CASP Complaints Handling Under MiCA: What the Rules Require

The workstream that looks minor and tests real

In a MiCA CASP application, complaints handling sits near the bottom of most applicants’ priority lists. It looks like an operational formality — write a short policy, list an email address, move on.

Supervisors do not treat it that way. Complaints handling is a defined obligation under MiCA’s complaints-handling obligation, with detailed requirements set out in a 2025 EU delegated regulation. When a reviewer asks for the procedure, the complaint template, the record-keeping arrangement, and the language coverage, a generic one-page policy does not survive the question.

What MiCA requires for complaints handling

MiCA’s MiCA rule sets the core duty: a CASP must establish and maintain effective and transparent procedures for the prompt, fair, and consistent handling of complaints received from clients, and must publish a description of those procedures.

Around that core, the complaints-handling obligation builds a set of specific obligations:

Requirement	What it means
Free of charge	Clients must be able to submit complaints to the CASP at no cost, and be informed of that
Complaint template	The CASP must make a template available for clients to file a complaint
Language coverage	Procedures published — and complaints accepted — in the languages the CASP uses to market or communicate with clients, plus the official languages of the member states concerned
Record-keeping	Records of complaints, the handling measures taken, and investigations and responses must be kept
Investigation and response	The CASP must investigate complaints and respond to them

The detail: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294

The complaints-handling obligation tasked ESMA with developing regulatory technical standards specifying the requirements, templates, and procedures for handling complaints. Those RTS were finalised in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294.

The practical consequence: complaints handling is not a free-text policy area where a CASP can write whatever sounds reasonable. There is a delegated regulation setting the procedures, the template, the record-keeping, and the investigation-and-response detail. A compliant complaints framework is built against that regulation, not against a generic notion of “good complaints handling”.

The language trap for passporting CASPs

The language requirement is where multi-market CASPs most often fall short.

A CASP must publish its complaints procedure — and accept complaints — in:

1. The languages it uses to market its services or communicate with clients, and
2. The official languages of the member states concerned

For a single-market, single-language CASP, this is straightforward. For a CASP that has passported into several member states — and the whole point of a MiCA authorisation is the passport — it is not. A Lithuanian CASP serving clients in Italy, Spain, and Germany cannot run an English-only complaints procedure. The complaints framework has to scale with the firm’s market footprint.

This connects complaints handling directly to the passporting decision. Expanding into a new host market is not only a notification — it adds a language obligation to the complaints procedure.

Why complaints handling is a supervisory signal

Beyond the compliance obligation, complaints data is information the regulator uses. A pattern of complaints about a specific product, a specific practice, or a specific stage of the client journey tells a supervisor something about the firm’s conduct.

A CASP that handles complaints in an isolated silo — logged, answered, filed, never analysed — misses both points. It misses the compliance value of being able to evidence prompt, fair, consistent handling, and it misses the operational value of complaints as an early-warning signal feeding back into conduct, governance, and product decisions.

What a clean complaints-handling file contains

A supervisory file that holds up on the complaints-handling obligation includes:

1. A complaints-handling procedure built against Delegated Regulation 2025/294 — not a generic policy
2. The complaint template clients use to file a complaint
3. Client-facing information on how to complain, free of charge, and in which languages
4. Language coverage matching the firm’s marketing and communication languages plus host-market official languages
5. A record-keeping system capturing complaints, handling measures, investigations, and responses
6. An investigation-and-response process with defined timelines and responsibilities
7. A feedback loop routing complaints patterns into conduct and governance oversight

Working with counsel on complaints handling

The diagnostic for counsel: ask whether the firm’s complaints procedure is built against Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294 specifically, and whether the language coverage matches the firm’s intended passporting footprint. Counsel that supplies a generic complaints policy has not engaged the delegated regulation. The firms in our index with relevant operational-compliance experience are listed below.