Kraken Review: Licences, Fees and Who It Serves

Kraken is one of the oldest crypto exchanges still operating and, in October 2026, one of the better-licensed: it holds a MiCA licence in Ireland that covers the whole EEA, FCA registration in the UK, restricted-dealer status across Canada and AUSTRAC registration in Australia. The catch is cost. Its simple app charges 1% per instant trade, while the same order placed on Kraken Pro can cost 0.40% or less.

This review draws on Kraken’s own legal, fee and support pages and on regulator records. We cover who runs Kraken, where it is licensed and where it is not allowed, how its two pricing systems work, what it does to protect accounts, and the enforcement history worth knowing. Nothing here is investment advice, and we do not show live prices.

Key facts about Kraken

The company behind Kraken

Jesse Powell founded Payward, Kraken’s parent, in San Francisco in 2011, and the exchange opened to the public in September 2013. That makes it older than almost every rival still in business. Many of the platforms it competed with in its early years, such as Mt. Gox, collapsed or were shut down; Kraken was later appointed to help distribute recovered funds to Mt. Gox creditors.

The group has widened well beyond spot trading. In September 2020 Wyoming granted Kraken Financial a charter as a special purpose depository institution, the first such crypto bank charter in the state. In 2025 Kraken bought NinjaTrader, a US futures trading platform, in a deal announced at $1.5 billion. In November 2025 Payward said it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the SEC for a possible share listing; as of October 2026 the company remains private and has given no listing date.

Why does the corporate side matter to a user? Because the entity that holds your account depends on where you live. A resident of Spain contracts with an Irish company under MiCA, a Canadian with Payward Canada, a Briton with Payward Limited. Your protections, available coins and products follow that entity, not the brand.

Licences and registrations by region

A licence is a starting point, not a guarantee. MiCA requires authorised firms to keep client assets segregated and to meet governance and disclosure rules, which is meaningful protection compared with an offshore venue. It does not cover trading losses, and crypto held on an exchange is not covered by bank deposit insurance.

Where Kraken does not operate

Kraken’s support pages list the countries whose residents it will not accept at all: Afghanistan, Belarus, the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Libya, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, South Sudan and Syria. Japan sits on that list because Kraken left the Japanese market at the end of January 2023.

Inside the US, residents of Maine and New York cannot open accounts. Smaller limits apply elsewhere: Kraken lists crypto transfers as unavailable in Indiana, fiat transfers as restricted in Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Utah, and euro deposits or trading as restricted in Texas and New Hampshire. Canadian accounts cannot use staking, margin, derivatives or tokenised stocks, and a long list of coins is unavailable there.

Coins you may not be able to trade in Europe

MiCA changed which tokens EEA clients can hold on regulated platforms. Kraken’s restricted list for EEA clients runs to dozens of assets and includes USDT (Tether), DAI and Monero (XMR). If you rely on USDT for transfers, check the list first: in the EEA, Kraken offers USDC and other compliant stablecoins instead.

A cooling-off period in the UK

Under the UK’s financial promotion rules for cryptoassets, every newly verified UK retail account at Kraken must wait 24 hours before it can trade. The pause is a legal requirement, not a fault, so plan your first purchase accordingly.

Two ways to trade, two price lists

Most of the difference in what users pay at Kraken comes down to which screen they use. The standard Kraken app and website offer instant buy and sell, recurring buys and conversions. Kraken Pro, available on the web and as a separate app, runs a full order book with maker and taker pricing.

Kraken app pricing

Instant and recurring trades cost 1%, and custom orders cost 1.5%. A spread is also built into the quoted price, and paying by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay can add processing fees. Kraken+ is a paid membership that removes the trading fee on up to $10,000 a month of trades in major currencies, though spreads and card fees remain. Converting leftover small balances that fall below the minimum order size costs a flat 3%.

Kraken Pro pricing

Stablecoin and pegged pairs, such as USDC against the dollar, have a separate schedule that starts at 0.20% for both makers and takers. Higher tiers keep falling as volume grows, which matters mainly to active traders.

What the gap costs in practice

Take someone who buys $300 of bitcoin every month. Through the app’s recurring buy at 1%, the fee is $3 a month, or $36 over a year, before the spread. Placing the same purchase as a limit order on Kraken Pro at the 0.40% maker rate costs $1.20 a month, or $14.40 a year. A one-off purchase of $1,200 shows the same pattern: $12 in the app, $4.80 as a Pro maker order, or $9.60 if the Pro order fills immediately as a taker.

