Kraken review 2026: fees, safety and who it suits in Europe

Kraken is a crypto exchange founded in 2011 and run by Payward, and it serves EU residents under a MiCA licence from the Central Bank of Ireland. Our verdict: this way if you want one regulated Kraken account for spot crypto, staking and futures, but since July 2026 the entry fees on Kraken Pro (0.40% maker, 0.80% taker) make small buys dearer than at the cheapest EU exchanges.

We checked Kraken’s fee schedule, funding and security pages, legal disclosures and the ESMA register on 23 October 2026. This Kraken review covers the service for people living in the European Economic Area (EEA) and notes where the UK and the US differ. We have not traded on Kraken ourselves: every fact below comes from Kraken’s own pages or regulator records.

Kraken review: the short verdict

Kraken is one of the most complete crypto exchanges for EU residents: it holds a MiCA authorisation, lists hundreds of digital assets, offers staking and runs crypto futures through a separate MiFID II firm in Cyprus. Where Kraken falls short is cost at low volume: a €1,000 market order on Kraken Pro costs €8.00 in fees, and the simple Kraken app charges 1% plus a spread.

• Main upside: licensed spot trading, free SEPA deposits and a wide range of supported assets in one place.
• Main downside: Kraken’s fees at the entry tier are higher than at Bitvavo or Bybit EU, and the July 2026 change doubled the taker fee.
• Good fit: experienced traders and long-term holders who value a licence and range over the lowest price.
• Look elsewhere: if you buy €50–100 at a time and want the lowest possible fee.

Kraken Europe: is it licensed where you live?

Yes. Kraken is authorised under MiCA, the EU’s crypto law, and it serves the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and the rest of the EEA. The licence sits with Payward Europe Solutions Limited, which the Central Bank of Ireland authorised on 25 June 2025 and which is passported to every EEA country.

Kraken uses several companies in Europe, and it helps to know which one you deal with:

This matters more than it used to. Since 1 July 2026, only MiCA-authorised firms may provide crypto services in the EU, and ESMA told unauthorised firms to stop onboarding clients. Kraken appears in ESMA’s interim MiCA register, so it may serve you under EU rules and local regulations.

• Netherlands: available. In August 2026 Kraken agreed to take over MEXC’s Dutch clients as MEXC wound down its Dutch offering.
• Germany, Belgium and Ireland: available through the same Irish company.
• United Kingdom: served by Payward Limited, registered with the FCA as a cryptoasset business since November 2021. That is a registration, not MiCA.
• United States: served by Payward Interactive, Inc., with FinCEN registration and state money transmitter licences. Kraken’s US licence list doesn’t include New York.

Kraken fees: what you pay in 2026

Kraken’s fees depend on which app you use. Kraken Pro charges 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker at the entry tier, while the standard Kraken app charges 1% on instant and recurring buys plus a variable spread. Euro deposits by SEPA bank transfer are free, and SEPA withdrawals cost €1.

Kraken Pro fees after the July 2026 change

In July 2026 Kraken restructured its Kraken Pro fees, and the entry tier rose from 0.25% maker and 0.40% taker to 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker. A maker order is a limit order that waits in the order book; a taker order fills straight away against an existing order, as a market order does.

Kraken Pro fees fall as your 30-day trading volume grows. Kraken measures that volume in US dollars on one shared ladder, counting spot volume, futures volume or assets held. These are the first tiers of the fee schedule we checked:

Stablecoin and FX pairs, such as swapping euros for USDC, cost 0.20% for both maker and taker at the entry tier.

Kraken app fees and Kraken+

The standard Kraken app charges 1% on direct and recurring buys and 1.5% on custom orders, plus a variable spread and possible payment-method fees. The spread is the gap between the buy and sell price. It isn’t shown as a separate fee, so the real cost of buying crypto through the app is higher than 1%.

Kraken+ is a subscription that removes the app trading fee on up to $10,000 of monthly volume in major coins. Kraken lists it at $4.99 a month after a 30-day free trial. Spreads and card processing fees still apply, and it doesn’t cover Kraken Pro, futures, API or OTC trading. It only pays for itself if you buy more than about $500 a month in the app, because 1% of $499 is $4.99.

Deposit and withdrawal fees

Kraken charges nothing for SEPA deposits and €1 for a standard SEPA withdrawal. These are the deposit and withdrawal costs a euro user meets most often:

The bitcoin withdrawal fee is fixed in BTC, so its euro value moves with the price. As an illustration only: if one bitcoin were worth €100,000, 0.000015 BTC would be €1.50.

