Bitfinex review 2026: zero percent, no EU licence
Bitfinex is still perfectly accessible from the EU, but it fails two of our five conditions.
Where it falls down
No EU authorisation. Bitfinex does not appear in the ESMA register of authorised providers and has not announced a MiCAR application. The transitional period ended on 1 July 2026: without authorisation, a provider may no longer supply crypto services to customers in the EU. Bitfinex holds its authorisations in El Salvador, where the regulator CNAD granted the most recent one on 12 May 2026.
No fee tiers to calculate with. Since December 2025, Bitfinex has charged zero percent on both maker and taker fees, across spot, margin, derivatives and OTC, with no volume thresholds. For traders that is good news. But our calculator compares fees per volume tier, and here there are none.
What Bitfinex is
Bitfinex has been trading since 2012 and was for a long time operated by iFinex Inc. in the British Virgin Islands. The New York Attorney General established in 2021 that Bitfinex and Tether had the same shareholders and the same management; that entanglement is still there.
Since 2025 the company has been moving to El Salvador. Regulator CNAD registered Bitfinex Securities (10 Nov 2023), then Bitfinex Derivatives (6 Jan 2025) and, on 23 April 2026, BFXNA and BFXWW as well — the two companies behind the core platform itself. On 12 May 2026 Bitfinex reported that its licences in El Salvador were thereby complete.
Products
| Product | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Spot | Live | More than 350 markets |
| Margin | Live | Up to 100x, with a funding book supplied by other users |
| Perpetuals & futures | Live | More than 60 contracts: crypto, commodities, currencies, equities, volatility |
| Options | Via a third party | BTC and ETH via Thalex, settled in USDt |
| Tokenised securities | Live | Bitfinex Securities; not for residents of Austria and Italy |
| Lending | Live | Funding book and Bitfinex Borrow |
| Staking | Live | Weekly payout on proof-of-stake tokens |
Fees
- Trading fees: zero percent maker and taker on spot, margin, derivatives, securities and OTC. In effect since 17 December 2025, with no volume thresholds and no token condition
- SEPA: €5 per transaction up to €10,000 via OpenPayd, 0.100% above that. SEPA Instant is chosen automatically if your bank supports it; minimum withdrawal €25
- Bank transfer: 0.100% with a minimum of $60 on deposits and $100 on withdrawals; an express withdrawal costs 1.000% with a minimum of $125
- Funding: Bitfinex keeps 15% of what a lender earns, 18% on hidden offers. LEO holders get up to 5% off
- Crypto withdrawal fees: not published per coin — you only see them once you are inside your account
Zero percent really is zero percent, and that is exactly why Bitfinex does not fit in our calculator: there is no fee tier to work through. Anyone trading here pays the spread and the withdrawal fees, not the trade itself.
Regulation and warnings
- No MiCAR licence: Bitfinex does not appear in the ESMA register of authorised providers (version of 4 August 2026) and has not announced an application
- FCA (UK), 27 October 2023: on the warning list. Bitfinex then wound down its British customer base, up to and including dropping staking and lending in February 2024
- NYAG, 23 February 2021: $18.5 million settlement. Bitfinex had concealed roughly $850 million in losses at payment processor Crypto Capital; trading with New Yorkers has been banned ever since
- CFTC, 15 October 2021: $42.5 million together with Tether, for illegal futures trading with Americans and for acting as an unregistered intermediary
Bitfinex has not commented on MiCA and has not put a single EU country on its own list of restricted territories. The transition period ended on 1 July 2026.
Track record
- 2 August 2016: 119,754 bitcoin stolen, worth around $72 million at the time. Bitfinex then cut every single customer balance by 36% and handed everyone BFX tokens in return; those were redeemed or converted into shares within eight months
- May 2015: 1,500 bitcoin stolen, around $400,000
- February 2022: the American authorities seized roughly $3.6 billion in stolen bitcoin; in November 2024 the two accused were given five years and eighteen months
- 15 January 2025: the United States asked the court to return 94,643 bitcoin to Bitfinex. As of February 2026 that had not yet been carried out
- Since 2016: no further confirmed loss of customer funds
Proof of Reserves
On 11 November 2022 Bitfinex published its own wallet addresses on GitHub, holding 204,338 bitcoin and 1,225,600 ether. That file is still there.
But a list of addresses proves what is in the till, not what stands against it. There is no Merkle tree in which you can find your own balance, no fixed publication cycle and no external auditor. The most recent publication we can date is the one from November 2022. Exchanges that do appear in our comparison publish monthly.
What does check out
It is a genuine trading venue with an order book, not a broker that executes your order against its own liquidity provider. Euros go in and out via SEPA and SEPA Instant, at a flat fee of €5.
What this means for you
Here you are trading with a company that is not under European supervision. If something goes wrong with your balance, there is no EU regulator to turn to and no European framework covering how it is held. That can be a deliberate choice — but it is a choice.
Last checked on 10 August 2026 · Sources: Bitfinex fee page ↗ · ESMA register ↗ · CNAD El Salvador ↗ · NYAG settlement 2021 ↗
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