Bitget has added Russia and Belarus to the list of “Prohibited Countries” in its Terms of Use, in a version dated 16 October 2026, and affected users have been told by email to close their positions and withdraw by 21 October, according to Russian and Belarusian media that saw the notices. The Russian tech outlet Kod.ru, reports that trading and staking stop on 18 October at 10:00 Moscow time (07:00 UTC). The exchange has published no announcement and has given no public reason for the change.
The Bitget Russia exit leaves people with roughly five days between the first emails on 16 October and the reported last date to move funds out on their own. It is the third market Bitget has left or started leaving in 2026, after France and Japan.
Kazakhstan, which The Defiant named alongside Russia and Belarus, is not a new addition. It was already on Bitget’s prohibited list in the English terms dated 15 September 2026 and in the Russian-language version dated 17 August. What changed on 16 October is Russia and Belarus.
Bitget’s terms now list Russia and Belarus; Kazakhstan was already there
The English Terms of Use, published by operator BTG Technology Holdings Limited, now carry the line “Last updated: October 16, 2026”. The previous version, dated 15 September 2026 and archived by the Wayback Machine on 24 September and 12 October, had the same list of prohibited jurisdictions without Russia and Belarus. Comparing the two texts, “Russia” and “Belarus” each appear zero times in the September version and twice in the October one.
The full list now runs to 31 countries and regions, plus US territories, and Bitget keeps the right to add “such other locations” as it designates. It includes Austria, Canada, Crimea, Cuba, Donetsk, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luhansk, Malaysia, North Korea, Singapore, Sudan, Thailand and the United States, along with Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen and others. Italy is not on the list.
One oddity: the Russian-language version of the terms, still dated 17 August 2026, does not mention Russia or Belarus at all. It does list Kazakhstan. The business outlet vc.ru points out that the English original prevails if the two texts conflict (clause 19.8), so the Russian page being out of date does not protect anyone.
A reporter at Bits.media based in St Petersburg tried to open a new account on both the English and Russian sites after the change and got the same error each time: “Countries and regions are not supported” (our translation from Russian).
The deadlines in users’ emails: 18 October and 21 October
The notice itself is not public, so the dates below come from user emails and screenshots described by four outlets: Kod.ru and Bits.media (both on the evening of 16 October, Moscow time), the Belarusian site Nasha Niva (late on 16 October) and The Defiant (05:26 UTC on 17 October). We have not seen an email ourselves.
| Step | Moscow time | UTC | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|
| No new orders or positions, staking off | 18 Oct, 10:00 | 18 Oct, 07:00 | Kod.ru, Bits.media |
| Last moment to close positions and withdraw yourself | 21 Oct, 10:00 | 21 Oct, 07:00 | Kod.ru, Nasha Niva |
| Open positions and orders closed by Bitget, funds moved to the balance | after 21 Oct, 10:00 | after 21 Oct, 07:00 | Kod.ru, Bits.media |
| Account restrictions start | 21 Oct, 19:00 | 21 Oct, 16:00 | Kod.ru |
The last line confuses people. According to Kod.ru, the email gives 22 October as the restriction date, but in UTC+8 (Singapore and Hong Kong time). Midnight on 22 October in UTC+8 is 16:00 UTC on 21 October, or 19:00 in Moscow and Minsk. It is one moment written in two time zones, not two different dates.
Nasha Niva reports that Bitget “strongly recommends closing all open positions by October 21” and that open positions are liquidated automatically from 22 October. After the restriction starts, both Kod.ru and Bits.media say, any funds left behind can only be recovered through customer support.
Two caveats apply. The Defiant writes that deadlines are account-specific, and quotes one affected user with a 21 October date. Vc.ru also says there is no single deadline for every account and tells readers to check their own notice. And vc.ru reports that balances of 10 USDT or less may be kept as an account-closure fee.
No reason has been given for the country change. The sanctions notice Bitget posted the same day says the company takes sanctions compliance seriously, but that notice is about transfers to listed platforms, not about where users live, and Bitget has not linked the two.
Same day: Bitget tightens checks on 20 sanctioned platforms
On 16 October at 11:56 UTC, Bitget’s Chinese-language account on X posted a separate notice on sanctioned trading platforms and related entities. If a deposit comes from, or a withdrawal goes to, one of the listed names, Bitget says it “will refuse to process the transaction and terminate your account” (our translation from Chinese). If a funding source, an address or an intermediary is only linked to one of them, the transfer may be reviewed or rejected, and the account may be restricted for deposits, withdrawals and trading during the review. Bitget adds that the list is not complete or fixed and can change without individual notice.
The list has 20 entries. Among them are the exchanges EXMO, HTX (Huobi Global), Rapira, ABCeX and WhiteBird, the P2P service BitPapa, the A7 entities in Africa and Nigeria, Aban Tether, and two payment sites run by Xeltox Enterprises (cryptomus.com and heleket.com). Four names are new compared with August: Tokenspot, BitBank3, cryptomus.com and heleket.com. Early in October the UK made 38 new Russia-related designations, Xeltox Enterprises and TokenSpot among them, crypto.news reported on 9 October.
The exchange has done this before. In August it applied stricter controls to 16 entities in three batches (two on 7 August, three on 13 August, eleven on 23 August, HTX and EXMO among them), according to Crypto Times. The October update is the same policy with a longer list. Bitget did not say whether the two notices of 16 October are connected.
Bitget’s third exit of 2026, after France and Japan
The Russia and Belarus change is abrupt compared with Bitget’s earlier departures, which came with public notices and weeks or months of warning.
