Binance tells French and Italian users their accounts close on 31 December, with a fee from 29 November on crypto left behind

Update, 8 November 2026, 05:51 UTC: A Binance spokesperson confirmed the closure to CoinDesk on 7 November: “Affected accounts will be closed with effect from 31 December 2026”. Italian clients have received the same email, with the same fee and the same dates, according to Criptovaluta.it (7 November, 19:47 UTC). CoinDesk also cites users in Poland who say they got similar emails; reports from Spain are unconfirmed, and no regulator has commented.

Binance France accounts will be closed on 31 December 2026, and any crypto still sitting in them on 29 November will start to cost money, according to an email Binance sent to its French clients. The message, titled “Rappel important” (important reminder), was reported on Friday 6 November by Cryptoast at 17:47 Paris time (16:47 UTC) and at 18:08 UTC by CryptoActu, which published an image of the top of it. It sets a fee of 0.025% of the balance with a minimum of 10 USDC, taken from accounts that have not been emptied by the 29 November “Jour de Calcul” (calculation day).

Coindaro has viewed that image, which shows the opening of the email but stops before the fee figures. We have not seen the full message and found no matching notice on Binance’s French announcement page. Binance has since confirmed the closure date on the record, through a spokesperson quoted by CoinDesk on 7 November (see below). The deposit warning below comes from the part of the email we read; the fee figures and collection dates are the email’s terms as the French outlets, and later CoinDesk, report them. Binance account holders in France and Italy should check their own inbox and the notifications inside the app, which carry the terms that actually apply to them.

This message is the last step of a wind-down that began in the summer. Binance France SAS was struck off the French register of digital asset service providers (PSAN) on 2 July 2026, when the transition period of the EU’s MiCA regulation ended without Binance holding an authorisation. Since then French clients have been able to withdraw, but not to trade or deposit. The new message puts an end date on that withdraw-only period.

Binance France closure: what the email says

Cryptoast and CryptoActu, writing separately, give the same core content; CryptoActu does not cite Cryptoast. A third outlet, Crypto Briefing, reported the same fee at 20:05 New York time and said customers were “notified by email in early November 2026”, without quoting a Binance representative or naming its source.

The part of the email shown by CryptoActu is headed “Rappel important / Important Update”, in French and English, under the line “Important : De nouveaux frais peuvent s’appliquer à votre compte Binance” (new fees may apply to your Binance account). It says that Binance did not obtain a MiCA authorisation on 30 June 2026 and that the services of Binance France are being restricted step by step, on the calendar given to clients earlier. It then asks clients to withdraw their digital assets as soon as possible, and in any case before 31 December 2026.

According to the email, as read in that image and as reported by both French outlets:

• Deposits are restricted and any attempt will fail. The email warns that trying anyway can mean a rejected deposit, transaction fees or a wait before the assets come back. Withdrawals still work.
• From 29 November 2026, a fee of 0.025% of the balance applies, with a 10 USDC minimum. CryptoActu’s own summary table describes it as “0,025 % du solde par mois, 10 USDC minimum”, a monthly fee; Cryptoast quotes the email as 0.025% of the balance or 10 USDC, “selon le montant le plus élevé” (whichever is higher).
• The fee is taken from the USDC on the account first, and from other crypto if there is not enough USDC. If the balance is smaller than the fee, the whole balance is taken.
• An account emptied before 29 November pays nothing, and a client can close the account at any time.
• Accounts are closed “à compter du 31 décembre 2026” (from 31 December 2026). The email gives the reason as the “cessation ordonnée des activités”, the orderly wind-down of the French business.

Both outlets give the same collection calendar: a first charge within three days of 29 November, and a second one after 24 December. Crypto Briefing’s version differs on one point, saying deposits are blocked from 29 November, while the email shown by CryptoActu says they are already restricted.

Binance confirms the 31 December closure on the record

The first on-the-record word from Binance came on Friday evening. A spokesperson told CoinDesk, in a report published at 19:13 UTC on 7 November, that the exchange is “progressively restricting certain services for affected users” since the MiCA transition period ended, and that “Affected accounts will be closed with effect from 31 December 2026”. The spokesperson called it “a carefully managed process”, with assets still accessible and “no sudden freeze”.

On its European plans, the spokesperson said: “Our commitment to Europe remains unchanged, and we are actively progressing our authorization pathway.” Binance withdrew its Greek application in June and says it will apply in another member state, which it has not named. CoinDesk adds that Binance still does not appear in the ESMA register of authorised crypto-asset service providers.

The statement settles the date, not the details. It says nothing about what happens to assets still on an account after 31 December, and Binance has not set out the terms in a public notice that Coindaro could find.

