A founder searching for what UK crypto regulation will cost this autumn can find an application fee of a few thousand pounds and could be forgiven for thinking the paperwork is the hard part.
The FCA’s application window opened at 9am on 30 September and closes at 11.59pm on 28 February 2027, and the regime itself applies from 25 October 2027. Between those dates, the bill is mostly a question of how much cash a startup can leave untouched, how many people it must hire before it earns anything, and how long it can wait for an answer.
We start with who needs authorisation, then take the fee, the capital, the people and the timing in turn, using the FCA’s final rules for the figures. The modelling itself is a job for your accountant, and the aim here is to help you understand the basics well enough to ask them the right questions.
“…we can’t regulate away risk.”— David Geale, Executive Director, Payments and Digital Finance, FCA
Who needs authorisation
UK crypto regulation covers six regulated activities: issuing a qualifying stablecoin, safeguarding cryptoassets, operating a trading platform, dealing in cryptoassets as principal or as agent, arranging deals, and staking. A startup carrying on any of them in or from the UK after 25 October 2027 needs a Part 4A permission, which is the FCA’s formal permission under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to carry on a regulated activity.
Registration under the money laundering regulations does not convert into that permission, and an authorisation as an e-money or payment institution does not count either, so an e-money firm that wants to issue a stablecoin must make a fresh application for a Part 4A permission.
A registered stablecoin issuer, and a registration that does not carry over
Agant Finance Limited, a UK stablecoin issuer building sterling infrastructure for institutions, registered with the FCA as a cryptoasset business under the money laundering regulations in February 2026. At the time of its announcement it was preparing to issue GBPA, a sterling stablecoin backed one-to-one by pounds. That registration lets a firm carry on cryptoasset business today, but the FCA has said existing registrations will not convert into authorisation under the new regime. A stablecoin issuer in that position would need authorisation to issue from 25 October 2027, would face the £350,000 capital floor described below, and would bring the savings provisions into play by applying before 28 February 2027.
“…robust financial crime controls and strong operational standards.”— Andrew MacKenzie, CEO, Agant, on its FCA registration
The four layers behind the price
The price of UK crypto regulation has four layers: the application fee, the capital the FCA requires you to hold, the people and advisers needed to build and defend the application, and the time before a decision. The first is small and fixed. The other three move with your business model, which is why published totals vary so much. One industry estimate puts the adviser and process cost alone at £250,000 to £350,000, and it is best read as one data point rather than a benchmark.
FCA application fees, by activity
FCA application fees follow the FCA’s application fee pricing categories. Arranging deals, dealing as agent and arranging staking sit in category 4 at £2,820. Dealing as principal, safeguarding cryptoassets and issuing a qualifying stablecoin sit in category 6 at £11,260, and operating a trading platform sits in category 7 at £28,150. A firm applying for a Part 4A permission and money laundering registration together pays one fee, at the highest applicable category.
Periodic fees are new to this sector. Authorised cryptoasset firms join a fee block charged on annual income, the rate for 2026/27 is £0, and no firm pays before the 2028/29 fee year, when the FCA will set rates using the income projections in applications. That makes FCA application fees the smallest line in the bill, though the income projections in your application are worth getting right because they feed into how those later rates are set.
Capital: money held, not spent
Capital is the largest part of the cost of UK crypto regulation, and it behaves differently from the other lines because it stays on your balance sheet. The starting point is the permanent minimum requirement, or PMR: £75,000 for dealing as agent and arranging deals, £150,000 for operating a trading platform, staking and safeguarding, £350,000 for issuing a qualifying stablecoin, and £750,000 for dealing as principal. A firm’s actual requirement is the highest of the PMR, a fixed overheads requirement (FOR) and a variable charge that scales with activity.
The FOR is a proxy for what winding down the whole firm would cost, calculated from the previous year’s expenditure with unaudited figures allowed for newer firms, so a startup with a high burn rate may find the FOR, rather than the PMR, sets its floor. For a staking business, client assets staked would need to pass £375 million before the variable charge overtook the £150,000 floor, which suggests the floor or the overheads test binds for most early-stage firms. A separate liquid assets requirement also applies, so part of the capital has to be held in readily available form.
A £350,000 floor beside a very small market
The UK’s only UK-issued fiat-referenced stablecoin, Tokenised GBP, had a market capitalisation of $1.53 million in March 2026, and four issuers were testing products in the FCA’s sandbox. For an issuer on a market that size, the variable charge, set at 1 per cent of average stablecoin in issuance, would come to roughly $15,000 even if one issuer held all of it. That is illustrative arithmetic rather than a forecast, but it shows why the floor, not the variable charge, is the number an early stablecoin issuer would have to find. Whether the market grows enough for the variable charge to take over is an open question.
What counts matters as much as the amount. Ordinary shares and retained earnings can meet the own funds requirement on their own, but intangible assets, including internally developed software, must be deducted, as must cryptoassets a firm issues or controls the supply of. A startup whose balance sheet is mostly capitalised software or its own token may therefore hold less qualifying capital than its accounts suggest. The FCA treats the PMR as a threshold condition for authorisation, and has rejected phased-in arrangements, although it has said it will monitor the rules after implementation.