France: two and a half months, under MiCA
Bitget closed new sign-ups in France on 16 January 2026 and told users that services would wind down, citing its compliance work after the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) took effect. New orders and deposits stopped on 16 March, and everything ended on 31 March. Its notice to French users asked them to withdraw all assets before that date. Leftover balances above 10 USDC were moved to a third-party platform, reachable from 8 April. On the same day, 16 January, Bitget stopped new German sign-ups but kept existing users and promised it would “notify users in advance should there be any further changes”.
Japan: five months of notice
In Japan, Bitget announced its exit on 3 August 2026, after repeated warnings from the Financial Services Agency (March 2023 and November 2024) and one from the Kanto Local Finance Bureau in June 2025, as Cointelegraph reported. Account restrictions start on 1 November, and positions still open on 31 December 2026 will be closed by force.
Russia and Belarus: about five days
Here, by contrast, there is no public notice and the emails reportedly arrived on 16 October for a trading stop two days later. That fits what Bitget’s terms allow. Clause 8.1 lets it suspend or discontinue services without prior notice, and clause 8.2 lets it act “immediately or at any time thereafter (without prior notice)”, including by restricting withdrawals, liquidating open positions, selling assets to settle obligations or converting them into a stablecoin. Clause 8.6 covers blocking accounts used from a restricted country. The terms set no timeline for handing back assets once an account is terminated.
Belarus had its own brush with the exchange last winter. In December 2025 the Ministry of Information blocked bitget.com along with Bybit, OKX, Gate, BingX and Weex, citing “inappropriate advertising”, Cointelegraph reported. The block did not last: by 13 December the six domains were off the national restricted-sites registry, according to Nasha Niva. This time the restriction comes from Bitget itself, and clause 8.6 of its terms forbids using a VPN to get around it.
The move also comes three weeks after the 24 September hack in which about $388 million was taken from Bitget’s hot and warm wallets; Bitget restored all withdrawals after the hack on 2 October. Nothing links the two events, and Bitget has not suggested any link.
Bitget Russia: how affected users can withdraw before 21 October
The practical advice below comes from vc.ru’s guide for Russian users, rewritten and shortened, plus the time-zone point above. It applies to anyone who received the notice. It is not financial advice on where to move funds.
- Read your own email first. Deadlines may differ between accounts, according to The Defiant and vc.ru.
- Check the destination before you send anything: the receiving exchange or wallet must accept your country and the coin on that exact network.
- Look beyond the spot balance. Earn products, trading bots, loans and sub-accounts each hold funds separately and may need to be closed or redeemed one by one.
- Futures positions cannot be transferred, only closed. Anything still open after 21 October at 07:00 UTC will be closed by Bitget, according to the reported emails.
- Match the network and the memo or tag. A wrong network or missing tag is the most common way to lose a withdrawal.
- Send a small test transfer first, then the rest. Keep the transaction ID (TXID) and screenshots.
- Ignore anyone claiming to be Bitget support who asks you to move funds to a “backup” or “safe” wallet. Vc.ru warns about this exact scam.
- Count the hours in UTC. 21 October at 07:00 UTC is 10:00 in Moscow and Minsk; restrictions follow at 16:00 UTC.
Where users go next is a harder question. Inside Russia, options are narrowing too: Russia plans to end P2P crypto trading in July 2027. Anyone comparing venues can use our guide to choosing a crypto exchange, starting with whether the platform is licensed where you live.
Other exchanges that cut off Russian users
Bitget is not the first large venue to leave. Binance sold its Russian business to CommEX on 27 September 2023, saying the market did not fit its compliance plans, as Decrypt reported. Deribit told Russian users on 5 February 2025 that their accounts would go reduce-only from 17 February and close on 29 March 2025, citing EU sanctions; Russians living in the European Economic Area or Switzerland were exempt. Nasha Niva adds that Binance, OKX and Bybit tightened checks on users from sanctioned jurisdictions earlier, without giving dates.
The Deribit case is the closest comparison, and the gap is plain: Deribit gave about seven weeks and named EU sanctions as the reason. Bitget, according to the user emails, gave about five days and has named no reason in public.
What Bitget has not said
Much remains unclear. Bitget has not said how many accounts or how much money are affected. It has not said whether Russian or Belarusian citizens who live elsewhere are covered; according to Bits.media, the terms define restricted users by residence, registration or place of business rather than passport. Nobody has reported whether the P2P market, the Bitget Card or the separate Bitget Wallet self-custody app are affected.
Nor is it known what happens to balances above 10 USDT that are still on accounts after 21 October. In France, Bitget moved leftovers to a third-party platform. For Russia and Belarus, the only route reported so far is customer support.
Kazakhstan is a separate puzzle. It has been on the English prohibited list since at least 15 September and on the Russian one since at least 17 August, but when exactly it was added, and whether Kazakh users are receiving similar emails now, is not known.
There is also the European question. Bitget EU, based in Vienna, has applied for authorisation under the EU’s MiCA rules for crypto-asset service providers with Austria’s FMA. In an update of 2 July 2026, Bitget wrote: “The timing, scope and outcome of the authorisation process remain subject to the FMA’s assessment.” As of mid-October the company was not in ESMA’s MiCA register, according to the CASP Tracker site. Austria itself is on the global platform’s prohibited list. Whether the Russia and Belarus change has anything to do with that application is an open question; Bitget has not connected the two.
Dates to watch
- 18 October 2026, 07:00 UTC: trading and staking stop for accounts that got the notice.
- 21 October 2026, 07:00 UTC: last moment to close positions and withdraw without support; forced closures after that.
- 21 October 2026, 16:00 UTC (22 October, 00:00 UTC+8): account restrictions begin.
- 1 November 2026: restrictions begin on Japanese accounts; 31 December 2026 is Japan’s final deadline.
- No date: the FMA’s decision on Bitget EU’s MiCA application.
For background on the exchange itself, its products and its record, see our Bitget review.