For readers in the Netherlands the answer is Bitvavo, which holds MiCA authorisation from the AFM, because MEXC set November 16, 2026 as its final offboarding date there. Elsewhere in the EEA they doFor readers in the Netherlands the answer is Bitvavo, which holds MiCA authorisation from the AFM, because MEXC set November 16, 2026 as its final offboarding date there. Elsewhere in the EEA they do
Learn/Comparisons & Reviews/Exchange Comparisons/MEXC vs Bitvavo: MiCA-Licensed Euro Broker or 1,450-Coin Global Exchange?
MEXC vs Bitvavo: MiCA-Licensed Euro Broker or 1,450-Coin Global Exchange?
For readers in the Netherlands the answer is Bitvavo, which holds MiCA authorisation from the AFM, because MEXC set November 16, 2026 as its final offboarding date there.
Elsewhere in the EEA they do different jobs: Bitvavo is a licensed euro broker with 427 coins, MEXC a global exchange with 1,450 coins and futures but no MiCA authorisation.
Key Takeaways
- Bitvavo holds MiCA authorisation from the Dutch AFM, granted on July 14, 2025, while MEXC holds none and has been the subject of an AFM public warning since September 24, 2025.
- MEXC told Dutch users in August 2026 to move their assets by October 31 and set November 16, 2026 as the final offboarding date, so Dutch readers are choosing between Bitvavo and other licensed venues.
- CoinGecko counted 427 coins on Bitvavo and 1,450 on MEXC on October 7, 2026, and only MEXC offers perpetual futures, up to 500x on BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT outside ten excluded regions.
- Bitvavo charges 0.15% maker and 0.25% taker on euro pairs at its base tier but a flat 0.05% on USDC pairs, which matches MEXC's 0.05% spot taker rate.
- Bitvavo takes euros by SEPA, iDEAL and Bancontact without a deposit fee, while the cost of funding MEXC with euros depends on the card, P2P or third-party route used.
- Both publish proof of reserves with a Merkle check for users, MEXC monthly through Hacken and Bitvavo yearly through The Network Firm, most recently as of March 31, 2026.
Bitvavo serves only residents of the SEPA zone, so anyone comparing it with MEXC is deciding where to trade from inside Europe.
For Dutch residents that decision is already made, because MEXC is leaving the Netherlands after a public warning from the AFM.
This Bitvavo vs MEXC comparison starts with who can use which, then covers fees, coin range, futures, euro deposits, reserves and regulator records.
Can You Still Use MEXC in the Netherlands?
Not after November 16, 2026, the final offboarding date MEXC set in its August 2026 notice to Dutch users, which also asked them to move their assets by October 31.
The exit follows a public warning from the Dutch regulator AFM, which leaves Dutch readers a choice among licensed venues such as Bitvavo.
The AFM published that warning on September 24, 2025, stating that MEXC Global provided crypto-asset services without the required licence while actively targeting Dutch consumers.
Nothing moves automatically under MEXC's notice, so each Dutch user has to withdraw their own assets.
The safe order is to close any open positions, send a small test withdrawal to an account or wallet you control on a matching network, and then move the rest well before the final date.
For readers elsewhere in the EEA, MEXC's User Agreement, last updated May 29, 2025, names no EEA country among the jurisdictions it does not serve.
That is not the same as a licence: MEXC holds no MiCA authorisation in any EEA country, and its 500x leverage tier is withheld in Austria, Belgium, France and Italy, among ten regions.
Bitvavo's help center lists 24 supported countries in an article updated October 1, 2026, and Greece, Hungary, Croatia and Cyprus are not among them.
What Is Each Exchange Built For?
Bitvavo is built to turn euros into crypto under a MiCA licence, with free SEPA, iDEAL and Bancontact deposits and 427 coins on CoinGecko, but no perpetual futures.
MEXC is built for range and leverage, with 1,450 coins, perpetual futures up to 500x and 0% maker spot fees, outside the protections that MiCA gives Bitvavo's users.
Bitvavo's MiCA authorisation, granted by the AFM on July 14, 2025 and shown on France's AMF white list of crypto-asset service providers, covers custody, the operation of its trading platform and crypto transfers.
Euros are where Bitvavo is strongest.
SEPA, iDEAL and Bancontact deposits cost nothing, while cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal carry a 1% fee.
Spot trading is the core product, split between euro pairs and a separate set of USDC pairs, and margin trading is available with an hourly borrowing fee.
MEXC's spot schedule charges makers nothing and takers 0.05%, or 0.04% when the fee is paid in MX, according to the MEXC fee page as read on September 10, 2026.
