On 8 October 2026 the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published an Opinion telling national supervisors that crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) “should not provide crypto-asset services” in relation to stablecoins that do not comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). It reaches every service from trading to custody, rules out client warnings as a substitute, and asks supervisors to have legacy exposures remediated within three months of publication, which runs to 8 January 2027. Tether, the issuer of USDT, is not in the ESMA register of e-money token white papers, so USDT falls within its scope. This guide sets out what the Opinion says, paragraph by paragraph, what it leaves untouched, and what a business holding USDT should do before January.
What did ESMA publish on 8 October 2026?
An Opinion on the provision of crypto-asset services in relation to non-MiCA-compliant asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens (opens in a new tab), reference ESMA75-113276571-1742. ESMA issued it under Article 29(1)(a) of its founding regulation, the power it uses to build consistent supervisory practice across the EU. Paragraph 9 addresses it primarily to national competent authorities (NCAs). It does not amend MiCA: its force comes from the supervisors who apply it to the CASPs they license.
It covers both kinds of MiCA stablecoin, asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and electronic money tokens (EMTs). A token counts as non-compliant when the conditions for a lawful offer to the public or admission to trading in the EU under Title III or Title IV are not met, including any exemption or transitional arrangement. The Opinion names no token and no issuer.
Its central sentence is paragraph 12:
ESMA considers that CASPs should not provide crypto-asset services in relation to ARTs or EMTs that are not compliant with the applicable requirements under MiCA.
Why does it go further than ESMA’s 2025 statement?
ESMA’s public statement of 17 January 2025 (opens in a new tab) approached these tokens through the offer-to-the-public test in Article 48. Service providers had to stop trading and acquisition services that amounted to an offer, while “mere custody and transfer of these crypto-assets should remain possible”. The 2026 Opinion keeps that position (paragraph 7) and adds a second test that stands on its own.
The second test is conduct. Article 66(1) of MiCA requires a CASP to act honestly, fairly and professionally in the best interests of its clients. ESMA’s reasoning is that the risk of a non-compliant token sits in the missing issuer safeguards, which a CASP has no means to replace, so providing any service on such a token should give rise to “the presumption that the provision of all MiCA services is incompatible with the obligations set out in Article 66(1)” (paragraph 13). Paragraph 14 spells out the consequence: the conclusion “does not depend on whether each individual crypto-asset service constitutes, in itself, an offer to the public”.
That is what brings custody and transfers inside the line. A custody account is no offer to the public, yet it keeps the token “accessible, usable or liquid in the Union” (paragraph 15), which is the outcome ESMA wants to end.
Which services does the Opinion cover?
All of them. Paragraph 21 asks NCAs to consider whether a CASP’s services, “individually or in combination”, let EU clients acquire, trade, exchange, increase their exposure to, or “otherwise access or maintain” a non-compliant token. It lists the services in scope:
- operating a trading platform
- exchange of crypto-assets for funds or other crypto-assets
- execution of orders, and reception and transmission of orders
- placing of crypto-assets
- advice
- transfer services
- custody
- portfolio management
Paragraph 22 turns this into an expectation on the firms themselves. CASPs “should not maintain, introduce or facilitate access to” these tokens for EU clients, and should have technical, contractual and organisational controls that stop clients acquiring or increasing positions.
Can a warning to clients take its place?
No. Paragraph 19 closes the obvious workaround: “reliance on warnings, disclosures or client acknowledgements would not sufficiently address the concerns identified in this Opinion”. MiCA’s protections work as a set, covering redemption rights, reserve or safeguarding rules, governance, disclosure and supervision, and ESMA’s view is that a client cannot weigh the absence of all of them from a risk notice. A provider that keeps a non-compliant token available behind a warning screen has not met the Opinion.
What is the deadline, and what can continue until then?
Paragraph 27 asks NCAs, where they find legacy exposures, to require remediation “as soon as possible and no later than three (3) months following the date of publication of this Opinion”. The Opinion was published on 8 October 2026, which puts the outer date at 8 January 2027. The text gives the three-month period, and the calendar date follows from it.
An orderly exit remains possible until then. Paragraphs 23 and 24 let NCAs permit strictly limited residual services, confined to “the liquidation, conversion, withdrawal, transfer or safekeeping of existing holdings”. Those services may not support new acquisitions, promotion, trading, active distribution or continued market availability, and they must be time-limited, communicated to clients and closely supervised. Paragraph 27 is narrower on what continues once remediation is required: sell-only, conversion, transfer or withdrawal.
Take an EU trading company holding 400,000 USDT in a custody account at an EU-licensed exchange. During the wind-down the exchange may let it sell the tokens for euros, convert them into an authorised stablecoin, or withdraw them to an address the company controls. It may not let the company buy more, and the company should plan on the custody account closing for that token rather than on it staying open.
What the Opinion does not do
It does not ban anyone from holding USDT. The Opinion is a supervisory instrument about CASPs. It places no obligation on private individuals or on businesses holding the token for their own account, and it says nothing about tokens held in self-custody. Article 48 of MiCA, which restricts who may offer an EMT to the public, is likewise addressed to issuers.
It does not list tokens. Whether a stablecoin is in scope turns on its issuer’s authorisation, and ESMA’s public register of EMT white papers (opens in a new tab) is where that is recorded. The version published on 30 October 2026 lists 50 white papers from 25 issuers in 14 member states. No white paper for USDT appears in it, and Tether is not among the issuers.
It does not change the rules for issuers. ARTs and EMTs remain governed by Titles III and IV, and the supervision of their issuers stays with the European Banking Authority and national authorities (paragraph 10).
What this means for your business
A business that holds USDT at an EU-licensed exchange or custodian, or relies on one to turn USDT receipts into euros, should expect that service to narrow to an exit by 8 January 2027 at the latest, and sooner where its supervisor moves first. The steps are short:
- List every EU-licensed provider that holds or moves USDT for you, and ask each for its wind-down timetable.
- Decide where the value goes: fiat, or a stablecoin whose issuer is in the ESMA register.
- Convert while the residual services are still open, so the exit does not depend on a venue outside the EU.
What a holder of a non-authorised token goes without, redemption at par and a supervised reserve among it, is covered in Can a Business Still Settle EU Payments in USDT After MiCA?
Stable Mint is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution and issues EURSM and USDSM as MiCA Title IV electronic money tokens, both listed in the ESMA register and redeemable at par. If you are moving a treasury or settlement flow out of USDT before January and want to see how an authorised token settles, talk to our team.