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Austria’s financial regulator has banned KuCoin EU from onboarding new customers or launching new products, just three months after granting the Vienna-based exchange its MiCA licence, after finding that the platform had eliminated all of its legally required money laundering and sanctions compliance officers.
The Financial Market Authority issued the prohibition order on February 19, 2026. The finding was direct: KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH no longer employs the legally mandated anti-money laundering officers, sanctions officers, or their respective deputies. Under European law, those roles are not optional. Without them, the licence is effectively void.
The ban does not revoke the CASP authorisation KuCoin EU received on November 27, 2025. It does something arguably more damaging to a growth-stage platform: it freezes the user acquisition pipeline entirely until lawful compliance is restored.
The regulatory freeze lands with particular force given what preceded it. At the end of January 2026, weeks before the FMA acted, KuCoin hosted a lavish VIP Gala at Vienna’s Spanish Riding School, one of the city’s most recognisable institutions, to celebrate its European launch.
The evening came with a high-profile announcement: a sponsorship partnership with Tadej Pogačar, the two-time Tour de France champion and one of the most recognisable athletes in European sport.
The message was deliberately grand. KuCoin EU was not just entering Europe, it was arriving.
Beneath the press releases and the cycling jerseys, the operational infrastructure was already failing. By February 4, the platform had suspended trading and deposit services, citing system stability issues. The FMA’s prohibition order revealed that the instability was not in the servers.
The day after the FMA prohibition became public, KuCoin EU issued a press release announcing the expansion of its local compliance and governance team in Austria, framing the emergency scramble to fill legally mandated positions as a proactive commitment to responsible and regulated growth.
The FMA’s response to that framing was implicit and unambiguous: the prohibition order remains in effect until lawful compliance is actually restored, not announced.
“You cannot just buy a licence. You have to staff it — every day, with qualified people, or regulators will shut the door.” European compliance analyst, speaking on background
KuCoin EU’s situation is a case study in the operational reality that dozens of international platforms are currently underestimating as they race to secure a MiCA passport before the regulatory deadline in mid-2026.
Obtaining a CASP licence under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation requires demonstrating robust compliance structures to the relevant national authority. What KuCoin EU’s experience now demonstrates is that the demonstration must be continuous, not one-time.
If a key compliance officer resigns and no qualified deputy is in place, the entire user acquisition pipeline can be suspended by the state on a few weeks’ notice.
For years, offshore exchanges operated on the assumption that compliance was a checkbox something to be managed with skeleton crews while resources concentrated on marketing, token listings, and user growth.
European regulators are now systematically dismantling that assumption. The FMA did not fine KuCoin EU. It did not issue a warning. It turned off new customer access and made the conditions for restoration explicit.
The cost of operating in Europe under MiCA is not the legal fee to secure the initial licence. It is the permanent, recurring expense of maintaining a fully staffed compliance infrastructure, AML officers, sanctions specialists, qualified deputies for each, with no gaps permitted. Exchanges that planned their European budgets around a one-time licensing cost are facing an uncomfortable recalculation.
KuCoin EU has not had its licence revoked and the pathway to resuming full operations remains open, provided it fills the mandated compliance roles and satisfies the FMA that those positions are genuinely operational, not populated with names on a contract.
How quickly that can be achieved, and what it signals to prospective European customers already watching the platform closely, remains to be seen.
For the broader European crypto market, the message from Vienna is already being read. The exchanges currently filing MiCA applications are now on notice that the FMA and by implication other national competent authorities across the EU, is actively monitoring post-authorisation compliance, not just pre-authorisation paperwork. Getting the licence is not the finish line. In Europe in 2026, it is the starting gun.