Binance Italy: the same email reaches Italian clients

Italian clients got the same message. Criptovaluta.it reported it on 7 November at 20:47 Italian time (19:47 UTC): clients are asked to withdraw their euros and crypto by 31 December 2026, a first fee is charged from 29 November, a second from 24 December, and accounts close at the end of the year. The fee matches the French one, 0.025% of the balance or 10 USDC, whichever is higher. CoinDesk also counts Italy among the countries where users say they received the email.

The Crypto Gateway, whose author showed the email in a video on 7 November, gives the exact calculation times: 23:59 UTC on 29 November and 23:59 UTC on 24 December, each charge following within three days. In Rome, as in Paris, the first calculation therefore falls at 00:59 on 30 November.

In Italy the accounts were held with Binance Italy S.r.l., the company Binance registered with the OAM, the Italian register of crypto operators, in May 2022, as CoinDesk reported at the time. That national registration stopped being enough when the MiCA transition period ended at the end of June 2026. On 25 June Binance told clients that new orders and deposits would stop on 1 July, while withdrawals stayed possible and balances were not frozen, according to Teleborsa.

The Italian message, as quoted by Criptovaluta.it, says “Binance continua a impegnarsi per ottenere un’autorizzazione ai sensi del MiCA” (Binance remains committed to obtaining a MiCA authorisation), with no timeline. We found no statement from Consob or the Bank of Italy on the closure. Other platforms did get the licence in Italy: Consob authorised YouHodler under MiCA in October. No source we found says how Italian tax rules would treat a forced conversion after 31 December.

Poland and Spain: users’ reports, no published date

Beyond France and Italy the picture is thinner. CoinDesk writes that users in Poland say they received similar emails; Coindaro could not confirm those accounts. For Spain there are only unconfirmed reports of a fee email, and no closure date has been published there. These are the four countries where Binance first urged users to withdraw in June, because it had locally registered businesses there, according to CoinDesk; users in Portugal, where it had no local entity, have not been singled out.

Two dates, one fee: what crypto left on Binance France costs

The 10 USDC floor matters more than the percentage for almost everyone. A 0.025% charge only goes above 10 USDC when the balance is above 40,000 USDC (10 divided by 0.00025). Below that, a holder pays the same flat 10 USDC per charge whether the account holds 50 or 39,000 USDC worth of crypto. The law firm Kohen Avocats, which worked from the email as Cryptoast and CryptoActu reproduced it, ran the same sums on 7 November.

Here is what the two charges announced before closure would take, on the email’s terms as reported. The figures are arithmetic on those terms, not amounts confirmed by Binance.

Two details make the small accounts the most exposed. The fee is capped at the balance, so an account holding a few dollars of dust is simply emptied. And because USDC is taken first, a client holding mostly bitcoin with a little USDC will see the stablecoin go before anything else, with no sale needed. If there is no USDC, the fee comes out of other crypto; neither outlet says at what rate those coins are valued.

For a large account the sums are small: 50 USDC on a 100,000 USDC balance is 0.05% over the two charges. Neither outlet reports any reason Binance gave for introducing the fee.

What happens to crypto still on Binance France after 31 December

This is the part of the email that answers the fewest questions. According to Cryptoast, the message counts as notice that Binance intends to treat the account as inactive if the crypto has not been withdrawn by 31 December 2026, and that this could lead to “la conversion, le transfert ou tout autre traitement” of the client’s crypto-assets: conversion, transfer or any other handling.

As quoted, the message does not say into which asset coins would be converted, at what rate, or to whom they would be transferred. CryptoActu reads it as a conversion or transfer in which the client does not choose the destination; that is the outlet’s reading, not a quote. Kohen Avocats lists the same gaps and adds that each client’s own terms of use prevail over a reproduced email.

Other exchanges leaving France have been more precise. MEXC, which announced its exit on 29 October, gave four batches, a final withdrawal date of 5 March 2027 and a plan to hand leftover coins to a custodian it did not name, as we reported in our piece on MEXC’s French exit. On the information published so far, Binance’s message leaves the post-closure handling open.

Why Binance is leaving France: MiCA and the AMF register

The AMF’s list of struck-off PSANs, printed on 10 July 2026, carries the line for Binance France SAS: registration number E2022-037, registered on 4 May 2022 for custody, buying and selling crypto against euros, crypto-to-crypto exchange and running a trading platform, struck off on 2 July 2026. The reason given is “Caducité automatique du fait de la fin de période transitoire MiCA”, an automatic lapse at the end of the MiCA transition period.

