Best crypto exchanges in the United Kingdom

Sixty-two firms were on the FCA's register of cryptoasset businesses when we checked on 16 October 2026, plus six that were formerly registered. Getting on is hard: of 393 applications the FCA had decided by 1 October 2026, 68 were registered (17%), and 265 were withdrawn. Four of the exchanges we have reviewed are on it through their own UK companies: Kraken, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Bitpanda.

Most of the 62 are trading firms, custodians and banks that don't sell to the public. The table lists the best-known consumer-facing brands, with the date each company's current registration status took effect.

A register entry tells you a company passed the FCA's anti-money-laundering checks. It doesn't tell you the company is still open to customers. Gemini's UK companies are still listed, although Gemini closed all UK accounts from 6 April 2026. So is Ziglu, which entered special administration on 7 July 2025. Two minutes of checking before you deposit is worth it:

• Search the company name or FRN on the FCA register and look at its cryptoasset status, restrictions and disciplinary history.
• Check the "Clones of this firm" section. Coinbase's entry lists several clone websites that copied its details.
• Make sure the website you are on names the same company and FRN in its footer.
• Use the FCA's scam guidance if someone contacted you first.

No. The FCA says registration "is not a recommendation or endorsement" of a firm, and that registration doesn't bring Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection for crypto. All four of our picks repeat that warning on their UK pages. If an exchange fails or is hacked, there is no compensation scheme behind it.

Your pounds are treated differently from your crypto. Kraken and Coinbase hold customer pounds through authorised e-money institutions, as does Crypto.com for its app GBP account. These firms must safeguard it, usually in a separate account at a bank. The FCA says that if such a firm fails you should get most of that money back, though it may take time and administrators' costs can reduce it. That is not FSCS cover, but it is a legal protection crypto balances don't have.

Scam protection is narrower than many people think. The mandatory reimbursement scheme for authorised push payment fraud, capped at £85,000, doesn't cover money you send to your own account at a crypto exchange. The Financial Ombudsman Service can't rule on the crypto itself, but it can still look at whether your bank or e-money provider should have done more to stop a payment.

Every crypto promotion aimed at UK consumers has to carry the FCA's prescribed warning, and you'll see it on all four sites:

• "Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong."

Which is the cheapest crypto exchange in the UK? Of our four picks, Kraken had the lowest cost we could fully work out from published fees: £8.92 to buy £1,000 of Bitcoin with a market order and send it to your own wallet, or 0.89%. Coinbase Advanced has a lower trading fee, £5.00, but its Bitcoin withdrawal fee is an estimate shown only when you send, so its total can't be worked out in advance.

The table follows a £1,000 market buy at each exchange's entry-level fee, then one Bitcoin withdrawal to a wallet you control. Faster Payments deposits are free at Kraken, Crypto.com and Bitpanda; we couldn't find Coinbase's fee on a public page. Apart from Bitpanda's premium, none of them publishes its spread, so spreads are left out; where an exchange says it adds one, your real cost is higher.

Three things move the real number. The first is the screen you buy from: simple-buy screens on every platform here include a spread, while order books show you the market price and charge a published fee. The second is order type, because a limit order that adds liquidity pays the lower maker fee (0.40% at Kraken, 0.25% at Coinbase). The third is the exit: withdrawing pounds by Faster Payments costs £1.95 at Kraken and £1.90 on the Crypto.com Exchange.

Our fee calculator compares order sizes across every exchange we have reviewed. It works in US dollars, so compare the percentages.

Use Faster Payments. It is free at Kraken, Crypto.com and Bitpanda, and Coinbase accepts it too, although we couldn't find its fee on a public page. Crypto.com and Bitpanda say deposits usually arrive within minutes; Kraken quotes up to one business day and Coinbase one to three. Card deposits cost more: Kraken charges 3.75% plus £0.25.

Your bank may cap what you can send. Several big UK banks limit payments to crypto exchanges to fight scams, and their own help pages set out the limits:

HSBC and NatWest say money coming back from an exchange isn't limited. If a deposit is blocked, check that you are paying the exchange's registered UK company, then contact your bank. Our on-ramp cost tool compares card and bank-transfer pricing if you need another route.

Kraken is the safest of the four on the evidence we could check. It publishes proof of reserves attested by an independent accounting firm, most recently for a 30 June 2026 snapshot showing Bitcoin reserves of 102.9%, and we found no FCA enforcement against its UK companies. Coinbase's UK company was fined by the FCA in 2024, and Crypto.com's latest reserves report covers December 2022.

Scams are a far more common threat than exchange failures. UK Finance says investment scam losses of all kinds reached £221.5 million in 2025, up 40% on 2024, across 14,893 cases.

The Coinbase case is worth knowing. In July 2024 the FCA fined CB Payments Ltd £3,503,546 for repeatedly breaching a voluntary requirement, agreed in October 2020, that barred it from offering services to high-risk customers. The FCA said 13,416 high-risk customers were onboarded or given e-money services, and called it its first enforcement action against a firm enabling cryptoasset trading. Separately, in May 2025 Coinbase disclosed that criminals had bribed support agents outside the US to steal data on fewer than 1% of its monthly transacting users. It said no passwords, private keys or funds were exposed.

• Check the company and FRN on the FCA register, and that the site footer matches.
• Turn on app-based two-factor authentication and a withdrawal address allowlist.
• Expect the Travel Rule: since 1 September 2023, UK exchanges must collect and share information about crypto transfers, so a withdrawal to another exchange may ask for the recipient's details.
• Keep long-term holdings in a self-custody wallet. Our best crypto wallets for UK readers list covers the options.
• Be wary of anyone who contacts you first about an investment, and of "recovery" services that promise to get lost crypto back for a fee. Report fraud to Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud on 4 December 2025.

