MiCA in France

The AMF decides on applications for authorization under Article 63 of MiCA and receives the notifications that banks and investment firms file under Article 60. Banking and payment supervision sits with the ACPR, the authority inside the Banque de France, so a firm that combines crypto services with payment services deals with both supervisors. Before MiCA applied, the AMF aligned the PSAN requirements with the CASP rules, which gave registered firms a shorter route to the authorization.

France reported an 18-month transitional period under Article 143(3), the longest that MiCA allows, as the ESMA list of grandfathering periods shows. A firm registered as PSAN before 30 December 2024 could therefore keep serving French clients until 1 July 2026, or until the AMF decided on its application. When the period ended, the AMF counted 31 authorized providers out of 283 across the EU.

Firms without an authorization had to wind down their French business, give their clients notice and move client assets to an authorized provider or to a self-hosted wallet. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands chose a shorter MiCA transitional period than France did.

The ESMA interim register of 18 October 2026 lists 36 crypto-asset service providers with France as home member state. The entries range from banks and asset managers to crypto platforms, and CACEIS Bank appears with custody, order transmission and transfer services since June 2025. Société Générale-FORGE followed in October 2025 for custody and transfers, which it may passport into 29 countries.

Circle Internet Financial Europe holds a French authorization for custody and transfers, as do SwissBorg, a crypto investment app, and Meria, a platform for staking and trading. Coinhouse, Paymium and the market makers Keyrock and Flowdesk are further names in the French part of the register. Bpifrance Investissement, the investment arm of the French public bank, is registered for advice on crypto-assets in France only.

Finance Loop connects compliance and digital asset teams in Germany with the people who work on the French market. Finance Loop partnered with Finteda for AI in Finance Paris, an expert meetup in Puteaux near La Défense. At the Bybit EU Crypto Evening in Frankfurt, Mykolas Majauskas, Senior Director of Policy, spoke about compliance under MiCAR. Finance Loop also lists the MiCAR certificate program that EBS Executive School runs with the law firm HEUKING.

The AMF publishes white lists that name every crypto-asset service provider authorized in France, with its category, the authorization date and the services it may offer. The lists can be downloaded as CSV or PDF files, and the ESMA register covers providers from other member states that serve French clients.

A firm applies to the AMF for authorization under Article 63 and has to show its governance, own funds, custody arrangements and controls against money laundering. Banks, investment firms and e-money institutions with a French license can notify the AMF under Article 60 instead of applying for a new authorization. The requirements for a CASP license are the same in every member state.

The French transitional period ended on 1 July 2026, after the full 18 months that MiCA allows for firms registered under national law. A PSAN registration alone no longer permits crypto services in France, and the AMF now follows how firms without an authorization wind down.

The AMF agrément is the authorization under Article 63 of MiCA, and its register entry names each crypto-asset service the firm may provide. Meria, for example, holds an agrément for custody, exchange for funds, order execution, advice, portfolio management and transfers, which it may offer in eight countries.

The duties of a crypto platform in France come from Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 itself, while French law adds the powers of the AMF and the sanctions. A platform authorized in another member state may serve French clients once its home authority has passed the cross-border notification to the AMF.