Spreads are the hidden part. In a fast market the app’s quoted price can sit noticeably above the order book, so the real difference is often larger than the fee table suggests. If you buy regularly, learning to place a limit order on Pro is the single most effective saving.

Order types on Kraken Pro, briefly

Paying the maker rate depends on using the right order. Kraken Pro offers the standard set, and four are enough for most people:

• Market order: fills at once against existing orders, so it always pays the taker fee and can slip in a fast market.
• Limit order: you set the price. If it rests on the book before filling, it pays the lower maker fee.
• Post-only option: a limit order that is cancelled rather than filled as a taker, which guarantees maker pricing when it does fill.
• Stop-loss and take-profit: orders that trigger at a price you choose; they usually execute as taker orders once triggered.

Consider a worked case. You want €600 of ether and the best offer on the book is slightly above the last trade. A market order fills now at the offer and costs €4.80 at the 0.80% taker rate. A post-only limit order a little below the offer might wait minutes or hours, and might not fill at all, but if it does the fee is €2.40 at 0.40%. For regular savings purchases the wait rarely matters; for urgent trades the market order is the honest choice, and the fee difference is only a few euros either way.

Fee tiers are based on your rolling 30-day volume across Kraken, so a person buying a few hundred euros a month will stay in the first tier. Do not chase a lower tier by trading more than you planned: the extra fees and risk outweigh the discount.

Withdrawal costs

Sending crypto off Kraken carries a fee set per asset and network. Kraken shows it before you confirm. Fiat withdrawals depend on the currency and rail, for example SEPA for euros or local bank transfers elsewhere, and the funding page for your account lists what is available.

Products beyond buying and selling

• Staking: rewards on proof-of-stake coins where local rules allow. Kraken’s US staking service was closed in 2023 under an SEC settlement and later returned in many US states; it is not offered to Canadian clients.
• Margin and futures: leveraged trading for eligible clients in some countries. Losses can exceed a beginner’s expectations, so we leave these aside.
• Kraken Wallet: a self-custody wallet that is separate from your exchange account. Kraken cannot see or recover your keys.
• Krak: an app for sending money and paying with cash or crypto, in a limited set of countries.
• NinjaTrader: the futures platform acquired in 2025, run as its own product for US traders.

Security and proof of reserves

Kraken was one of the first exchanges to publish proof-of-reserves checks, starting in 2014, and continues to offer periodic attestations that let clients confirm their balance was included. As with every reserves report, it shows assets matched against client balances at a point in time; it is not a full audit of the company’s liabilities.

On the account side, Kraken offers several controls that many exchanges lack:

1. Two-factor authentication for sign-in, funding and trading, ideally with an authenticator app or a hardware key.
2. Global Settings Lock, which blocks changes to account settings for a period you choose, slowing down anyone who gains access.
3. Master key, a separate secret needed to make critical account changes or to recover access.
4. Withdrawal address confirmation, so new destinations must be verified by email before funds can go there.

Exchange custody is still a risk you take on. For coins you are not trading, our guide to crypto wallets compares hardware and software options.

Kraken’s regulatory record

Kraken’s record is far lighter than Binance’s or KuCoin’s, but it is not empty. These are the actions we could confirm from regulator sources.

None of these actions involved a loss of customer funds. They reflect how US regulators treated crypto products during 2021 to 2023 more than any failure to pay clients.

Opening a Kraken account

1. Use the right site. Type kraken.com yourself or use the official app; phishing copies advertise in search results.
2. Create the account with a unique password and add two-factor authentication immediately.
3. Verify your identity with an ID document, a selfie and, at higher levels, proof of address. Funding limits rise with each level.
4. Set a master key and the Global Settings Lock before you deposit anything significant.
5. Fund by bank transfer where possible, since card purchases carry extra costs.
6. Buy through Kraken Pro with a limit order to pay maker rather than app fees.

UK clients should add the 24-hour cooling-off period to that timeline. EEA clients should check the restricted-asset list before transferring in tokens from elsewhere, because a restricted coin may not be credited.

Moving crypto out safely

Kraken lists the networks it supports for each coin, and the receiving wallet must use the same one. A few minutes of checking prevents losses that no support team can reverse:

• match the coin and the network shown by the receiving wallet;
• add any memo or destination tag the recipient requires, as with XRP;
• confirm the address by email when Kraken asks, and do not reuse addresses from old messages;
• send a small first amount and wait for it before sending the remainder.

Under the EU travel rule (Regulation (EU) 2023/1113), Kraken’s EEA entity may also ask who owns a self-hosted wallet before a transfer of more than €1,000 to or from it. Answering accurately avoids delays.

