The deadline is real and the consequences are serious. France’s top financial markets regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, has issued a direct warning to crypto companies operating in Europe: obtain a MiCA licence by June 30 or face blacklisting, enforcement action, and potential prosecution.
The warning, delivered by AMF president Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani at a press briefing Thursday and first reported by Reuters, signals that Europe’s patience with unlicensed crypto operators has officially run out.
“It’s becoming very, very urgent to finalise the licence applications,” Barbat-Layani told journalists — language that is unusually direct for a financial regulator and reflects the genuine urgency of the approaching deadline.
What MiCA Actually Requires
For anyone unfamiliar with the regulatory framework at the center of this story, MiCA — the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation — is the European Union’s comprehensive rulebook for the digital asset industry. Agreed in 2023 and now in full enforcement, it brings regulatory oversight to crypto operations across all 27 EU member states, covering exchanges, trading platforms, wallet providers, stablecoin issuers, and any entity operating as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider.
The framework works through a passport system. A crypto company applies for a licence from the regulator in a single EU country — France, Germany, Lithuania, Malta, or any other member state — and that licence grants the right to operate across the entire 27-nation bloc without requiring separate approvals in each country. It is the same passporting model that has governed traditional financial services in Europe for decades, now extended to crypto.
The June 30 deadline applies to all companies currently operating without a full MiCA authorization. Those that miss it face two consequences: placement on regulatory blacklists that will be shared across EU member states, and enforcement action — including prosecution — if they continue seeking European customers without authorization.
117 Registered Companies, an Uncertain Migration Path
France currently has 117 crypto companies registered with the AMF under the legacy PSAN framework — Digital Asset Service Providers operating under the pre-MiCA registration system that has governed the French market until now. Those 117 firms are legal today. After June 30, their legal status changes unless they have completed the migration to full MiCA authorization.
The AMF has been clear that legacy registration does not automatically transfer to MiCA licensing. Companies must actively apply, meet the new framework’s requirements — including capital requirements, governance standards, custody rules, and stablecoin reserve obligations — and receive explicit authorization. The process takes time, and with five weeks remaining, any company that has not already begun the application process is in serious trouble.
European regulators have already been warning since earlier this year that companies without licences need orderly wind-down plans in place for their European customer relationships. The AMF’s Thursday warning escalates that language from advisory to explicit threat.
France’s Willingness to Block Passporting
One of the more significant elements of Barbat-Layani’s statement involves France’s position on the passporting system itself. She reiterated that France is prepared to block the passporting of licences granted by other EU countries if it disagrees with those licensing decisions — a stance France first made public in September 2025.
The context for that position is Malta. Last year, European regulators became concerned about the speed and standards applied to crypto licence approvals in Malta, with the European Securities and Markets Authority scrutinising the process publicly. If a company obtains a MiCA licence in Malta and then attempts to passport that authorization into France, the AMF has indicated it reserves the right to block that passport if it believes the original licence was granted under insufficient scrutiny.
Barbat-Layani acknowledged that exercising that right would represent a “serious collective failure” for the EU’s single market framework — but the fact that France has made the position public suggests it is a genuine option rather than a negotiating posture.
The Contrast With the U.S. Regulatory Direction
The AMF’s enforcement push lands at a moment when the regulatory directions of Europe and the United States could not be more divergent. While the EU is tightening crypto oversight, imposing licensing requirements, and threatening prosecution for unlicensed operators, the Trump administration has been systematically reducing regulatory friction for the crypto industry — dropping enforcement actions, clarifying that most tokens are not securities, and advancing legislation like the CLARITY Act that gives the industry the legal certainty it has sought for years.
For crypto companies making strategic decisions about where to operate and incorporate, that divergence creates a clear choice. The U.S. is becoming more accessible. Europe is becoming more demanding. Companies that want to serve European customers face a genuine compliance burden that their U.S.-facing counterparts do not.
What Happens After June 30
The practical consequences of the deadline are likely to play out over several months rather than overnight. Blacklisting means that unlicensed companies will be publicly identified as unauthorized operators — a reputational and commercial problem that will affect their ability to partner with banks, payment processors, and institutional counterparties across Europe.
Prosecution is a longer-term consequence that requires investigation, evidence, and legal process. But the AMF’s willingness to name it publicly as a potential outcome signals that France intends to treat unlicensed crypto operation as a serious legal violation rather than a regulatory technicality.
For the 117 currently registered companies and the broader European crypto industry, June 30 is not an abstract deadline. It is the date on which the regulatory environment they have been operating in formally ends.