Revolut drops Tether's USDT in Europe, handing regulated market to USDC

Tether’s USDT will no longer be available to European customers in Revolut from August 31, 2026, after the company decided to end direct access to the cryptocurrency amid the tightening regulations in the market.

Per the customer notification issued by the company, the move was based on a periodic assessment of the assets it supports. Revolut also cited “regulatory and risk considerations” as a factor responsible for its delisting of the USDT token.

The wind-down will take place in stages through August. It begins on July 6 at 12:00 PM GMT, when the buy button stops working. Subsequently, no new deposits will be allowed from July 30.

The last cut-off day is August 31, when any leftover USDT is converted to the account’s base currency at the market rate on that day.

Why Revolut can no longer list USDT

Revolut is now falling into its own compliance. In November 2025, Revolut received a MiCA crypto-asset service provider license from CySEC, the regulatory body for securities in Cyprus, enabling it to provide regulated crypto services in about 30 European nations.

Under MiCA, the license prohibits Revolut from listing any stablecoin whose issuer did not go through MiCA authorization. Tether, in this case, opted not to.

MiCA treats fiat-backed tokens as e-money tokens and requires significant issuers to hold at least 60% of reserves as deposits in EU banks.

Tether CEO, Paolo Ardoino, has argued that:

This sort of structure adds liquidity risk rather than removes it. Also, smaller European banks could struggle if millions of users redeemed USDT at once.

Rather than adapt, Tether retired its euro-denominated stablecoin, EURT, in November 2024. MiCA’s transition period, which had allowed existing crypto firms to continue operating under legacy authorizations, ended on July 1, 2026.

Revolut’s approach to winding down its support for USDT in Europe appears timed around that regulatory cutoff.

Revolut initially expanded support for USDT, then reversed course

The delisting marks a sharp reversal from Revolut’s own product push in late 2025, when it introduced 1:1 USD conversions for USDT and USDC, alongside zero-fee stablecoin swaps within set limits.

Max Karpis, an early Revolut investor according to his verified X bio, flagged the shift on July 2.

Revolut is delisting USDT on 31 Aug 2026 (regulatory/risk reasons).

Not long ago, they expanded support to include zero-fee transfers and 1:1 USDT/USDC swaps.

Now a reversal.

Compliance hits again. #Crypto #USDT pic.twitter.com/eJ5mV0qrMi

— Max Karpis (@maxkarpis) July 2, 2026

Europe’s major exchanges already moved first

Revolut is a late arrival to a shift that started more than a year and a half ago. Coinbase dropped USDT for European users in December 2024. As Cryptopolitan earlier reported, Kraken removed USDT and four other stablecoins across the European Economic Area by March 31, 2025, alongside Crypto.com‘s exit and OKX’s earlier removal.

Binance restricted the affected pairs through Q1 2025. Revolut held out longer because its crypto arm had not yet been fully authorized. Once the CySEC license came through, keeping USDT stopped being a choice.

Per Coinotag, ESMA’s authorized-provider register has consolidated sharply since MiCA took hold. These removals are not confiscations. According to The Crypto Times, MiCA does not freeze holdings, and ESMA has said users retain the right to hold their USDT, transfer it off-platform, or convert it themselves.

USDC takes the regulated stablecoin lane

The primary beneficiary will be Circle itself, whose USDC and EURC are both MiCA-compliant and remain listed on licensed platforms. They will thus be prepared to capture European demand that USDT is no longer capable of serving.

Globally, the two stablecoins are not close. USDT trades near $0.9992 with a market cap of around $184 billion and about $33.04 billion in daily volume as of July 4, against USDC’s roughly $73 billion market cap and $5.7 billion in daily volume, per CoinGecko.

Inside the EU, only one of them is a legal product on licensed venues.