Staking on Kraken: what you are agreeing to

Staking lets holders of proof-of-stake coins such as ether or solana earn network rewards. On Kraken, you move coins into a staking product and Kraken runs or delegates to validators on your behalf, keeping a commission from the rewards. The rate shown is an estimate that changes with network conditions, not a promised return.

Three points deserve attention before you opt in. Some assets have unbonding periods set by their blockchain, so you may wait days to get coins back after you stop staking. Rewards are generally taxable income in many countries when received. And staked coins remain in Kraken’s custody, so the exchange counterparty risk described above still applies. Where local rules ban the product, as in Canada, the option simply does not appear.

Support, complaints and what is not covered

Kraken offers round-the-clock support through live chat and a ticket system in its help centre. Staff will never ask for your password, two-factor codes or master key; anyone who does is an impostor, and fake “Kraken support” numbers in search ads are a known trap.

If a complaint is not resolved, your options depend on the entity serving you. EEA clients deal with a firm supervised by the Central Bank of Ireland, and MiCA obliges authorised providers to run a documented complaints procedure. In the UK the picture is weaker than many people assume: registration with the FCA as a cryptoasset firm is an anti-money-laundering registration, and cryptoasset trading is generally outside the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Keep screenshots, ticket numbers and dates for any dispute.

Records and tax reporting

Kraken lets you export full ledgers and trade histories as CSV files, which you will need for tax returns in most countries. Reporting by exchanges themselves is also growing. In the EU, the DAC8 directive covers crypto from 1 January 2026, so authorised providers such as Kraken’s Irish entity collect and report client transaction data to tax authorities, with the first reports for 2026 due in 2027. Treat any trade on a regulated exchange as visible to your tax office and keep your own copy of the records.

How Kraken compares with the other big names

On fees alone Kraken Pro is not the cheapest, but it pairs mid-range pricing with a clean licensing position in the regions most of our readers live in. That trade-off is the main reason to choose it. If cost per trade matters more to you than where the firm is licensed, the table shows where else to look; if the reverse is true, few large exchanges match Kraken’s spread of regional authorisations.

Who should use Kraken

Kraken fits users who want a long-running exchange with real licences in their own region, especially in the EEA, the UK, Canada and Australia. It is a strong default for buying major coins and moving them to self-custody, provided you use Kraken Pro rather than the app’s instant buy. It suits less well anyone who needs a very wide range of small tokens, residents of the excluded countries and US states, or EEA users who depend on USDT.

For comparison, Coinbase Advanced has similar entry-level order-book fees on paper and is run by a listed company. Binance is cheaper per trade but lacks a MiCA licence. KuCoin and HTX carry far more tokens and far more regulatory baggage. See the full exchange comparison, or read our Bitcoin and Ethereum guides before you buy.

Kraken: common questions

Is Kraken regulated?

Yes, in several regions. Its Irish entity Payward Europe Solutions Limited is a MiCA crypto-asset service provider passported across the EEA, Payward Limited is an FCA-registered cryptoasset firm in the UK, Payward Canada is a restricted dealer registered with FINTRAC, and Kraken is registered with AUSTRAC in Australia.

Why is Kraken more expensive in the app than on Kraken Pro?

The app charges 1% on instant and recurring trades (1.5% on custom orders) plus a spread, for convenience. Kraken Pro uses an order book with maker and taker fees that start at 0.40% and 0.80% and fall with volume.

Where is Kraken unavailable?

Kraken does not serve Afghanistan, Belarus, the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Cuba, the DR Congo, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Libya, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, South Sudan or Syria. Residents of Maine and New York are also excluded within the United States.

Can I buy USDT on Kraken in Europe?

No. USDT is on Kraken’s list of assets restricted for EEA clients under MiCA, along with DAI, Monero and many others. Compliant stablecoins such as USDC remain available.

Has Kraken ever been fined?

Yes, in the US: a $1.25 million CFTC penalty in 2021, a $362,158.70 OFAC sanctions settlement in 2022 and a $30 million SEC staking settlement in 2023. A broader SEC lawsuit filed in November 2023 was dropped in March 2025.

Is Kraken a public company?

Not as of October 2026. Its parent Payward said in November 2025 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the SEC, but it has not listed or announced a date.

Why do new UK accounts have to wait 24 hours?

UK financial promotion rules for cryptoassets require a cooling-off period for new retail clients, so Kraken applies a mandatory 24-hour wait after verification before trading.