Brazil crypto licence deadline: firms already operating must file with the central bank by 30 October 2026

Brazil’s crypto licence deadline falls on Friday 30 October 2026: by then, companies already serving customers in the country must file the first phase of their authorisation request with the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB). The date is written into article 9 of Normative Instruction BCB 704, and it is the end of the 270-day window that Resolution BCB 520 gave firms active when the rules took effect on 2 February 2026. Foreign exchanges that serve Brazilian users fall under the same rules.

A filing keeps a platform open while the central bank reviews it. It is not a licence. Binance filed on 23 October through its local entity BBrasil, Cointelegraph reported, and OKX and Brasil Bitcoin filed the week before. Four smaller Brazilian platforms are leaving the country instead.

What the Brazil crypto licence deadline requires

The BCB published three resolutions on 10 November 2025. Resolution 519 sets the authorisation process. Resolution 520 covers how virtual-asset service providers (sociedades prestadoras de serviços de ativos virtuais, or SPSAV) are formed and run, and Resolution 521 brings virtual-asset operations into the foreign-exchange market. Article 88 of Resolution 520 tells firms already active on 2 February to request authorisation within 270 days, which lands on 30 October.

The request comes in two phases. Phase 1, due this Friday, is mostly paperwork about who owns and runs the firm: a declaration that it was active on 2 February, statements on the reputation of controllers and qualifying shareholders, consent for the BCB to obtain their tax returns, and three years of financial statements audited by an auditor registered with the CVM, the securities regulator. Phase 2 must follow within 60 days of a favourable reply on phase 1, a period the BCB may extend by up to 60 more days. Since an amendment in May (IN BCB 739/2026), phase 2 also includes a reasonable-assurance report from a CVM-registered audit firm.

The capital bar is high. Lawyer Maria Estela de Azevedo Guedes of Cepeda Advogados told Capital Aberto that minimum capital runs from R$10.8 million to R$37.2 million depending on the activity, under Joint Resolution CMN/BCB 14/2025. Firms must also segregate client assets, pass an independent audit and name at least three administrators answerable to the BCB for different areas. She expects new prudential requirements to apply from 2027.

Nobody should expect quick answers. Resolution BCB 548 of February 2026 gives the BCB up to 1,080 days, roughly three years, to decide on a firm that was already active. A newcomer’s request has a 720-day limit.

What happens to firms that file, and to those that do not

The transition rules are in article 88 of Resolution 520. A firm that files on time may keep providing its services until its authorisation process ends, but it may not take on another category of business in the meantime. From the moment it files, it must also send the BCB client data, daily balances and custody figures, and monthly proof of reserves.

A firm that misses the date must stop providing virtual-asset services within 30 days after the deadline, so by 29 November. No extension had been announced as of 27 October.

Banks and unlicensed firms: the ban starts on 6 November

Several summaries, including the market association ANBIMA’s, still give 30 October as the day Brazilian banks must stop dealing with unlicensed crypto firms. That was the original article 91 of Resolution 520. Resolution BCB 589, adopted on 23 September and in force for this point since 1 October, moved the date to 6 November 2026.

It also changed the wording. The original text barred banks, payment institutions and other BCB-supervised firms from virtual-asset dealings with providers “not authorised or in the process of authorisation”. The new text drops “or in the process of authorisation” and refers only to providers that are not authorised. The ban covers trading, custody, foreign exchange, payment accounts and payment transactions used for such dealings.

Read literally, the change narrows protection for firms whose files are still pending, while article 88 lets those same firms keep operating. Resolution 589 does not explain how the two fit together, and the BCB had published no guidance on it that Coindaro could find by 27 October.

Reporting rules already running

A separate anti-money-laundering rule took effect on 1 October. Under the reporting list of Circular 3,978, as amended by Resolution BCB 591, supervised firms must report to Coaf, Brazil’s financial intelligence unit, transfers of virtual assets of US$10,000 or more to or from self-custody wallets. Resolution 591 replaced Resolution 588, published a week earlier with the same threshold, and lets firms send the reports for October to December on the first business day of January 2027.

The Brazilian travel rule comes in two stages under article 89 of Resolution 520: the domestic stage within 365 days of 2 February 2026, the international stage within 365 days after that. Every authorised provider must comply from 2 February 2028.

Who has filed, and who is leaving Brazil

According to BP Money (19 October), OKX filed on Friday 16 October as a virtual-asset broker and also wants a foreign-exchange authorisation. Brasil Bitcoin filed on 15 October through Brasil 8 SPSAV, a company linked to two of its partners, after a dispute between partners. UnblockPay announced its request on 19 October and Crown had filed a few days earlier; both seek broker and foreign-exchange licences, and Crown also asked for prepaid payment accounts and Pix access.

Transfero, Mazzera, PFPay, Masterpay, W Brasil Comércio, Onda Finance and Wynx Exchange appear in the BCB’s public consultations. That made 11 known requests as of 19 October. The BCB has turned one down, from Higherway Tech Soluções (Higher Global Payments).

Others are going. BP Money lists Coinext, NovaDAX, Digitra.com and Bitnuvem among platforms leaving the country. Victor Guilhamat, head of regulatory affairs at Binance in Brazil, told Capital Aberto that at least 11 platforms had announced closures or cutbacks by September; there is no official BCB count. Coindaro found no filing status for Coinbase, Mercado Bitcoin, Kraken, Bybit, Bitso or Foxbit.

What Binance users in Brazil will notice

On 8 October Binance announced it would delist 22 tokens for Brazilian users, among them USDE, USTC, MANTRA, ZIL, ICX and STORJ, and close eight services, including Loans, Pool, Cloud Mining, margin, Launchpool, Megadrop and HODLer Airdrops, crypto.news reported. Those cuts took effect on Tuesday 27 October, which was also the last day for customers who refused the move to withdraw their funds and close their accounts. Accepted accounts move to the local entities by 29 October.

Thiago Sarandy, Binance’s general manager in Brazil, told Cointelegraph: “We support a regulated market that considers the characteristics of virtual assets.” The exchange hopes its talks with the BCB will let it bring back some of the dropped products. It already owns Sim;paul, a Brazilian broker-dealer and e-money issuer whose purchase the BCB approved, as Binance announced on 2 January 2025.

Why the Brazilian deadline matters in Europe and Africa

Brazil is among the largest crypto markets in Latin America, and Resolution 521 treats stablecoin payments as foreign-exchange operations. The deadline also lands in a nervous week for the real, which was priced about 10% lower in Sunday futures after the presidential runoff, as our report on USDT and the real showed.

European readers will recognise the logic of the MiCA transition: authorised or out. Platforms either set up a local company, as Binance has done in Brazil and as OKX is doing for euro trading in the EEA (see our OKX report), or they leave. National approvals keep arriving on the EU side too, as YouHodler’s Italian MiCA licence showed. In Africa the nearest parallel comes five days after Brazil’s: Kenya’s VASP licence deadline of 4 November.

For users the check is the same everywhere: has the platform you use obtained, or at least requested, a local authorisation? Our guide to how centralized exchanges hold your funds explains why that matters.

What is still unknown

There is no official count of firms that operated on 2 February or of filings received; Guedes expects a first reliable picture in late November or early December. How banks will treat firms whose request is pending once the 6 November ban starts is not settled. Nor is it known how many of the 11 named applicants will clear phase 1.

The texts in force are on the BCB’s rules database. This page is information, not investment or legal advice.