MiCA license by country: which authority authorises CASPs in the EU

A MiCA license is not granted by ESMA, and it is not granted by “Europe” as a single office. The national competent authority of the home member state grants it: the country of the legal entity that is authorised. ESMA collects what those authorities notify and publishes it in one file, CASPS.csv. This page says which authority that file names for the home states people look up most often, and it links each country’s page on this site. It is not the text of the authorisation. That text — the services, the LEI, and how to read a row — is in the MiCA licence guide.

The name below is the one the file uses, or the one this site already uses for the same office. The ae_competentAuthority cell on each row governs. If the cell says something else, cite the cell. A country code does not pick the office for you.

Home state and passport

Every authorised CASP has one home member state. That is the country of the authority that granted the authorisation. In the CSV the column is ae_homeMemberState. The authority of that decision is ae_competentAuthority. The passport is a different fact. Once authorised at home, the firm may provide, in other EEA states, the services it has notified. The passport does not create a second licence and it does not move the seat. A firm whose home state is Ireland, and which notifies Spain, still holds an Irish authorisation. On the Spain page it appears only in the block of firms that operate under the passport.

So “who authorises firms in my country?” has two readings, and they should not be mixed. The first is who grants authorisations whose home state is yours. The second is who may serve you with an authorisation granted somewhere else. A country page on this site keeps them apart: a home block and a passport block. The regulation is on EUR-Lex. The ESMA MiCA page describes the register; the CSV is the copy this project syncs.

A branch, a local company or a shared brand does not, by itself, create a home authorisation. If a website says it is “licensed in Spain”, find the legal entity and see whether Spain is the home member state or only a host country on someone else’s row. The home page is where you search the name. The profile repeats the LEI, the authority and the services on that row.

Home authorities

The table lists states that have their own page on this site, and the authority the ESMA file names on rows for that home state, under the name already used on the profiles. It is not a closed census of the Union. It does not include entity identifiers, and it does not judge whether a given brand is authorised: that is read from the row, and it changes. Live counts sit on each country page, not here.

Spain is the case this site crosses most often. Rows whose home state is ES name the CNMV, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores. The file spells it without the accent, “Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV)”. It is the same commission. The Spain page lists those firms and, separately, the firms that serve Spain under the passport. Checking a Spanish legal name against the CNMV itself is still the national step. The CSV is the European publication of what supervisors notify.

Germany names BaFin, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority. France names the AMF, the Autorité des marchés financiers. The Netherlands names the AFM, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets, which is the Autoriteit Financiële Markten. Austria names the FMA, the Austrian Financial Market Authority. Ireland names the Central Bank of Ireland. Luxembourg names the CSSF, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. Malta names the MFSA, the Malta Financial Services Authority. Cyprus names CySEC, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. Lithuania names the Bank of Lithuania; on this site that authority is Lietuvos bankas. In every case the exact phrase is in the cell, not in this paragraph.

Italy keeps the caveat already in the licence guide. In the copy of the file this site reads, rows whose home state is IT name CONSOB, the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa. The file drops some accents. Even so, do not infer the office from the code IT alone. A state can split the work across more than one authority, and a later row can name a different office. Cite the cell. The Italy page is the home cut, not an organisation chart.

What the brand’s country does not tell you

The country where you open the app is not the home member state. Many brands serve clients in Spain under an authorisation whose home state is Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Luxembourg or somewhere else, with Spain as a host country of the notified service. That is in order when the row exists and the service is notified. It does not make the CNMV the authority that granted the authorisation, and it does not make the company Spanish.

The reverse is also true. A company whose home state is Spain is authorised by the Spanish authority on its row, for the services on its rows, and it may have notified other countries. A Spanish seat does not mean every product on the website — derivatives, securities, payment accounts, e-money — falls under MiCA. Those products can sit in other regimes even when the firm is a CASP.

The transitional period is a third case, and it is not a home authorisation. A firm that was relying only on another state’s national window cannot, on that fact alone, serve clients in Spain. The transitional-period guide cites what the CNMV has published on that point and on the Spanish date. This page does not restate the calendar.

How to use a country page

1. Pick the home member state of the legal entity, not the country you are connecting from.
2. Open that country’s page. The first block is the firms whose ae_homeMemberState is that code. The authority that granted the authorisation is there.
3. If the brand is not in that block, look at the passport block. Being there means another authorisation, granted in another state, has notified that country as a host for one or more services.
4. Open the profile. Check the legal name, the LEI and the service codes. A code that is missing is not part of the notified authorisation.
5. If the seat is Spanish, repeat the legal name at the CNMV. If the seat is somewhere else, the authority on the row is the one to check, not the authority of the country where you live.

The MiCA alternatives page groups some brands that do have a profile, with the legal name, the LEI, the home member state, and whether Spain is home or host. It is an editorial selection. It is not ESMA’s list and it is not a ranking of authorities. The file remains the source, and it can move ahead of this site until the next sync.

If the home page, the CSV and the authority’s own register disagree, keep the disagreement. Look again at the legal entity, then at the office on the row. The country of the app is the least useful of the three facts.

Common questions