--- title: "Lithuania vs Cyprus: CASP authorisation compared" description: "Cyprus holds 25 CASP authorisations against Lithuania's four, and 96% of them may hold client assets. The register shows where Europe's retail trading platforms went." url: https://unbui.lt/services/mica-casp-licence/lithuania-vs-cyprus/ lang: en-GB updated: 2026-09-15 --- [Home](/) / [Services](/services/mica-casp-licence/) / Lithuania vs Cyprus Jurisdiction comparison # Lithuania vs Cyprus: CASP authorisation compared Cyprus is where Europe's retail trading platforms took their crypto permissions. The register reads like a list of the apps on a retail investor's phone. Cyprus came into MiCA with a large population of investment firms already serving retail clients across the Union, and a regulator used to supervising them. Its crypto register is a continuation of that rather than a new industry, which is what separates it from both Lithuania and Malta. Read off each regulator's own pages: Bank of Lithuania on 2026-09-11, Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) on 2026-09-15. Cells marked _not located_ are fields the regulator does not publish, or that were not found; no figure has been carried over from a secondary source. | Criterion | Lithuania | Cyprus | | --- | --- | --- | | Regulator | Bank of Lithuania | Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) | | Legal framework | MiCA, with Lithuanian implementing law | MiCA. CySEC ran a national crypto-asset services provider register under AML law before it. | | Old regime transitional period | Ended 31 December 2025 | 18 months from 30 December 2024, the longest MiCA allows. Reported to ESMA by the national authority. | | Application fee | Not located on the regulator’s pages. Consultancy sites circulate a figure; no Lithuanian instrument found to support it. | Not read. The CySEC pages served navigation rather than content. | | Supervisory fee | Not located on the regulator’s pages. | Not read, for the same reason. | | Language of application | Not stated on the pages read. | Not read, for the same reason. | | How it is submitted | Not stated on the pages read. | Not read, for the same reason. | | Pre-application support | No published pre-application stage found on the pages read. | Not read, for the same reason. | | Completeness check | 25 working days (MiCA Article 63(2)) | 25 working days (MiCA Article 63(2)) | | Decision period | 40 working days from a complete application (MiCA Article 63(9)) | 40 working days from a complete application (MiCA Article 63(9)) | | Clock suspension | Up to 20 working days (MiCA Article 63(12)) | Up to 20 working days (MiCA Article 63(12)) | | Domestic authorisations granted | Four Article 63 authorisations, plus two entities providing services under Article 60(4): six entries in the ESMA register | 25 in the ESMA register, all under Article 63. Fourth largest in the EEA. | ## What is identical, because MiCA harmonises it The service list, the Annex IV capital classes, the Article 67 fixed-overheads test, the application contents, the establishment conditions, the governance requirements, the refusal grounds and the passporting mechanism are the same in both. [The full list, stated once](/services/mica-casp-licence/#harmonised). ## What actually differs ### Who is actually authorised there Counted from the ESMA register, 96% of Cypriot CASPs hold a custody permission, 88% may execute orders and 80% may exchange crypto-assets for funds. Those are full-stack retail trading operations, and the names say the same thing: - eToro (Europe) Ltd - Trading 212 Markets Ltd - Revolut Digital Assets (Europe) Ltd - XTB Limited - Stratos Europe Ltd - Collect & Exchange CY Ltd Compare that with Germany, where 69% may execute orders but only 18% may hold client assets. Cyprus and Germany have taken almost opposite shares of the same regulation. [The German pattern](/services/mica-casp-licence/lithuania-vs-germany/). ### Lithuania is custody-first but tiny Every Lithuanian CASP holds a custody permission, which on that one measure puts it closer to Cyprus than Germany. The difference is scale: six entries against 25, and four Article 63 authorisations against 25. On trading platforms both are thin, two in Cyprus and none in Lithuania. ### Cyprus took the full transitional period, Lithuania did not Cyprus reported 18 months to ESMA and Lithuania 12, from 30 December 2024. Existing Cypriot firms therefore had until the middle of 2026 to convert, six months longer than their Lithuanian counterparts. That shaped how many made it across, and it is part of why the register looks the way it does. ## Who Lithuania suits better - Firms that are not retail trading platforms and would rather not be supervised inside a population that mostly is. - Applicants already connected to Lithuania through payments or e-money supervision. - Businesses