- Crypto firms can now apply to the FCA for authorisation. Those wanting to keep serving UK customers should apply by 28 February 2027.
- The regime they would be authorised under does not come into force until 25 October 2027.
- No firm has been authorised yet. An application window has opened, nothing has been granted.
The Financial Conduct Authority has opened its crypto authorisation gateway and called it a landmark moment for the UK. What has opened is an application process. The rules firms would eventually be authorised under take effect on 25 October 2027, and at the moment nobody holds a licence under them.
Nothing about your account changes this week. The date worth putting in a diary is 28 February 2027, when firms that intend to keep serving UK customers are expected to have applied. If a platform you use decides the paperwork is not worth it, that is roughly when you will find out, and you would then have until the following October to move your money somewhere else.
What the gateway does
Crypto businesses here have been registered rather than regulated. Registration under the money laundering rules checked whether a firm had controls to stop dirty money passing through it. It said nothing about whether customer coins were held separately from the company’s own, whether the firm had enough capital to survive a bad quarter, or how it handled complaints.
Authorisation is the broader thing banks and brokers hold. Under the new regime, firms will be assessed against FCA standards covering consumer protection, safeguarding of customer assets, market integrity and financial resilience. The regulator published its final rules and guidance in June 2026, and has been running webinars and pre-application meetings since.
“The UK’s new crypto regime will give consumers greater protections and firms a clear framework to operate in. Firms can now apply for authorisation and start preparing for regulation,” said Dominic Cashman, the FCA’s director of authorisation, in the press release announcing the opening. That is the regulator describing its own announcement, so read it as framing rather than as a result.
Applying is not being approved
The FCA is explicit that authorisation is not automatic. Firms that cannot demonstrate the required standards will not be authorised, and will not be able to go on offering regulated cryptoasset services in the UK.
One detail in the release shapes the next year. An existing firm that applies during the window can carry on providing services while the FCA assesses it, including taking on new customers, as long as no decision has been reached before the regime takes effect. That is the normal way these transitions are handled. It also means a firm that eventually fails the test can keep signing people up in the meantime, and that “we have applied for FCA authorisation” will start turning up in marketing long before anyone has passed.
The release does not say how many firms have applied, how many are expected to, or how many the FCA thinks will clear the bar. None of that is public yet.
What authorisation does not cover
Price risk stays entirely with you. The FCA’s standing position is that cryptoassets are high risk and that people should be prepared to lose all the money they put in, and nothing about authorisation changes what happens when a coin falls. Regulation governs how a firm behaves, not how an asset performs.
This week’s announcement also says nothing about compensation. Crypto holdings have sat outside the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and the release does not set out what access, if any, customers of authorised crypto firms will have to the FSCS or the Financial Ombudsman Service. That detail sits in the June rulebook rather than in the press release, and it is the first thing worth checking before anyone describes a crypto account as protected.
The broader claim in the release, that the UK is moving towards being “one of the most trusted places in the world to build and invest in cryptoasset businesses”, is the FCA’s stated ambition. There is no comparative measure behind it, and no authorised firm yet to test it against.
The powers the FCA already has
While the new regime waits, the existing one is being used. Southwark Crown Court ordered confiscation from two men behind a £1.5m crypto investment fraud at a hearing on 28 September, returning money to victims, and the FCA has run further operations with HMRC and the Metropolitan Police against illegal peer-to-peer crypto trading across London. Enforcement against unregistered activity is not waiting for October 2027.
What to watch
Whether the platforms you actually use confirm publicly that they are applying. Some will say so quickly because it is good marketing; the ones that stay quiet through the winter are the ones to ask directly.
Then the first authorisations. Until a name appears on the register under the new regime, the only thing that has been demonstrated is that a form exists. For how we have covered the run-up to this, see our policy coverage, and if you are thinking about holding coins yourself rather than on a platform, our self-custody guide sets out the trade-offs.