Japan’s FSA-registered crypto exchanges, all 27 in one list

How crypto licensing works in Japan

Japan was one of the first countries to license crypto exchanges. Since April 2017, any company that buys, sells or exchanges crypto for customers, or holds customer coins, has to register under the Payment Services Act (資金決済法). The register is run by the Financial Services Agency (FSA, 金融庁) through its regional Local Finance Bureaus, and a firm on it is officially a crypto-asset exchange service providerA firm registered with Japan’s FSA to buy, sell, exchange or hold crypto for customers. Without it, a firm may not serve Japan residents. (暗号資産交換業者, angō-shisan kōkan gyōsha).

Registration comes with real obligations. Customer yen and coins must be kept apart from the company’s own money (segregationKeeping customer funds and coins separate from the company’s own assets, so they can’t be used to pay the firm’s debts.), most customer crypto must sit in cold storageStorage where private keys never touch the internet, which makes remote hacking much harder., every customer must pass identity checks, and suspicious transfers must be reported. On top of the law sits the JVCEAJapan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchange Association, the industry self-regulator that vets new coin listings and enforces rules such as the 2x leverage cap., the industry’s self-regulatory body, which reviews new coin listings and caps retail leverage at 2x.

The system is mid-upgrade. In July 2026 the Diet passed an amendment that moves crypto into the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the law that governs securities. Once the crypto part takes effect (by cabinet order, expected by around July 2027), registered firms will be renamed 暗号資産取引業者 and face insider-trading rules and new disclosure duties. The core principle stays the same: no registration, no customers in Japan. Our guide to crypto regulation in Japan covers the wider picture.

Exchanges you can open as an individual (11)

These are the registered firms where an individual resident can open an account on a phone and trade crypto against yen. The order means nothing: it is not a ranking by size or quality. If you want help choosing, the exchange comparison on our homepage and the fee comparison do that job; this page is for checking who is licensed.

“Kanto” and “Kinki” name the regional bureau that granted the registration. On a website it is written in full as 関東財務局長 第00003号 (Director-General of the Kanto Local Finance Bureau, No. 00003), usually in the footer or the company profile. A low number only tells you the firm registered early. Coincheck, for example, has a later number than its rivals because it registered in January 2019, a year after a hack of about ¥58 billion worth of NEM.

Coin counts come from the FSA register and drift from what the exchanges advertise. SBI VC Trade’s own site says 35 coins, while OKJ announced its 55th coin in October 2026. If you are after a specific token, check the exchange’s listing page before you go through the sign-up process.

Ownership has also shifted underneath the brands. SBI Holdings took full control of bitbank on 1 October 2026, after folding DMM Bitcoin’s customers (2025) and BITPOINT (2026) into SBI VC Trade. PayPay bought 40% of Binance Japan in 2025. The logo on the app is often the least informative thing about who you are dealing with.

Smaller and specialist registered firms (10)

The second group is a mixed bag: small retail platforms, dealer-only apps, two companies that run bitcoin ATMs, and a forex broker. Most of them sell through a dealer deskA dealer desk (販売所, hanbaijo) where the exchange itself sells to you at a quoted price. Easy, but the gap between buy and sell prices is your real cost. rather than an order book.

For a typical resident, the ones that behave like a normal app-based exchange are BTCBOX, Coin Estate, CoinTrade, S.BLOX and OSL Japan. Coin lists are short, and because most of them work as dealer desks, the spread matters more than any headline fee. Yen withdrawal fees vary too: ¥330 at S.BLOX and ¥550 at CoinTrade and Coin Estate.

COINHUB and Gaia are on the register because selling crypto through a machine is an exchange business like any other. If you are hunting for a crypto ATM in Japan, these are the operators to look for. Money Partners is a currency broker whose website promotes crypto CFDsContracts for difference: you trade the price movement without owning or receiving the coin. Retail leverage in Japan is capped at 2x. rather than spot buying.

