Binance has told customers in several European countries to withdraw their cryptocurrency before their accounts are closed at the end of the year. The world’s largest crypto exchange has blocked new deposits for the affected customers, and from November 29 it will start charging a monthly fee on whatever crypto is left in those accounts. The accounts are scheduled to close on December 31, 2026, leaving the customers caught up in the move with less than two months to move their money.
The notices have gone to customers in France, Spain, Italy and Poland, according to emails shared by users and reports by CoinDesk. Those are the countries where Binance previously ran locally registered businesses, and they are the first places where the exchange is now winding down its operations. Customers elsewhere in Europe have not received the same notices, and Binance has not published a full list of the countries or account types affected.
For the customers who have been contacted, the message is clear. New deposits are already blocked, but withdrawals of existing cryptocurrency and fiat balances remain available, and the exchange says there is no sudden freeze on anyone’s money. The problem for anyone who leaves funds sitting in an account is the fee that starts on November 29: 0.025 percent of the remaining cryptocurrency balance each month, or 10 USDC, whichever is higher, with the first deduction taken within three days of November 29 and a second charge after December 24. The fee will be taken from a customer’s USDC holdings first, then from other crypto.
The 10 USDC minimum is the part that will hurt small savers most. Anyone holding less than roughly 40,000 USDC in an affected account will pay the flat minimum rather than the percentage charge, and accounts holding less than the fee itself will have their entire balance taken. For a customer with a few hundred dollars of crypto left in an account they had forgotten about, the monthly charge could wipe out the balance before the closure date even arrives.
Binance says the restrictions follow the end of the transition period under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA. A spokesperson told CoinDesk that the company is progressively restricting certain services for affected users, and that the affected accounts will be closed with effect from December 31, 2026, describing the wind-down as a carefully managed process. The company also says it remains committed to securing European regulatory approval, and that customers’ assets remain accessible throughout.
MiCA is the EU’s single rulebook for crypto, formally Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, and it replaced a patchwork of national regimes with one licence that can be passported across all 27 member states. Its rules for crypto-asset service providers began to apply on December 30, 2024, and firms already operating under national law were given up to 18 months to obtain authorisation. That transition period ended on July 1, 2026, and since then any firm that wants to offer crypto services to clients in the EU needs authorisation from a national regulator.
Binance does not have that authorisation. It withdrew its application for a MiCA licence in Greece on June 24, 2026, and said it would seek approval in another member state, which it has not named. It still does not appear in the European regulator’s register, and its registration in France, held since May 2022, lapsed automatically on July 2, 2026. Binance first contacted users in the four countries in June, and the latest emails turn that warning into a fixed timetable.
Binance is the most prominent firm caught out by the deadline, but it is far from the only one. An independent tracker counted 17 of the world’s 100 largest exchanges holding a MiCA licence on October 26, 2026, including Coinbase in Luxembourg, Kraken in Ireland, and OKX, Crypto.com and Gemini in Malta. The firms that moved early can now serve the whole bloc on a single licence.
For customers, the advice from regulators is simple, and it applies well beyond this one exchange: check whether a platform appears on the European regulator’s public register before sending it more money. Customers of the affected Binance accounts have three options before the deadline: withdraw their crypto to a wallet they control themselves, move it to an exchange that holds a MiCA licence, or convert it to fiat currency and withdraw it to a bank account. Waiting until the last week of December risks withdrawal delays.
The closure is not the end of Binance in Europe, and it is not a shutdown of the exchange worldwide. The company still serves customers in many countries outside the EU, and it says it intends to return to the European market with a licence. But the episode shows how quickly a regulatory deadline can reach ordinary customers. The European Commission opened a review of MiCA in May 2026, but nothing in that review pauses the rules already in force. For the customers affected, the timetable is fixed, the fees are fixed, and the only choice left is where their crypto goes before the accounts close.