Perpetual futures are priced per contract, with BTCUSDT at 0% maker and 0.02% taker and ETHUSDT at 0% and 0.01%.
Leverage on those two contracts reaches 500x under an official announcement dated April 23, 2025, outside ten excluded regions and copy trading.
Its reserves go through a Hacken audit each month, and in September its BTC holdings stood at 297% of what users held and its USDT at 119%.
What MEXC does not offer EEA users is a licence, so assets kept there sit outside MiCA's client-protection rules.
Our full guide to the best crypto exchange alternatives in 2026 covers licensed and global platforms side by side.
The MEXC View
MEXC publishes this page, so treat this section as the view of an interested party, and on Bitvavo that view begins with what we cannot match.
Bitvavo holds a MiCA licence, takes euros without deposit fees and serves Dutch residents, three things MEXC does not do.
Where MEXC is available, our case is narrower: perpetual futures, about 1,450 coins against 427, 0% maker spot fees, and a reserve audit every month rather than once a year.
A trader who needs none of those is better served by a licensed euro broker, and Dutch residents have no MEXC option after November 16, 2026.
The costs and limits we found on our own platform are set out in the weak points our MEXC review lists.
Bitvavo or MEXC: Who Leads on Fees, Coins, Futures, Trust, Funding and Extras?
Bitvavo leads on licensing, euro funding and BTC withdrawal cost, MEXC leads on coin range, futures, maker fees and how often its reserves are audited, and the two are level on stablecoin-pair taker fees.
Bitvavo also has the cleaner regulator record, while MEXC carries the AFM warning and 2026 actions from the Seychelles FSA and Dubai's VARA.
Each column draws on its own sources and dates, listed in the note under the table.
The reasons we compare exchanges on these rows are set out in the six dimensions we use to review exchanges.
Dimension | Bitvavo | MEXC |
Fees | Euro pairs 0.15% maker and 0.25% taker at the base tier, with maker fees reaching 0% from EUR 10 million in 30-day volume; USDC pairs 0.05% on both sides | Spot: no maker fee, 0.05% taker, 0.04% when paying in MX; futures set contract by contract, BTCUSDT 0% and 0.02%, ETHUSDT 0% and 0.01%, others capped at 0.040% maker and 0.100% taker; separate API rates of 0.06% and 0.08% |
Coins and markets | 427 coins across 437 pairs on CoinGecko, October 7, 2026 | 1,450 coins, about 3.4 times Bitvavo's count, in 1,834 pairs (CoinGecko, October 7, 2026) |
Derivatives and leverage | No perpetual futures; margin trading with a 0.0023% hourly borrowing fee and a 2% liquidation fee | Perpetuals to 500x on BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT and 250x on the SOL, XRP, DOGE and ADA USDT pairs, by the April 23, 2025 announcement; that tier is not offered in ten regions, Austria, Belgium, France and Italy among them |
Trust checks | MiCA authorisation from the AFM, July 14, 2025; yearly reserve attestation; CoinGecko 8 out of 10 with about 240 million USD in tracked reserves and two CORE3 stars; no incident recorded | AFM public warning of September 24, 2025; no MiCA authorisation; monthly Hacken reserve audit; CoinGecko 9 out of 10 with about 618 million USD in tracked reserves and three CORE3 stars; no incident recorded; Seychelles FSA press release of May 26, 2026; VARA notice of fines of June 22, 2026 |
Deposits and withdrawals | SEPA, iDEAL and Bancontact deposits free, cards and PayPal 1%; BTC withdrawal fee of 0.000017 BTC; residents of 24 SEPA-zone countries | Card, P2P and third-party routes with fees that depend on the method; BTC withdrawal fee of 0.00002 BTC as recorded on August 28, 2026; Primary, Advanced, address and institutional verification |
Standout | A MiCA licence and free euro deposits across 24 countries | Perpetual futures, about 3.4 times as many coins and a reserve audit every month |
Bitvavo fees per its official fee page as read on October 7, 2026; its licence per France's AMF white list of authorised crypto-asset service providers; its countries per its help center, updated October 1, 2026; MEXC fees per the official MEXC fee page as of September 10, 2026 and its June 1, 2026 API schedule; CoinGecko fields for both exchanges as read on October 7, 2026; regulator notices as linked in the protection section.
What Does a Month of Trading Cost on Euro Pairs Versus Stablecoin Pairs?
On EUR 10,000 of market orders a month, Bitvavo's euro pairs cost EUR 25 and its USDC pairs EUR 5, the same as MEXC's 0.05% spot taker rate.
MEXC pulls ahead only on maker orders, which cost nothing there, and with the MX discount, which takes the monthly bill to EUR 4.
