Malta grants MiCA CASP authorisation under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Act, Cap. 647, through the Malta Financial Services Authority, a single competent authority that has supervised crypto since the 2018 VFA regime. Legacy VFA licence holders convert through a fast-track route, and Malta granted one of the EU's first full CASP licences, to Crypto.com, in January 2025. OKX, Gemini, Gate and Blockchain.com followed, and the authorised population had reached the high teens by July 2026, strong per-capita throughput built largely on VFA conversions. ESMA's peer review of 10 July 2025 criticised the MFSA's authorisation of one CASP, and scrutiny has tightened since; the transition window closed on 1 July 2026.
The regime is mature rather than light-touch. LicenceMap places Malta in the middle of its difficulty scale: published fees, a well-documented process, a deep local ecosystem and faster conversions, set against a hard substance gate and heightened post-review scrutiny of governance, ICT and DORA arrangements.
Capital follows the MiCA class-based minimums, scaling by class, and must be fully paid up before authorisation. Application fees are scaled by class, with a transition discount for VFA converters that ran to July 2026, and professional and set-up work is the larger part of the all-in cost. The annual supervisory fee combines a class-based base, a per-service charge and a capped share of transaction volume, alongside audit, MLRO cover, custody and IT audits and the periodic CASP return. Malta sits among the quicker routes for a prepared file, with conversions faster still; substance must be demonstrable at submission.
That substance gate means genuine mind and management in Malta: at least two resident executive directors, local compliance, MLRO and risk functions, a local office and audited accounts. Thin, paper entities are rejected, and crypto banking-access friction persists. The authorisation passports across the EU and EEA by notification.