Binance will permanently halt all operations in France on December 31, 2026, after failing to secure a required European cryptocurrency licence.
The company told its French customers that its trading platform and digital asset services in the country will shut down completely at the end of the year, according to French broadcaster BFMTV.
Binance, which operates the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange and serves more than 300 million users worldwide, has instructed clients to withdraw all their tokens before the December deadline. The exchange warned that users who fail to pull their funds out in time risk losing direct control of their holdings.
French customers can no longer deposit funds onto the platform. In addition, Binance will begin imposing a monthly penalty fee of 0.025 percent on remaining account balances starting on November 29.
Account terms and conversion risks
In a message sent directly to French account holders, Binance warned that any account with remaining crypto assets after December 31 will be deemed inactive under its terms of service. The company stated that this classification could lead to the conversion, transfer, or other administrative processing of customer funds.
The exchange has been scaling back its French operations since July 1, when it stopped accepting new sign-ups. At the time, Binance began urging existing users to transfer their balances to another crypto exchange that holds an approved licence, or to transfer them into a cold wallet for self-custody.
Cold wallets are physical hardware devices that store cryptographic private keys completely offline. Unlike keeping money on a centralised exchange where the platform retains technical control, self-custody ensures that individual users have exclusive legal and cryptographic ownership of their private keys and digital currencies.
Stricter European licensing rules
The departure from the French market comes after Binance failed to obtain a licence under the European Union's landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA. The comprehensive regulatory regime became mandatory on July 1 for any company seeking to provide cryptocurrency services anywhere in Europe.
The new rules superseded previous national licensing regimes, including France's digital asset service provider framework known as PSAN, which Binance obtained in 2022. That earlier approval by the French financial regulator had made the country a central European hub for the exchange.
The European Union created the MiCA framework to establish uniform consumer protections, anti-money laundering controls, and strict capital reserve standards across all 27 member countries. The rules have drastically consolidated the European digital asset sector. By November, approximately 300 companies had secured MiCA authorization, down from roughly 5,000 firms that offered crypto services in Europe before the mandate took effect.
October cyberattack and FBI inquiry
Binance stressed in its notification that the decision to exit France is entirely unrelated to a major cyberattack suffered by the platform in late October. That security breach resulted in losses estimated at approximately 6.3 billion dollars.
Investigators at the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation suspect that state-sponsored hackers from North Korea were behind the multi-billion-dollar theft. Cybercrime analysts have repeatedly linked Pyongyang to sophisticated exploits targeting digital asset exchanges to bypass international financial sanctions.