Take a trader whose market orders add up to EUR 10,000 of trading volume each month.
On Bitvavo's euro pairs at the base tier, the 0.25% taker fee comes to EUR 25 a month, or EUR 300 over a year.
Switching to Bitvavo's USDC pairs cuts that to EUR 5 a month, because those pairs charge a flat 0.05% on both sides.
MEXC's spot taker rate is also 0.05%, so the same volume costs about EUR 5 there, or EUR 4 when the fee is paid in MX.
Make those orders resting limit orders and the monthly bill becomes EUR 15 on Bitvavo's euro pairs, EUR 5 on its USDC pairs and nothing on MEXC.
Over a year, that limit-order routine costs EUR 180, EUR 60 and zero.
Funding changes the picture for euro holders.
Bitvavo's SEPA, iDEAL and Bancontact deposits are free, while buying crypto for MEXC with a card or through a third-party provider adds a fee that depends on the route.
Volume also matters on Bitvavo, whose euro-pair maker fee falls to 0% only from EUR 10 million in 30-day volume.
How MEXC's schedule compares with eleven other exchanges is tracked in our fee index of 12 exchanges.
What Can You Trade on Each: Futures, Margin and Coin Range?
MEXC offers far more to trade: CoinGecko counted 1,450 coins on MEXC and 427 on Bitvavo on October 7, 2026, and only MEXC lists perpetual futures.
Bitvavo's leveraged product is margin trading on selected assets, priced by the hour, with a 2% fee if a position is liquidated.
Bitvavo's fee page lists an hourly borrowing fee of 0.0023% for BTC, ETH, SOL and 29 other assets.
On MEXC, the BTC and ETH perpetuals go as high as 500x, and four more USDT contracts as high as 250x.
That tier is withheld in ten regions, and four of them, Austria, Belgium, France and Italy, are on Bitvavo's list of supported countries.
Leverage cuts both ways.
The closing notice shows how small a price move can liquidate a 500x position.
How the major derivatives platforms compare on fees, pairs and leverage is set out in our derivatives exchange comparison.
Breadth and speed are different tests, and how quickly exchanges list new coins is measured separately in our listing index.
What Protects Your Money on Bitvavo and on MEXC?
Bitvavo's main protection is its MiCA licence, which brings AFM supervision and EU custody rules, while MEXC's is evidence: a monthly Hacken reserve audit that each user can check with a Merkle proof.
Both publish proof of reserves, and CoinGecko records no incident for either exchange.
Bitvavo's attestation comes from The Network Firm once a year, and its latest report, dated March 31, 2026, shows most listed assets at 100% and euros at 113%.
Bitvavo users can download a verification report that confirms their own balance was included.
MEXC's proof-of-reserves page carries a new Hacken report each month, with a Merkle-tree check for every account.
On CoinGecko, Bitvavo scored 8 out of 10 with about 240 million USD in tracked reserves and two CORE3 stars, and MEXC 9 out of 10 with about 618 million USD and three stars.
Which exchanges publish reserve proofs, and how often, is the subject of our survey of exchange reserve proofs.
Regulator records point the other way.
Bitvavo appears on France's AMF white list as a MiCA-authorised provider, while the AFM's September 2025 decision to list MEXC as a non-compliant entity is republished by ESMA.
MX Global Ltd, which the Seychelles Financial Services Authority identifies as the operator of the MEXC platform, is the subject of enforcement measures the regulator said it was initiating in a press release dated May 26, 2026, over virtual asset services offered without a licence.
Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority fined the same company in a notice dated June 22, 2026, having found that it took on Dubai customers without a licence between 2022 and April 2026 and fell short of UAE know-your-customer requirements when onboarding them.
VARA's notice also lists the company's cooperation, its halt once ordered and its plan to seek a licence.
How MiCA authorisation decides which exchanges may serve EU residents is explained in what MiCA authorisation means for exchanges serving EU residents.
Our separate answer to whether MEXC is safe details the platform's security and asset protection measures.
Who Is Bitvavo the Right Fit For, and Who Might Look at MEXC?
Dutch residents should choose Bitvavo or another licensed venue, and anyone in the EEA who wants euro deposits and MiCA protection is better served by Bitvavo too.
MEXC fits a narrower group: traders outside the Netherlands who need perpetual futures or long-tail coins and knowingly accept an exchange without MiCA authorisation.
Bitvavo suits buy-and-hold investors who fund with euros.
It also suits anyone who values MiCA supervision above product range, and every reader who lives in the Netherlands.
MEXC is the closer match only if futures or a coin Bitvavo does not list is the reason you are looking, and your country is not excluded by its terms.