“We do not think transitional arrangements are appropriate.”— FCA, Policy Statement PS26/12, June 2026
The FCA regulatory business plan and the people behind it
The application needs an FCA regulatory business plan, and the financial projections inside it are where capital planning meets the regulator, because the FCA assesses capital adequacy as part of the application itself. Firms commonly bring in advisers to draft the plan and to show that the firm meets the threshold conditions.
People and advisers make up the rest of the cost of UK crypto regulation. Authorisation brings the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) to firms that have never operated under it, which means FCA-approved individuals, typically including a head of compliance oversight (SMF16) and a money laundering reporting officer, or MLRO (SMF17). A fractional MLRO is an established arrangement at smaller regulated firms, provided the function is genuinely performed, and whether it suits your business is a question for your compliance adviser. Salary benchmarks for these roles vary widely by seniority and business model, so they are best priced with a recruiter.
How long authorisation takes, and what waiting costs
The FCA has up to six months to decide a complete application and up to twelve if it is incomplete, so a complete application filed on the last day could be decided by late August 2027, while an incomplete one could run to February 2028, past the day the regime starts.
Waiting is its own line in the cost of UK crypto regulation, because salaries and held capital carry on without revenue from the new permission. The savings provisions explain why timing still matters: a firm that applies by 28 February 2027 and is still undetermined on 25 October 2027 is treated as if the regime had not come into force for that activity, until 25 October 2029 at the latest. A firm that applies later, or is refused, may only perform contracts it entered into before the regime started, which in practice means running off its UK business.
“I read 28 February 2027 as the date that matters most.”— Rob Bratby, Managing Partner, Bratby Law
From application in June 2022 to a decision in March 2025
Zeux Limited applied to register as a cryptoasset exchange provider under the money laundering regulations in June 2022, and the FCA published its refusal in March 2025.
The published reasons centred on anti-money laundering controls, including risk assessment, customer due diligence and suspicious activity reporting.
That was the old registration regime, which covers less ground than the new authorisation, but it shows how long a decision can take and where the scrutiny fell: on the financial crime controls an MLRO is responsible for.
Under the same regime, 265 of 393 determined applications since 2020 ended in withdrawal.
What to take to your accountant
The cost of UK crypto regulation is best modelled as locked capital plus the people and advisers needed to reach a decision, with the fee as a small addition and the FCA regulatory business plan as the document where those numbers have to hold up.
Several questions remain open.
The FCA has said it will monitor the PMRs once it has supervisory data, and some respondents asked it to recalibrate them, so the floors may not be final. The 2028/29 periodic fee rates will only emerge when the FCA consults on them, and it remains to be seen how many early-stage founders can raise capital in a form that counts as own funds, given what has to be deducted.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need FCA authorisation for crypto in the UK?
If your startup issues a qualifying stablecoin, safeguards cryptoassets, operates a trading platform, deals, arranges deals or stakes in or from the UK after 25 October 2027, yes. Existing money laundering registration does not carry over, and neither does an e-money or payment institution authorisation.
What is a Part 4A permission?
It is the FCA’s formal permission to carry on a regulated activity, and it is what a crypto startup applies for under the new regime. Firms that already hold one apply to vary it instead of making a fresh application.
How long does FCA authorisation take?
Up to six months for a complete application and up to twelve for an incomplete one. Applying by 28 February 2027 brings the savings provisions into play.
What are FCA application fees for a crypto startup?
Between £2,820 and £28,150 depending on the activity category, paid once even where an applicant also seeks money laundering registration. The higher costs come from capital, people, and time.
Editorial Note
This piece is based on secondary research and is not legal or financial advice. If you have been through FCA crypto registration or are preparing an application, we would like to hear from you.
Read Next: Can UK Nuclear Companies Beat the Regulator's Clock?
Sources: FCA, Overview of our cryptoassets regime policy statements; FCA, PS26/12 A Prudential Regime for Cryptoasset Firms (June 2026); FCA, press release “FCA sets landmark crypto rules to cement the UK’s place as a global hub” (30 June 2026); FCA, “Cryptoassets: Who needs to register” (data as at 1 October 2026); FCA, “FCA declines Zeux Limited’s crypto registration citing significant risk of harm” (17 March 2025); FCA, written evidence STA0059 to Parliament on stablecoins (11 March 2026); FCA fees instrument FCA 2026/34; Agant, “Agant announces its registration with the UK Financial Conduct Authority” (11 February 2026); Bratby Law, FCA crypto authorisation: fees and the application window (28 September 2026); FD Capital, FCA Authorisation Fees and Capital: A Practical Guide, and cryptoasset compliance recruitment; Future of Finance, FCA Gateway Workshop 2026 recap; Price Bailey, FCA regime for cryptoasset regulation.
