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Austria Curated

DeFi Intel Research Desk2026-07-14Europe

ISO 3166-1AT
RegionEurope
CapitalVienna
Population9M
GDP rank (global)#30
Profile depthCurated

Yes — cryptocurrency is legal in Austria. Current status: Legal — MiCA fully operational, 10 home-state CASPs. Oversight sits with Finanzmarktaufsicht (FMA) — sole MiCA competent authority. Full details — governing law, licensing, tax and dated enforcement history — follow below (last reviewed 2026-07-14).

Legal status

Legal — MiCA fully operational, 10 home-state CASPs

Primary regulator

Finanzmarktaufsicht (FMA) — sole MiCA competent authority

Stablecoin status

Allowed — MiCA EMT/ART rules apply directly

Framework: MiCA (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114) + MiCAR Enforcement Act (MiCA-VVG, in force 20 July 2024); Financial Markets Anti-Money Laundering Act (FM-GwG — the pre-MiCA VASP registration regime, now closed); Eco-Social Tax Reform Act 2022 (crypto tax, § 27b EStG).

Austria is one of the EU's most orderly MiCA implementations — the counter-example to the Polish deadlock. The national implementing statute, the MiCAR Enforcement Act (MiCA-Verordnung-Vollzugsgesetz, MiCA-VVG), was passed by the Nationalrat on 3 July 2024 and entered into force on 20 July 2024, designating the Financial Market Authority (FMA) as Austria's single competent authority under Article 93(1) MiCA for both crypto-asset issuers and service providers. The FMA opened its CASP authorisation window early — accepting applications from 1 October 2024, three months before MiCA's CASP titles began applying on 30 December 2024 — and published a roadmap plus a detailed information document for applicants.

Austria also ran one of the bloc's shorter transitions. Because the prior FM-GwG registration regime covered only AML aspects — a narrower scope than MiCA — Austria cut the Article 143(3) grandfathering period to 12 months: VASPs registered with the FMA before 30 December 2024 could keep operating only until 31 December 2025, unless granted or refused a CASP authorisation earlier. Since 1 January 2026, only MiCA-authorised CASPs (Austrian or passported from other member states) may lawfully serve the Austrian market.

The pipeline has worked. Bitpanda GmbH received Austria's first CASP authorisation by FMA administrative decision dated 9 April 2025, and by July 2026 ten CASPs carried Austria as home member state in ESMA's register — including two global exchanges that picked Vienna as their EEA base: Bybit EU GmbH (authorised 28 May 2025, with a European headquarters in Vienna and plans to hire over 100 staff) and KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH (authorised 27 November 2025).

MiCA implementation and the FMA

The MiCA-VVG is executory machinery: it confers on the FMA the tasks and powers of a competent authority under Article 93(1) MiCA and charges it with monitoring compliance with both the federal act and the EU regulation directly. The FMA supervises CASPs, issuers of asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens, and offerors of other crypto-assets, and its authorisation practice is documented in a published Information Document on Authorisation Procedures. An Austrian CASP authorisation passports across the EEA — Bybit's Austrian licence, for example, lets it offer regulated crypto services in 29 EEA countries.

The register mix is notably diverse for a 9-million-person market: a home-grown retail champion (Bitpanda), two global exchanges' EEA hubs (Bybit, KuCoin), a bank-affiliated broker limited to order execution (DADAT Krypto), boutique brokers (Coinfinity, 21bitcoin/FIOR Digital, Cryptonow), an institutional asset manager (AMINA), and advice-only firms. Firms that stayed on the old FM-GwG register past 31 December 2025 without authorisation lost their lawful basis to operate.

Tax treatment

Austria was an early mover on crypto tax. The Eco-Social Tax Reform Act 2022 (Ökosoziales Steuerreformgesetz, published 15 December 2021) moved cryptocurrency holdings into income from capital assets with effect from 1 March 2022: current income and disposal gains are taxed at the special flat rate of 27.5% (§ 27a/§ 27b EStG) and do not count towards the progressive brackets applying to other income. The regime covers "new assets" — holdings acquired after 28 February 2021; the previous one-year holding exemption was abolished for them.

The design details matter in practice, per the Finance Ministry's official guidance: trading one cryptocurrency for another is not a disposal and is not taxed (acquisition costs carry over to the new asset); staking, airdrop, bounty and hardfork receipts are generally not taxed at receipt but are deemed acquired at zero cost, so the full value is taxed on later disposal; mining and lending interest are current income taxed at fair market value when received; and crypto profits and losses can be netted against other capital income such as dividends.

Travel rule applicability

Status: yes — EU Transfer of Funds Regulation, no minimum threshold. Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 has applied since 30 December 2024 and is directly applicable in Austria: crypto-asset service providers must attach complete, verified originator and beneficiary information to every crypto-asset transfer, with no de-minimis threshold, in line with the EBA's Travel Rule Guidelines applying from the same date. The FMA, as Austria's MiCA and AML supervisor for CASPs, oversees compliance.

Notable enforcement and regulatory events

Public licensed CASP list

Crypto-asset service providers authorised under MiCA with home member state Austria (competent authority: Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA)), per ESMA's consolidated CASP register:

Complete register list for Austria (10 entries). Source: ESMA interim MiCA register — authorised crypto-asset service providers, as of July 2026.

Comparison to neighbours

Compare Austria crypto regulation with three geographically adjacent jurisdictions:

Germany Switzerland Italy

Doing business in Austria — practical notes

New market entrants need either an FMA CASP authorisation or a passport from another EU home state; the FMA's published application documentation makes Austria one of the better-signposted venues in the bloc, and its track record — ten authorisations granted between April 2025 and June 2026, including two global exchanges' EEA hubs — shows applications actually clear. The old FM-GwG VASP registration has been worthless as an operating basis since 31 December 2025, so counterparty diligence on Austrian firms should check ESMA's register, not the legacy AML register. On tax, Austria is predictable but not cheap for long-term holders: the 27.5% flat rate applies with no holding-period exemption, though tax-neutral crypto-to-crypto swaps and loss-netting against other capital income soften the edges for active traders. Note the zero-cost-basis rule on staking and airdrop receipts — the entire value, not just appreciation, is taxed at disposal. A previous version of this profile listed a 2024 FMA AML fine against Bitpanda; we could not verify that action against any primary or reliable secondary source and have removed it.

Methodology and sources

This profile was researched and updated by DeFi Intel's research desk on 2026-07-14 from the primary and secondary sources listed below. Claims that could not be verified against a source are omitted or marked pending — we do not republish unverified third-party datasets. Submit corrections and primary-source links to research@defi-intel.com.

Sources

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Entities mentioned

Finanzmarktaufsicht