For more licensed and global options, see the licensed and global alternatives to Bitvavo we compared.
Neither exchange is an option in the UK or the US, since Bitvavo serves only SEPA-zone residents and says it is not currently available in the UK, while MEXC's terms exclude both countries.
Readers anywhere in the EEA should weigh the notice at the end of this page, since MEXC is not authorised under MiCA.
The wider market is covered in the full best crypto exchanges comparison for 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is MEXC still available in the Netherlands?
Not after November 16, 2026, the final offboarding date in MEXC's August 2026 notice to Dutch users.
Dutch users were asked to move their assets by October 31, and nothing is transferred for them automatically.
Is Bitvavo licensed under MiCA?
Yes: the Dutch AFM authorised Bitvavo as a crypto-asset service provider on July 14, 2025, covering custody, its trading platform and transfers.
MEXC holds no MiCA authorisation.
Does Bitvavo offer futures trading?
Bitvavo offers no perpetual futures, only margin trading on selected assets with an hourly borrowing fee.
MEXC lists perpetuals up to 500x on BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT, a tier withheld in ten regions.
Is Bitvavo cheaper than MEXC?
On euro pairs, no: Bitvavo's base rate is 0.15% maker and 0.25% taker against MEXC's 0% and 0.05%.
Bitvavo's USDC pairs charge a flat 0.05%, which matches MEXC's taker fee.
How many coins does Bitvavo list compared with MEXC?
CoinGecko counted 427 coins and 437 pairs on Bitvavo on October 7, 2026, against 1,450 coins and 1,834 pairs on MEXC.
That makes MEXC's list about 3.4 times longer.
Do Bitvavo and MEXC publish proof of reserves?
Both do, with a Merkle check that lets users confirm their own balance.
MEXC's audit by Hacken is monthly, while Bitvavo's attestation by The Network Firm is yearly, most recently as of March 31, 2026.
Can I use MEXC elsewhere in the EU?
MEXC's User Agreement, last updated May 29, 2025, names no EEA country among those it does not serve, but MEXC has no MiCA authorisation anywhere in the EEA.
Its 500x tier is also withheld in Austria, Belgium, France and Italy.
What should Dutch MEXC users do before November 16, 2026?
Close open positions, then withdraw a small test amount to an account or wallet you control on a matching network before moving the rest.
MEXC asked Dutch users to complete this by October 31.
Are Bitvavo or MEXC available in the UK or the US?
Neither is an option: MEXC's terms exclude both countries, and Bitvavo serves only SEPA-zone residents and says it is not currently available in the UK.
Look for a platform authorised where you live.
Risk Warning and Regional Notice
Perpetual futures and leverage amplify both gains and losses, and positions can be liquidated for the full margin amount.
At 500x, a move of roughly 0.2% against a position can trigger liquidation, so high tiers suit only experienced traders with strict risk controls.
This article is informational for readers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, where the platforms discussed may not be available or authorised.
In the EU and EEA, MEXC is not authorized under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The Dutch regulator AFM has placed MEXC on its register of non-compliant entities, which ESMA republishes, and readers in those regions should factor this status into any decision.
In a May 26, 2026 press release, the Seychelles Financial Services Authority said the company it identifies as operating the MEXC platform does not hold a licence under its Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2024, that it is initiating enforcement measures, and that the public should exercise caution when dealing with the platform.
In a June 22, 2026 notice of fines, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority said the entity operating as MEXC had served customers in Dubai without a licence from 2022 to April 2026 and onboarded users without meeting UAE know-your-customer requirements, and that it cooperated, complied with cease-and-desist orders and intends to seek a licence.
Nothing here is investment advice, and fees, leverage tiers, and availability change, so confirm current terms on each platform's official pages before trading.
Read More
- Does MEXC Require KYC? Complete Guide to MEXC KYC Verification
- How to Withdraw Money from MEXC: Complete Step-by-Step Guide
- How to Transfer Crypto Between Exchanges: The Complete Guide to Switching Crypto Exchanges Without Selling a Coin
- Lowest Futures Fees Crypto Exchanges in 2026: Who Actually Charges the Least?
- Best Exchange for New Crypto Listings: Speed, Cost, and the Risk Labels Nobody Compares
- MEXC vs BloFin: 5 USDT or 20 USDT to Open and Close the Same BTC Position?
- MEXC vs BTSE: Are BTSE's Bank Rails Worth Paying 0.20% on Every Spot Trade?
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This article is provided by Sarah Chen for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency markets involve significant risk. Please conduct independent research or consult a qualified professional before making any investment decisions. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of MEXC or its affiliates.
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