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MiCA · transitional period · Spain

The eighteen months are over, and there is nothing behind them.

Spain took the longest transitional period MiCA allowed, and it ended on 1 July 2026. Firms that relied on the old Banco de España registration have had no legal basis to operate since that date — not a grace period, not a pending-application shelter. This page sets out what the transitional regime actually covered, who could use it, and what the options are now that it has closed.

Were you covered? ↗ Scope an application ↗
Transitional period
18
Months, the maximum article 143(3) allowed. Six member states chose six.
It ended
1 Jul
2026. No extension was granted and none is expected.
Authorised after it closed
21
Entries in the CNMV register carry a start date later than the deadline.

MiCA has applied to crypto-asset service providers since 30 December 2024. Article 143(3) let each member state allow firms that were already providing services under national law to carry on for a further period, up to eighteen months, while they applied for authorisation. Spain took the full eighteen. That is the whole of the transitional regime: a permission to keep doing what you were already doing, for a fixed time, and nothing more.

30 December 2024
MiCA starts applying, and the Spanish register closes to newcomers

From this date no new entity could be entered on the Banco de España virtual-currency register. It was not abolished — it remains published for information — but it stopped being a route in. Anyone not on it by this date had no transitional regime to rely on at all.

Through 2025 and the first half of 2026
The window: keep trading, file the application

Firms on the register at 30 December 2024 could continue providing the same services they were already providing, without a MiCA authorisation. The scope limit matters and is widely missed: the transitional regime protected the existing activity, not an expanded one.

1 July 2026
The cliff

The period ended. From this date only entities authorised by the CNMV, or authorised elsewhere in the EEA and passported in, may provide crypto-asset services in Spain. The regime also ended earlier for any firm whose application was refused, whichever came first.

Now
There is no intermediate status

A pending application is not a basis to operate. Neither is an entry on the old Banco de España list. A firm still serving Spanish clients without an authorisation is doing so without a licence, and that is a supervisory and criminal-law question rather than an administrative one.

Three questions
Were you inside the transitional regime, and does it help you now?

This reproduces the structure of the CNMV criteria. It is a reading aid, not advice on your situation.

1. Were you providing crypto-asset services to clients before 30 December 2024?

2. Which services? The old Spanish register covered only exchange of virtual currency for fiat and custody of electronic wallets.

3. Do you hold a MiCA authorisation today, from the CNMV or another EEA authority?

Three things the transitional regime was not

  • It was not a passport. The old Banco de España registration had no cross-border effect whatsoever. It existed for anti-money-laundering supervision under Ley 10/2010, not for market access, and a firm relying on it could serve Spain and nowhere else.
  • It was not a licence in waiting. Being on the register gave no priority in the authorisation queue and no presumption that a file would be approved. The CNMV assesses a MiCA application on its own terms.
  • It was not scope-neutral. It protected the services you were actually providing. A registered exchange that wanted to add custody, or a custodian that wanted to run a trading platform, needed authorisation for the new service before starting it — during the transitional period, not after.
Where the competence sits, which surprises people

The CNMV is not the only Spanish regulator in MiCA. It supervises Title II, the crypto-asset service providers. Issuance of asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens falls under Titles III and IV, and in Spain those sit with the Banco de España. A stablecoin project therefore has a different regulator from an exchange, and a firm that both issues a token and provides services on it is dealing with both.

What the options actually are now

01
Apply to the CNMVThe right answer if Spain is where the firm and its people are. The register shows a regulator that returns thin files rather than curing them, so the timetable is set by the quality of the file, not the queue.
02
Licence elsewhere and passport backWhat 162 entities in the register did. It is entirely legitimate, but it means the substance of the firm has to be somewhere else, which is a business decision before it is a regulatory one.
03
Buy an authorised entityFastest on paper and slowest in diligence. A change of control in an authorised CASP is itself subject to assessment, so this is not a way around the regulator.
Frequently asked
Is there any chance the deadline gets extended?
The date came from article 143(3) of MiCA and the Spanish decision to take the full eighteen months, notified to the Commission and ESMA in 2024. It passed on 1 July 2026 without extension. Treating a further extension as likely is not a plan, and the CNMV register shows firms being authorised after the date rather than being waved through.
Can I keep serving existing clients while my application is pending?
Not on the basis of the transitional regime, which ended on 1 July 2026 regardless of whether an application is pending. What a firm in that position can lawfully continue to do, if anything, depends on the specific services and on facts a page cannot assess. This is the single most common question we get on MiCA and the one that most needs advice rather than an article.
I am only providing advice on crypto, not touching client assets. Was I in scope?
Advice on crypto-assets is one of the ten MiCA services, so yes, it requires authorisation. It was never covered by the old Banco de España register, which only ran to exchange for fiat and wallet custody. The CNMV accepted that firms effectively providing such services before MiCA applied could rely on the transitional regime for them, and that has now expired like the rest of it.
Does the old register still appear anywhere?
Yes. The Banco de España keeps publishing it for information, which is why firms occasionally still cite it. No entry on it confers any right to provide services after 1 July 2026.
Who is actually licensed in Spain ↗ Why firms licence elsewhere ↗ The ten services and what each costs ↗ CASP authorisation, scoped ↗
Position as at September 2026. The transitional regime is that in article 143(3) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 as applied in Spain for eighteen months, per the list of grandfathering periods notified by member states and published by ESMA. The scope limits and the treatment of services outside the Banco de España register follow the CNMV questions and answers on MiCA. The competence split between the CNMV for Title II and the Banco de España for Titles III and IV is as published by both authorities. The three-question tool reproduces that structure and is not an assessment of any firm. General information, not legal advice.

The window closed on 1 July. What is left is a file, a jurisdiction, or a purchase.

Scope the application ↗
Fixed scope and fee before work starts
About the author
AB

Alexander Baranov

Founder, Voixa Consultors · International corporate structuring since 2008

Seventeen years designing and delivering cross-border corporate structures — incorporation, tax, holding, banking and market entry — for founders and companies expanding into Spain and the EU. Author of professional books on entering the Spanish market.

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Market Entry to Spain book cover
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Market Entry to Spain Strategy, corporate structure, tax and growth — the long-form treatment of the decisions covered here.
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