weighing operating costs against a larger and more competitive Cypriot services market. ## Who Cyprus suits better - Retail brokerages adding crypto to an existing multi-asset offering, which is the model CySEC has supervised for years. - Firms that already hold a Cypriot investment firm licence, where the authority and much of the documentation are already in place. - Applicants who want visible peers: being authorised alongside eToro and Trading 212 carries weight with banking partners in a way that is hard to quantify and easy to observe. ## The full cost of entry, not the capital figure Capital is identical under Annex IV. Cypriot fees are not stated here because the CySEC pages served navigation rather than content, and this site does not publish a regulatory fee it has not read. What can be said is that Cyprus has a deep local market in compliance and legal services for investment firms, which tends to reduce the cost of assembling a file and raise the cost of standing out in the queue. ### Limits of this check - **CySEC pages: fragment only.** The crypto entity pages returned navigation markup rather than readable content, so no Cypriot fee, language, submission channel or pre-application process is stated here. - **ESMA register: full text**, read 15 September 2026, file last updated 31 August 2026. Every percentage above is counted from it. - Characterising the Cypriot population as retail trading platforms is an inference from permissions and entity names, not a statement by CySEC. - The remark about the local services market is our assessment and carries no figure. ## Primary sources - Read 2026-09-11 [Bank of Lithuania: transitional period ends 31 December 2025](https://www.lb.lt/en/news/lietuvos-bankas-investors-should-find-out-if-their-crypto-asset-service-provider-intends-to-be-licensed-and-continue-its-business) - Read 2026-09-11 [Bank of Lithuania: fourth CASP authorisation granted](https://www.lb.lt/en/news/an-authorisation-of-a-crypto-asset-service-provider-granted-to-micar-assets-uab) - Read 2026-09-15 · full text [ESMA: interim MiCA register of crypto-asset service providers (CASPS.csv, last updated 31 August 2026)](https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-12/CASPS.csv) - Read 2026-09-15 · full text [ESMA: list of grandfathering periods decided by Member States under Article 143(3)](https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-12/List_of_MiCA_grandfathering_periods_art._143_3.pdf) - Read 2026-09-15 · fragment [CySEC: Crypto-Assets Entities (MiCAR)](https://www.cysec.gov.cy/en-GB/entities/Crypto-Assets-Entities-\(MiCAR\)/) ## Questions ### How many CASPs are authorised in Cyprus? The ESMA register listed 25 entries with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission as competent authority when it was read on 15 September 2026, all of them authorisations under Article 63. That makes Cyprus the fourth largest home state in the European Economic Area, behind Germany, France and the Netherlands. ### What kind of firms hold a Cypriot CASP authorisation? Overwhelmingly retail trading platforms. eToro, Trading 212, XTB and Revolut Digital Assets all sit in the Cypriot register, which reflects the island’s existing population of investment firms serving retail clients across Europe. Ninety-six per cent hold a custody permission and eighty per cent may exchange crypto-assets for funds, so these are full-stack trading operations rather than order routers. ### Is Cyprus faster than Lithuania for a CASP licence? The statutory timetable is identical, because MiCA sets it: 25 working days to check completeness and 40 working days to decide on a complete application. Cyprus took a longer transitional period, 18 months against Lithuania’s 12, but that governed how long existing firms could continue under national law, not how quickly a new application is assessed. ### Does a Cypriot authorisation cover the rest of the EU? Yes, on the same terms as any other. Article 65 passporting works by notification from the home authority, and Article 59(7) removes any requirement for a physical presence in a host Member State. A Cypriot and a Lithuanian authorisation reach exactly the same markets. Readiness assessment ## Choosing a home state We compare your target markets, services, management structure, substance plan and regulatory dependencies before recommending where to apply. [How an engagement starts](/services/mica-casp-licence/). [Request an assessment](/assessment/) [Check your licensing scope first](/requirements/service-classes/) Enquiries go by email for now. Nothing on this site collects your details, and [the assessment page](/assessment/) sets out what to include. Regulatory references on this page were read against the primary text on 15 September 2026. Every figure is held in the [source register](/sources/) with the document it came from.