Under MiCA, the national PSAN status no longer lets a company serve French clients. It needs an EU crypto-asset service provider (CASP) authorisation, granted in one member state and valid in the others. Our guide to the MiCA regulation explains how that licence works.

In a news release of 6 July 2026, the AMF said the transition period ended on 1 July and that authorisation is now mandatory to offer crypto-asset services. It counted 31 providers authorised in France and 283 across the EU, said it would monitor the orderly wind-down plans of unauthorised firms with ESMA and other national authorities, and named “one absolute priority: preserving clients’ interests”. The release does not name Binance. We found no AMF statement on the 31 December closure.

From a Greek application to a December deadline

Binance withdrew its MiCA application in Greece on 24 June 2026, saying it would seek authorisation in another member state, CoinDesk reported. Gillian Lynch, its head of Europe and the UK, told Reuters that “Binance is not leaving Europe”. A day later, according to AFP, Binance France told clients it could no longer accept new ones and would stop crypto services in France on 1 July, with assets remaining “safe and secure”.

The French calendar since then, as summarised by the specialist site fiscalite-crypto.fr on 3 September from Binance notices: on 1 July euro and crypto deposits were blocked, spot and margin trading stopped and open orders were cancelled; euro withdrawals by SEPA Instant ended on 30 September; margin, Simple Earn Flexible and Binance Loans positions were closed automatically on 1 October. The email adds the last two dates, 29 November and 31 December.

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said in July that up to 70% of recent outflows from Binance in Europe had gone to self-hosted wallets, according to Milano Finanza; that is his own estimate from internal data, which no one outside the company has checked. Separately, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation into Binance on 28 January 2025, including for aggravated money laundering; AFP reported in June that a probe was still under way in France. Binance has said it rejects the accusations, no court has ruled, and no source links that probe to the closure. Nor is the closure linked to the 30 October theft from Binance, a separate story covered in our report on the Binance hack.

What to do before 29 November with crypto on Binance France

The email itself gives the way out: withdraw everything before 29 November and no fee is due. In practice that means moving each asset off the platform to an address you control, then closing the account. The steps below come from the fee rules as reported and from general self-custody practice, not from Binance.

1. Log in and list every balance, including small amounts of dust and any USDC, since USDC is the first asset the fee takes.
2. Export your full transaction history (CSV) before the account closes. You will need it for French tax returns, and access after 31 December is not guaranteed.
3. Set up a wallet you hold the keys to, write down its recovery phrase offline, and send a small test amount first to check the network and address.
4. Withdraw each asset on a network the receiving wallet supports, then check the funds have arrived before closing the account.
5. Keep the emails and withdrawal receipts. If something goes wrong, they are the proof of what you held and when.

Moving coins to your own wallet means you, not a company, hold the private keys. Our step-by-step guide to setting up a hardware wallet covers the device, the recovery phrase and the first transfer. For clients who would rather keep their crypto on a platform, the AMF’s advice is to use only a provider authorised in the EU under MiCA; ESMA publishes the EU-wide register of authorised firms.

French tax: a withdrawal is not a sale

For an individual, French tax falls on disposals of crypto for consideration (article 150 VH bis of the tax code): a sale for euros or a payment for goods or services. Crypto-to-crypto swaps are deferred, and gains go on form 2086, according to the tax administration’s guidance, which puts the flat tax at 31.4% and exempts a household whose total sales in the year stay at or below 305 euros. Sending coins from an exchange to your own wallet changes neither the owner nor the asset, so it is not a disposal and a withdrawal before 29 November should not trigger tax on its own.

Crypto accounts opened with a platform established outside France are declared every year on form 3916-bis, filed with the return. Our guide to crypto taxes in France covers both forms.

What no source answers is the tax treatment of a forced conversion after 31 December, or of fees paid in crypto. If Binance converts a client’s coins, that could look like a disposal, but neither the email as quoted nor any official text we found says so. Kohen Avocats notes that a conversion may have tax consequences without going further. A client who withdraws before the dates does not face that question.

What is still unknown

• The full text of the email and whether every French client received the same version. Coindaro has not seen it and found no public Binance page.
• What “conversion, transfer or other handling” means in practice, into which asset, at what rate and through which entity.
• Whether every Italian client got the same email, and whether dated notices will follow in Spain and Poland, where only users’ reports exist so far.
• When, and in which member state, Binance will file a new MiCA application. It has not named the country.
• How many French accounts still hold crypto. Binance has given no figure.

Binance has published no notice on the closure that Coindaro could find; its only on-record comment so far is the spokesperson’s statement to CoinDesk. The next date on the calendar is 29 November, the calculation day; the first charge follows within three days, the second after 24 December, and accounts close on 31 December.