Ninety crypto companies operating in France have until June 30, 2026, to obtain full MiCA authorization or exit the market. France's financial regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), has set a hard deadline, leaving no gray area: firms must hold a full Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license or execute an orderly wind-down. AMF president Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani has called the situation urgent, a word that carries real weight when it comes from a regulator.
From Rules to Enforcement: What Actually Changed
MiCA has been operational since the start of 2025. For more than a year, European institutions focused on drafting guidelines and managing transition regimes. That phase is over. The AMF began sending formal warnings to non-compliant firms back in November 2025, then escalated. Any company without a CASP license must now prepare a structured exit plan, ensuring users can recover or transfer their assets. Companies that fail to comply could be added to a EU-wide blacklist.
French crypto firms without a MiCA license: application status
Source: AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) · January 2026
What Happens to Unlicensed Exchanges After June 30, 2026?
Functionally, from July 1, 2026, only fully authorized CASPs will be permitted to serve clients in France. Everyone else stops. For new market entrants, the old regime has already been closed since December 2024. The June deadline applies specifically to so-called legacy operators, those registered under the previous French PSAN framework. For users, the implication is direct: if your platform isn't on the authorized list, you could wake up to a suspended service with little notice, forcing a rushed asset transfer. The EU's single passport rule makes this a pan-European issue: a license granted in one member state is valid across all 27. But when that license is absent, the block can extend continent-wide.
France's regulator has addressed this directly. → See official AMF updates on X (@AMF_actu).
Beyond France: The Wider European Picture
France isn't acting alone. Brussels has opened a formal consultation to revise elements of MiCA itself, with particular focus on stablecoins, DeFi coverage gaps, and cross-border supervision. Across the EU, national regulators are moving in the same direction, though at different speeds. In Italy, CONSOB has tightened oversight, and the Italian Parliament has opened a dedicated working group on digital assets. Banca Sella has already obtained MiCA authorization, targeting custody and crypto transfer services for select clients by end of 2026, according to the bank's public announcements.
KEY DATA
French firms without a MiCA license: approximately 90
Share not planning to apply: 40%
Applications still in progress: 30%
Hard deadline: June 30, 2026
License required: CASP (Crypto-Asset Service Provider)
Single passport validity: all 27 EU member states
Source: AMF, January 2026
There's a detail that tends to get lost in the daily headlines. The AMF's core concern isn't simply compliance: it's preventing MiCA from becoming a race to the most permissive regulator, where firms choose the softest jurisdiction and then passport their services across the bloc. That's the real question for the months ahead, not whether MiCA exists, but whether Paris, Rome, and Berlin enforce it with equal rigor. The EU consultation launched by Brussels will say a great deal. For now, France's message is unambiguous, and the calendar leaves no room. The authoritative reference remains Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA).
