, submitted 8 September 2026 and reported to carry approximately 90% of the provisions previously agreed in earlier legislative attempts, is the development that will determine when — or whether — Poland acquires a functioning domestic CASP authorisation regime. Passage would designate KNF as the market supervisor and establish the administrative fine and account/domain-blocking enforcement powers described above. Until then, the authorisation vacuum persists and firms seeking lawful entry into crypto-asset services in Poland, outside the narrow EMT pathway, have no domestic authorisation route to rely on.

Crypto Licensing

Poland's crypto-licensing position this cycle is defined by the persistence, and the renewed legislative attempt to resolve, a national MiCA authorisation gap. Under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 Article 59, Crypto-Asset Service Provider authorisation must be granted by a home-member-state competent authority; Poland has not enacted the national legislation needed to empower the Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF) to receive, assess or grant such applications. This is not a case of KNF declining or being unwilling to take on the role — every version of the proposed legislation designates KNF as the intended authority — it is a case of the designating statute itself failing to pass through Poland's legislative process.

The most recent failure came on 4 September 2026, when the Sejm's attempt to override President Nawrocki's veto of the Crypto-Asset Market Act fell twenty-five votes short of the 266 needed under the three-fifths override threshold (241 votes in favour were recorded). This was the third presidential veto of the legislation to survive an override attempt, and it comes more than two months after MiCA's transitional period for existing national crypto-asset regimes expired on 1 July 2026 — meaning Poland has now operated for over two months with no domestic MiCA CASP gateway of any kind, where the transitional allowance that might previously have covered the gap has itself lapsed.

The president did not let the failed override stand as the final word. On 8 September 2026, four days later, he submitted a second compromise draft act, described in reporting as built largely on the government's own text — the same text he had three times vetoed. This detail matters for reading the dispute correctly: a compromise draft that tracks closely to the government's position suggests the disagreement has likely narrowed to specific contested provisions within the bill, rather than reflecting any fundamental disagreement over whether Poland should designate a MiCA competent authority at all. That draft had not been enacted at the time this research pass was conducted, so the authorisation gap remains open and unresolved.

In the interim, KNF is not wholly without MiCA-relevant authority — it retains a narrower competence over e-money token (EMT) issuers, exercised through its pre-existing financial-instrument supervisory powers rather than through the stalled Crypto-Asset Market Act. This is a meaningful distinction for market participants: an EMT issuer operating in Poland today has a KNF supervisory touchpoint, while a CASP seeking the broader authorisation MiCA otherwise provides for (custody, trading platform operation, exchange services, and the like) does not currently have any domestic Polish authorisation route at all.

The consequence for Poland's roughly 2,000 crypto-asset entities, per commentary reviewed this cycle, is a forced choice: seek authorisation from another EEA competent authority — Lithuania and Cyprus are the two jurisdictions named in current commentary as practical destinations — and rely on cross-border passporting to continue serving the Polish market from outside; or continue operating within Poland without a MiCA authorisation, a position of uncertain durability as enforcement expectations under MiCA mature across the bloc; or cease MiCA-covered activity altogether. None of the sourcing reviewed this cycle indicates which of these paths is currently dominant among affected firms, which is itself a notable information gap going into future cycles.

Outlook

The regulatory horizon tracked this cycle anticipates a fourth legislative attempt at designating KNF as the national MiCA competent authority, expected as scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2026. Given that three previous attempts have each ended in presidential veto, with two overridden-vote failures confirmed in the available sourcing, confidence in this timeline should remain measured — the assessment here is probable, not confirmed, and no primary legislative-calendar source was retrieved this cycle to corroborate the date beyond secondary reporting. Should the fourth attempt also stall, the gap between Poland's roughly 2,000 affected entities and a functioning domestic authorisation channel will likely continue widening relative to the rest of the EU, where MiCA regimes are maturing on schedule.