Institutional, custody and dormant registrations (6)

The last group is on the register but won’t matter if you just want to buy some bitcoin. It includes firms that serve institutions, a company focused on custodyHolding crypto on behalf of clients. In Japan this is a regulated activity, so specialist custodians must register too., and two registrations with no coins attached.

Laser Digital Japan, registered on 21 August 2026, is the newest name on the list and the first brand-new company to join since 2022. It is the Japanese arm of Laser Digital, the digital-asset subsidiary of Nomura. Its announcement says it will start by providing liquidity to domestic exchanges, with institutional trading to be announced later; there is no retail offer. Companies moving larger amounts should read our guide to OTC desks in Japan.

Coinbase K.K. kept its registration after Coinbase shut its Japanese retail service in 2023, and the register lists no coins for it. We found no announcement of a return. It is also the only one of the 27 that is not a JVCEA member, based on our cross-check of the association’s member list against the register.

Brand name vs the name on the register

The register is a Japanese PDF of legal entities, so searching it for the name you saw in an app store can come up empty. Renames and takeovers are common. These are the mismatches that trip people up most often:

CoinTrade

株式会社マーキュリー (Mercury K.K.)

Coin Estate

FINX JCrypto株式会社 (Bitgate → Coin Estate → FINX JCrypto, Aug 2025)

BitTrade

ビットトレード株式会社 (renamed from Huobi Japan in 2023)

Binance Japan

Binance Japan株式会社 (originally Sakura Exchange BitCoin, old number Kinki No. 00003)

BITPOINT

now a brand of SBI VC Trade (BITPOINT Japan was merged in on 1 Apr 2026)

Custodiem

株式会社Custodiem (formerly FTX Japan, bought by bitFlyer Holdings in 2024)

OSL Japan

formerly CoinBest

HashKey Japan

formerly Tokyo Hash

BACKSEAT

formerly coinbook

Gate Japan

formerly Coin Master

Also watch for look-alike pairs: OKJ and OKX, Gate Japan and Gate, Binance Japan and Binance. In each case only the Japanese company is registered. The global sites either refuse Japan residents in their terms or have been warned by the FSA.

Who left the register, and what happened to customers

The register only shows that a firm disappeared; it does not say whether it surrendered the registration or lost it. Company announcements fill in the story.

• Jan 2023Kraken (Payward Asia K.K.) Kanto No. 00022 is on the list dated 31 Dec 2022 and gone from the list dated 1 Feb 2023. Kraken’s Japanese site now redirects to its global site.
• 2023Coinbase closed its retail service in Japan but kept the registration (No. 00028), with no coins listed.
• Mar 2025DMM Bitcoin Kanto No. 00010. About ¥48.2 billion of bitcoin was stolen on 31 May 2024; the firm announced its closure in December 2024 and moved all accounts and assets to SBI VC Trade in March 2025.
• 1 Apr 2026BITPOINT Japan Kanto No. 00009, merged into SBI VC Trade. BITPOINT PRO closes on 30 Oct 2026, voluntary moves to VCTRADE start on 10 Nov 2026, and remaining accounts are due to be moved around the end of December 2026.
• 1 Jun 2026LINE BITMAX (LINE Xenesis K.K.) Kanto No. 00017 closed. Accounts were not transferred: leftover crypto was converted to yen and refunded to customers’ bank accounts.
• 21 Aug 2026Laser Digital Japan joins as Kanto No. 00032, the only new entrant in years.

The LINE BITMAX approach is worth noticing if you hold coins long term. A forced conversion to yen counts as a sale, so any gain becomes taxable in that year whether you wanted to sell or not. Read your exchange’s notices even when they look like marketing. Our Japan crypto tax guide explains how such a sale is taxed.