Kraken’s funding page doesn’t state a minimum deposit for euros. Your deposit and withdrawal limits depend on your verification level, and the name on your bank account must match your Kraken account, so a wire transfer from someone else’s account will not go through.

Worked examples: €100 and €1,000

A €100 buy costs between €0.40 and €1.00 plus the spread, depending on how you place it; a €1,000 buy costs between €4.00 and €10.00. These are the entry-tier fees, before any spread or network fee:

A full round trip shows how the costs add up. Say you deposit €1,000 by SEPA, buy bitcoin on Kraken Pro with a market order, later sell €1,000 worth with another market order and withdraw the euros:

• SEPA deposit: €0
• Buy, taker fee 0.80%: €8.00
• Sell, taker fee 0.80%: €8.00
• SEPA withdrawal: €1.00
• Total: €17.00, or 1.7% of the €1,000.

With limit orders that rest in the book instead, the same trip costs €4.00 + €4.00 + €1.00 = €9.00. If you invest €100 a month, the Kraken app costs €12 a year in fees plus the spread, while placing a maker order on Kraken Pro each month costs €4.80 a year.

Are Kraken’s fees competitive?

Not at the entry tier: Kraken Pro’s 0.80% taker fee is more than three times the 0.25% that Bitvavo and Bybit EU charge, or €8.00 against €2.50 on a €1,000 buy. Kraken Pro offers lower fees than the Kraken app, but even Kraken Pro isn’t the cheapest option for small buys. Our Kraken fees page breaks down every cost in more detail.

Kraken app vs Kraken Pro: which should you use?

Use the standard Kraken app if you want to buy a few coins in a few taps, and Kraken Pro if you want lower fees and advanced features. Both use the same login, switching between them is free, and each is its own app on your phone; you can also use both in a web browser.

Standard Kraken app for buying crypto

The standard Kraken app offers market, limit and recurring buy orders with basic price charts. It is the easier way of buying crypto, but its 1% fee plus spread also makes it the expensive one. Kraken also runs a separate Krak app, where you can order the physical Kraken Card.

Kraken Pro for advanced traders

Kraken Pro adds advanced charting tools and stop-loss, take-profit, trailing stop and iceberg orders, and it is where margin trading and derivatives sit. Kraken aims it at advanced and institutional traders, so expect a busy screen and a learning curve. Once you are comfortable placing a limit order, Kraken Pro cuts the fee on a €100 buy from at least €1.00 to €0.40.

What you can buy and trade on Kraken

Kraken offers a wide range of tradable assets: its public API listed more than 600 base assets with active trading pairs when we checked (our count, not an official Kraken figure). You can hold and trade seven fiat currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, CAD, AUD and JPY.

• Spot trading: buy and sell crypto against euros, other fiat options or stablecoins.
• Staking: flexible staking earns staking rewards automatically, though Kraken says it stakes only part of your assets. Bonded staking locks your coins for a fixed term and pays higher staking rewards in return; with flexible staking your coins stay unlocked. Kraken shows rates before its commission without stating the commission on that page, and geographical restrictions apply.
• Futures and margin trading: for experienced traders only; see the next section.
• Tokenised stocks and ETFs (xStocks): offered to EEA customers by Kraken’s Cyprus firm. They track a share or an exchange traded fund but, as Kraken states, don’t give you ownership of it. For real stock and ETF trading with investor compensation, a licensed broker is the better route.
• Kraken Card: a Mastercard issued by UAB Monavate that spends from your Kraken balance. Kraken advertises cashback of 0.5% to 2% in BTC or EUR depending on your average balance, no FX or ATM fees of its own (a spread applies when you spend non-euro assets), and support for Apple Pay and Google Pay where available.

Crypto futures trading and margin trading for EU residents

Kraken offers crypto futures to EU residents, but only through its Cyprus-licensed MiFID II firm and only after passing an appropriateness test. Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited (CySEC licence 342/17) runs the service and applies extra product and leverage limits for EEA clients.

The appropriateness test is a questionnaire about your knowledge and experience of derivatives. If you fail it, you can’t trade crypto futures, and that is a protection rather than a hurdle to work around.

Futures fees start at 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker for traders with under $5 million in futures volume. Those fees look small, but they apply to the full position size, not only to your own money. Perpetual contracts also carry funding payments between traders that can add to your costs.

