Latvia crypto license 2026 — Latvijas Banka CASP authorisation

Why Latvia's unified central-bank supervisor is distinctive

Latvia has an unusual supervisory architecture, and in October 2026 it had more CASP authorisations than any other Baltic state: 12 Latvijas Banka entries on ESMA's interim register, against six for Lithuania and three for Estonia. The 2023 merger of the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC) into Latvijas Banka, the Bank of Latvia, produced a single financial supervisor for banking, insurance, securities, and MiCA CASPs. That central-bank background informs governance expectations, since Latvijas Banka has experience supervising both small fintech and large banks.

Latvia's distinctive draws are the Estonia-style deferred corporate tax, the unified supervisor, and free pre-licensing consultations with Latvijas Banka. The trade-off is a smaller local adviser and vendor market than in the larger EU hubs.

What a Latvijas Banka file requires and how long it takes

A file needs a governance package sized for the planned business (management body, three lines of defence, independent compliance and internal audit for larger files), substance that meets MiCA Article 59(2) (registered office and place of effective management in the EU, with at least one director resident in the EU), an AML programme aligned with Latvia's post-ABLV financial-institution standards rather than a lighter pre-MiCA baseline, and ICT and operational resilience consistent with DORA. In practice advisers expect more substance than the legal floor: a Riga office and locally based management.

Advisers estimate six to eight months end-to-end for clean files, with smaller and simpler files finishing faster and larger Class 3 service sets nearer the upper end. The legal clock is 25 working days for Latvijas Banka's completeness check and 40 working days from confirmation of completeness to a decision. Latvijas Banka charges €2,500 to review an application and, once a firm is authorised, a supervision fee of up to 0.6% of annual gross income from crypto-asset services, with a minimum of €3,000 a year.

Latvia's transitional period ended on 30 June 2025. Firms that had applied by then could continue until Latvijas Banka decided, and MiCA Article 143(3) ended any remaining continuation on 1 July 2026. Every provider now needs a MiCA authorisation or a passport from another EEA state.

The deferred-tax advantage and when Latvia is the right home

Latvia operates an Estonia-style deferred corporate income tax. Profit is taxed at 20% only when distributed; undistributed profit reinvested in the business carries no tax. For a CASP reinvesting profit into expansion, typical for venture-stage operators, the effective rate over the first years is well below the 20% headline, and the timing benefit compounds for long-horizon institutional operators.

Latvia fits operators who value the unified central-bank supervisor and the deferred-tax structure, and those with Latvian-speaking management or backers. It is a weaker fit where the substance bar must be minimal; Latvia is mid-tier, not light. The ranked firms whose profiles list Latvia, in the table below, can scope a file against that profile.