Since 8 October 2023, every crypto exchange that markets to UK consumers must put new customers through the same steps. They exist to slow you down before a first purchase, and you'll meet them at all four of our picks.

• A 24-hour cooling-off period before the first time you can buy, after which you choose whether to continue.
• A personalised risk warning and the prescribed "Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest" message.
• A statement putting you in a category, usually "restricted investor" (no more than 10% of your net assets in high-risk investments) or "high net worth", renewed every 12 months.
• An appropriateness test: questions about how crypto works, which you must pass before you can buy.
• No incentives to invest, including sign-up bonuses and refer-a-friend rewards.

Two other rules shape what you can buy. Crypto derivatives such as futures and CFDs have been banned for retail clients since January 2021, and the FCA confirmed in August 2025 that the ban stays. Crypto exchange-traded notes (cETNs) listed on a UK exchange, on the other hand, have been open to retail investors since 8 October 2025, with no FSCS cover. Since 6 April 2026 new cETN purchases in an ISA can only go in an Innovative Finance ISA, not a stocks and shares ISA, and pensions such as SIPPs have been allowed to hold them since October 2025.

Coinbase is our pick for beginners in the UK. It had the joint-highest ease-of-use score of our four (4.7 out of 5, level with Bitpanda) and takes Faster Payments and open banking. When you want lower fees, Coinbase Advanced is in the same app. Bitpanda is the simpler choice if you only want to buy a fixed amount each month. Crypto.com suits people who want everything inside one app.

The catch for beginners is the price on the buy button. Simple-buy screens include a spread, so you receive less crypto than an order-book trade would give you. On Coinbase, switch to Advanced once you are comfortable; on Kraken, use Kraken Pro rather than Instant Buy.

Start small. A recurring buy of a fixed amount every week or month takes away the urge to time the market. Our guide to buying Bitcoin covers each step, from ID checks to moving coins into your own wallet.

Kraken Pro and Coinbase Advanced are the two order-book platforms with real GBP markets: 25 crypto pairs against sterling at Kraken and 23 at Coinbase, both with BTC/GBP. Coinbase is cheaper at the entry tier (0.25% maker, 0.50% taker against Kraken's 0.40% and 0.80%), and Kraken's fees fall as your 30-day volume grows, to 0.30% and 0.60% from $2,500 and 0.22% and 0.38% from $10,000.

Leverage is restricted. Retail clients can't trade crypto derivatives in the UK, so Kraken and Coinbase offer them only to professional clients. Kraken lets UK clients use margin with pounds or fiat-backed stablecoins only if they declare that they are high-net-worth borrowers or use it for business. High net worth means net income over £150,000 or net assets over £500,000, backed by an accountant's statement.

OKX and Bybit, yes, but neither is on the FCA register: both market to UK customers through promotions approved by an FCA-authorised firm. Binance stopped accepting new UK users in October 2023. Eight of the 12 exchanges we checked have no UK company on the register.

Approved promotions make the marketing legal, but they don't make the exchange FCA-registered, and the new regime will force a choice. Firms that rely on an approver must apply for authorisation by 28 February 2027 or run off their UK business before 25 October 2027. Your tax position doesn't change with the exchange: gains are reportable wherever you trade.

Increasingly, yes. Since 1 January 2026, UK crypto exchanges have had to collect each customer's name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number or tax reference under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, and report their transactions to HMRC from 2027. The rule covers UK residents as well as people abroad. If you give an exchange wrong details or none, you can be fined up to £300.

Selling crypto, swapping one coin for another, spending it or giving it away is a disposal for capital gains tax, except gifts to a spouse, civil partner or charity. The first £3,000 of gains a year is tax-free in 2026/27, and gains above that are taxed at 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above it. Tokens of the same type go into one pool with an average cost, but purchases on the same day as a sale, or within the 30 days after it, are matched to that sale first.

Staking and mining rewards are usually taxed as miscellaneous income when you receive them, unless you are trading. Self Assessment returns have had a separate cryptoasset section since 2024/25. If you are registered for Self Assessment you must report disposals worth more than £50,000 even when your gains are under the £3,000 allowance.

Two changes are proposed for 6 April 2027 in draft legislation published on 13 July 2026: crypto lending and liquidity pools would become no gain, no loss until a real disposal, and eligible stablecoins would be exempt from capital gains tax. Neither is law yet, and the Budget on 28 October 2026 may add more. HMRC's crypto guidance is the place to check.

Crypto exchanges will need full FCA authorisation, like other investment firms, instead of today's anti-money-laundering registration. The regime comes from the Cryptoassets Regulations 2026, made on 4 February 2026, and the FCA published its final rules for trading platforms, dealing, custody, staking and stablecoins on 30 June 2026.

• 30 September 2026: the FCA opens applications for authorisation.
• 28 February 2027: the application window closes. Firms that apply in time can keep operating while the FCA decides.
• 31 July 2027: the last practical date to apply for an anti-money-laundering registration under the old rules.
• 25 October 2027: the regime starts. Existing registrations don't convert automatically, and firms that never applied must have wound down their UK business.

For you, little changes before October 2027. After it, every exchange serving UK customers should be authorised, with Consumer Duty and custody rules behind it. The FCA has said crypto "will remain high risk" under the new regime, so authorisation won't make crypto safe; it should make exchanges more accountable.