Offshore exchanges the FSA has warned

Many people arrive in Japan with an account on a global exchange. The FSA’s view is simple: an unregistered firm that serves Japan residents is breaking the law, and the agency publishes warning lettersA formal letter from the FSA telling an unregistered firm to stop serving Japan residents. Recipients are named publicly on the FSA website. naming them. Under the Payment Services Act it has warned, among others:

Mar 2018

Binance

May 2021

Bybit Fintech

Jun 2021

Binance Holdings

Mar 2023

Bybit, MEXC Global, Bitget, Bitforex

Jun 2024

LBank

Nov 2024

KuCoin, Bybit, MEXC Global, Bitget, bitcastle

The pressure is working. Bybit stopped taking new Japanese users at the end of October 2025 and announced a phased exit in December 2025. Bitget announced its exit in August 2026: accounts of Japan residents become close-only on 1 November 2026, and open positions are force-closed on 31 December 2026. OKX and Gate both list Japan as a restricted location in their global terms. In February 2025, Bybit and other offshore exchange apps were reported to have been pulled from Japan’s app stores at the FSA’s request.

Penalties went up on 12 August 2026: running an unregistered exchange now carries up to 10 years in prison, up from 3. The tax angle matters too. The planned 20% flat tax on crypto, expected from 2028 at the earliest, only covers trades made through registered operators, so gains on offshore platforms would likely stay under the progressive rates of up to 55%. If you still have funds offshore, see our guide to offshore exchanges and moving funds.

How to check a Japanese crypto license yourself

It takes a few minutes, and the register being in Japanese is less of a hurdle than it looks, because you can search it by number.

1. Find the number on the exchange’s site

   Look in the footer or company profile for 暗号資産交換業者 関東財務局長 第000XX号 (or 近畿財務局長 for Osaka-registered firms) and the full Japanese company name. No number, no account.

2. Open the official register

   Download the FSA’s crypto-asset exchange register (PDF). The cover shows the reference date (令和 year, month, day), so make sure you have a recent one.

3. Search for the number with Ctrl+F

   Type the five-digit number, for example 00014. Check that the company name (商号) and head-office address (本店所在地) next to it match what the exchange shows.

4. Confirm the URL and the app publisher

   Phishing sites copy genuine exchanges, so arrive by typing the address yourself, and check that the app-store publisher is the registered company.

5. Check the warning list for unfamiliar names

   If someone pitches you an offshore platform, search the FSA warning page. Not being on the warning list does not make a firm legal; only being on the register does.

Two look-alike registrations cause confusion. Stablecoin dealers (電子決済手段等取引業者) have a separate register: SBI VC Trade and Coincheck were the only two as of August 2026, which is why they can offer USDC. And a securities or FX license (金融商品取引業, numbered 関東財務局長（金商）第○○号) is not a crypto exchange license. For stablecoins, see JPYC and yen stablecoins.

What the list means if you are a foreign resident

Registration says nothing about who an exchange will accept. Domestic exchanges verify identity under Japan’s anti-money-laundering law, so in practice you need a residence card (在留カード) or another Japanese photo ID, a registered address in Japan, and a Japanese bank account in your own name. Since 1 January 2026 every new account holder also files a tax-residence self-certification under the OECD’s CARF rules, which can include a foreign tax ID number.

Some exchanges restrict US persons, and English support varies from exchange to exchange, so read the terms and the help pages before you start the identity check rather than after. Short-term visitors cannot pass these checks at all. Our guide to crypto for foreigners in Japan goes through visa types, US-person rules and what happens to your account when you leave, and how to buy bitcoin in Japan walks through the sign-up itself.

FSA-registered exchanges: FAQ

Keep reading

Buy crypto in Japan

The complete starting point for buying crypto in Japan

Read more →

Crypto for foreigners in Japan

Visas, residence cards, US persons and tourists

Read more →

Exchange fees compared

Maker/taker, spreads, deposits and withdrawals side by side

Read more →

Offshore exchanges and Japan

Who left, who was warned, how to move funds

Read more →

How to buy Bitcoin in Japan

Account opening to first purchase, step by step

Read more →

Exchange and app reviews

Japanese services tested against one checklist

Read more →