A worked example shows why. Say you put €1,000 into a futures position at 5x leverage, so the position is worth €5,000:

• Opening as a taker costs 0.05% of €5,000 = €2.50, and closing costs about the same again.
• If the price moves 10% in your favour, you gain about €500, or 50% of your money.
• If it moves 10% against you, you lose about €500. A move of about 20% against you wipes out the whole €1,000, and the position can be liquidated before that point.

Margin trading on spot markets lets you borrow funds to buy more crypto than you can pay for. Kraken’s fee page offers it to “eligible clients” only, and we couldn’t confirm whether EU retail clients qualify. Read our guide to crypto derivatives before you try either.

Is Kraken safe? Protection and track record

Kraken is licensed in the EU and publishes proof of reserves, which puts it among the better-regulated crypto exchanges for EU residents. No licence makes crypto a protected investment, though: crypto is not a bank deposit, and in the Netherlands, for example, neither the deposit guarantee nor the investor compensation scheme covers crypto-assets.

What stands behind your Kraken account:

• Licences: MiCA authorisation from the Central Bank of Ireland since June 2025, plus CySEC supervision for derivatives.
• Proof of reserves: a Merkle-tree proof of reserves checked by an independent accountant, with the latest snapshot dated 30 June 2026. It shows Kraken held its clients’ assets on that date. It isn’t insurance, and it is a snapshot of one day.
• Insurance claim: Kraken’s card page says major crypto assets are held 1:1 and covered by £125m of insurance, without explaining what that insurance covers.
• Account security: FIDO2 two-factor authentication with passkeys, a Global Settings Lock that blocks changes to your account settings, and a bug bounty programme for outside security researchers. Kraken says it uses offline (cold storage) and online wallets for digital assets, but doesn’t publish what share of user funds it keeps offline.

Kraken’s regulatory record includes US settlements but, in the sources we checked, no fines from an EU regulator:

On security breaches: we haven’t completed a dedicated check of Kraken’s incident history, so we make no claim either way about lost customer funds. We scored protection 8 out of 10: an EU licence and proof of reserves, weighed against the past US settlements.

Kraken customer support

Kraken customer service is available 24/7 in the app, with a support centre online. We haven’t tested response times ourselves, so we can’t say how quickly problems get solved.

How to open a Kraken account

Opening a Kraken account takes a sign-up, an identity check and a SEPA transfer. Your verification level decides your deposit and withdrawal limits, so higher limits need more checks.

For a step-by-step walkthrough with costs, see our guide to buying bitcoin on Kraken.

Who Kraken suits, and who should look elsewhere

Kraken suits EU residents who want a licensed exchange with a wide coin range, staking and regulated futures in one place. It suits beginners less well, because the easy app is the expensive route and Kraken Pro takes time to learn.

Kraken is a good fit if you:

• want a MiCA-licensed crypto exchange with a long history (founded 2011);
• trade regularly and are happy to use limit orders on Kraken Pro;
• want crypto futures under MiFID II rules and pass the appropriateness test;
• hold euros and other currencies such as USD, GBP or CHF.

Look elsewhere if you:

• buy small amounts and want the lowest fee per trade;
• want real stocks and ETFs covered by investor compensation;
• want a simple app with no spread on top of the fee.

Kraken alternatives: other crypto exchanges in Europe

If Kraken’s fees or apps don’t fit, these MiCA-licensed exchanges are worth comparing:

• Bitvavo: Dutch, licensed by the AFM, 0.15% maker and 0.25% taker at the entry tier and free SEPA withdrawals. Cheaper for small buys, with fewer coins (450+ according to Bitvavo).
• Bitpanda: Austrian, MiCA-licensed, with the fee built into the price (a 0.99% premium on bitcoin) and stocks and ETFs in some countries.
• Coinbase: MiCA-licensed in Luxembourg, with a familiar app. See our Coinbase vs Kraken comparison.
• Bybit EU: MiCA-licensed in Austria with a flat 0.25% spot fee, but with a 2025 hack in the group’s history. See Kraken vs Bybit.

The bottom line

Kraken is a strong, licensed choice for EU residents who want range and regulated futures, and it publishes its fees in full. Since July 2026 it is no longer cheap at the entry tier, so use Kraken Pro with limit orders, or pick a cheaper exchange if you only buy €100 at a time. Crypto is volatile, and you can lose all the money you put in.