What is VASP (virtual asset service provider)?

The international term for a business that exchanges, transfers, or holds crypto for other people, used to decide who must apply anti-money-laundering rules.

It is a category, not a licence. Being a virtual asset service provider is a description of what a business does, and each country then attaches its own registration or authorization requirement to that description. The same exchange is a virtual asset service provider under the international standard, a crypto-asset service provider in the European Union, and a money services business in the United States.

The practical mistake is assuming a platform accepting your money is registered where you live. Many are registered somewhere and not everywhere.

How it works

The definition comes from the Financial Action Task Force, which in 2019 extended its standards to cover businesses conducting, for or on behalf of another person, exchange between virtual assets and fiat, exchange between virtual assets, transfer of virtual assets, custody or administration, and participation in the sale of a virtual asset.

Being in that category triggers the standard anti-money-laundering obligations: identify customers, keep records, monitor for suspicious activity, file reports, and comply with the travel rule on transfers. National implementations use different names and different scope:

Regime names as stated in each instrument. Scope and obligations differ.

Registration is verifiable. Most regulators publish a public register you can search by company name, which is a better check than a badge on a website.

Example

Illustrative. An exchange states it is registered with a European regulator. You live in a US state that requires a money transmitter licence.

The European registration says nothing about whether the venue may serve you. It may operate under reverse solicitation rules, it may geoblock your state, or it may accept you while unregistered locally, which puts your funds with a business your regulator cannot reach. The check that matters is whether the venue appears on the register maintained where you live, not where it is headquartered.

Why it matters when you buy

Whether a platform is authorized in your jurisdiction determines what recourse you have if it fails, freezes your account, or is shut down. It also determines whether you can legally use it at all. The jurisdiction pages cover the regime by country and US state, the available-in pages show which venues serve where, and our methodology explains how we verify licensing claims.

Related terms

• aml: the framework this category triggers
• travel rule: the transfer obligation on providers
• kyc: the customer identification requirement
• mica: the European Union regime
• money transmitter license: the United States state requirement
• fatf: the body that defines the category

Questions

Is a decentralized exchange a VASP?

It depends on whether an identifiable party controls or facilitates the service, which is the test the Financial Action Task Force applies. Front-end operators and developers with ongoing control have been treated as in scope in some jurisdictions, and fully autonomous contracts sit outside the definition.

How do I check whether an exchange is registered?

Search the public register of the financial regulator in your country or state by the exchange's legal entity name, which is usually in its terms of service and often differs from the brand name.

Does registration mean my funds are protected?

No. Registration imposes anti-money-laundering obligations and sometimes conduct rules. Deposit insurance covering crypto holdings is rare, and where an exchange fails, customers are typically creditors rather than insured depositors.