BitPay’s European subsidiary won authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets on July 16, 2026.
Key Takeaways
- BitPay B.V. became a licensed crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, the EU’s crypto rulebook, according to BitPay.
- The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, known as AFM, granted the authorization, and passporting lets BitPay serve customers across all EU member states.
- The license covers regulated crypto payment services, including stablecoin-denominated payments and cross-border payment use cases.
- BitPay, founded in 2011 and based in Atlanta, has raised more than $70 million from investors including Founders Fund, Index Ventures and Virgin Group, according to PYMNTS.
- The approval lands after the Netherlands closed its transitional licensing window for firms that had registered with DNB, per AFM.
Dutch Regulator Grants BitPay a MiCA License
BitPay, the Atlanta-based cryptocurrency payment processor, said its European arm can now run regulated crypto payment services across the EU under a unified regulatory framework, covering payment acceptance, stablecoin-denominated payments, and cross-border payment use cases for merchants and partners.
Consumers gain broader access to the same tools, plus partner-supported buying, selling, and swapping of digital assets. The move follows a broader wave of EU licensing activity now reshaping Crypto exchange, as processors and exchanges alike pursue MiCA authorization.
Thom de Jong, Chief Compliance Officer Europe at BitPay said:
He added that MiCA creates a unified framework for responsible crypto innovation across Europe and that the authorization validates BitPay’s compliance first approach.
The filing identifies the licensed entity precisely: BitPay B.V. carries Legal Entity Identifier 724500F2THLY5MHEIM78 and must meet MiCAR Article 66(5) sustainability disclosure requirements as a registered CASP. That kind of entity-level detail matters because MiCA regulates the corporate subsidiary, not the BitPay brand broadly.
LATEST: 🇪🇺 BitPay secured a MiCA license from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, letting it expand crypto and stablecoin payments across the EU. pic.twitter.com/FtOl65imWe
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) July 17, 2026
Passporting Turns One License Into Every EU Market
A single AFM authorization is the whole point. An undertaking listed in the AFM’s crypto register has obtained authorisation or notification from the AFM or another EU member state’s supervisor and is permitted to offer the specified services in the Netherlands. Under MiCA’s passporting design, that same authorization extends to every other member state at once. That single home regulator model replaces what PYMNTS described as a fragmented patchwork of varying national rules that crypto firms faced before MiCA.
Timing sharpens the read. The Netherlands’ MiCAR transitional regime, which let firms already registered with DNB keep operating without a MiCA license, ended on June 30, 2025. That deadline is reshaping Crypto adoption by country data across the bloc, as regulators sort which crypto firms hold a genuine MiCA license from those still winding down.
The license is scoped to payments, not issuance. BitPay’s authorization covers crypto payment acceptance and stablecoin denominated payments. A CASP can move and process stablecoins for merchants without itself becoming a stablecoin issuer, a distinction MiCA treats as a separate licensing track entirely.
Implications for Crypto Payment Compliance
The contrast with the United States is instructive. Washington still regulates crypto payment activity through a patchwork of state money transmitter statutes and case-by-case enforcement, the same fragmented model MiCA was built to replace across 27 countries at once. That gap shows up in the SEC crypto enforcement data tracking individual actions in place of a single rulebook, and it is a structural reason global payment processors increasingly treat EU licensing as a template rather than an afterthought.
BitPay frames the license as one more layer on an existing stack. The company already holds money transmitter licenses and other approvals in key jurisdictions, and MiCA extends that same compliance-first posture into the EU’s newest, most demanding crypto rulebook. The same post-deadline sorting is playing out across exchanges and payment processors alike, as each either holds a genuine CASP license or loses its passporting rights. For merchants deciding which payment processor to trust with stablecoin settlement, a MiCA license is becoming the baseline credential, not a differentiator.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
This authorization solves a market access problem, not a product problem. BitPay already supported crypto payments before the filing, but a single Dutch license now lets it sell that same service to merchants anywhere in the EU without separately licensing in Germany, France, or Spain. Payment processors that skip this step face a slower, country by country sales process while MiCA licensed rivals move faster.
The harder question is what happens to firms that never made that transitional deadline. Regulators built MiCA’s transitional windows to expire, and BitPay’s approval reads as one data point in a wider wave of post-deadline consolidation now sorting compliant crypto payment providers from the rest of the field.
