Poland

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.

Cross-Border Transfer

Poland's cross-border crypto-asset transfer position this cycle is shaped almost entirely by the asymmetry created by its own domestic MiCA authorisation gap. Under MiCA Article 65, a Crypto-Asset Service Provider already authorised by a competent authority in another EU member state may passport its services into a second member state through a straightforward notification mechanism, without needing a fresh authorisation in the receiving state. This mechanism remains fully available and unrestricted with respect to Poland: CASPs authorised elsewhere in the EU may passport into the Polish market notwithstanding Poland's own failure to designate a domestic competent authority. There is no indication in this cycle's sourcing that Poland's internal legislative standoff has in any way impeded in-bound passporting.

What the gap does affect is the outbound direction. A Polish-established crypto-asset provider cannot obtain a domestic CASP authorisation from the Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF) at this time, because KNF has not been designated as the national competent authority under the stalled Crypto-Asset Market Act — now three times vetoed by President Nawrocki, most recently surviving an override vote by twenty-five votes on 4 September 2026. A Polish-established entity therefore cannot use the standard route of obtaining Polish authorisation and then passporting outward to other EU states; it must instead seek authorisation directly from another EEA competent authority and operate from that base, with commentary this cycle naming Lithuania and Cyprus as practical choices for this purpose.

The net effect is a one-directional cross-border flow: crypto-asset services can move freely into Poland from CASPs authorised elsewhere in the EU, but cannot move outward from a Poland-originated authorisation, because no such authorisation currently exists to passport from. This is a structurally unusual position for an EU member state to be in more than two months after MiCA's transitional period lapsed on 1 July 2026, and it reflects the national designation failure rather than any restriction Poland has placed on cross-border activity as a matter of policy. Poland has not closed its market to inbound crypto-asset services; it has simply been unable, so far, to open the outbound channel that MiCA's passporting architecture is built to provide.

A further nuance worth noting is that KNF does retain narrower cross-border-relevant competence in one specific area: its existing supervision of e-money token (EMT) issuers, which it holds via pre-existing financial-instrument powers independent of the stalled Act. This does not change the broader CASP-passporting asymmetry described above, but it means the picture is not uniformly one of zero Polish-origin cross-border authority — EMT issuance supervision is a narrow exception operating alongside the broader gap.

For firms and counterparties assessing cross-border exposure to the Polish market, the operative fact to track is that inbound EU-authorised crypto-asset services face no Poland-specific obstacle, while Poland-established firms seeking to serve customers elsewhere in the EU must route through a foreign authorisation. This asymmetry is a direct and mechanical consequence of the authorisation gap addressed under crypto licensing above, rather than an independent cross-border-transfer policy choice by Polish authorities.

Outlook

The one-directional passporting asymmetry described here will persist for as long as Poland's domestic CASP authorisation gap remains open. A fourth legislative attempt, anticipated for the fourth quarter of 2026 per the regulatory horizon tracked this cycle, would — if enacted — close the outbound gap by finally empowering KNF to grant CASP authorisations that could themselves be passported to other EU states. Until then, Polish-established crypto-asset providers seeking EU-wide reach will likely continue relying on authorisation from other EEA competent authorities such as Lithuania or Cyprus, named in current commentary as practical venues, rather than on a domestic Polish authorisation that does not yet exist.