Coinbase review 2026: licence, fees, custody and support

Coinbase is a US-listed crypto group that serves the European Economic Area through companies in Luxembourg and Ireland. In its notification to the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission, Coinbase said its EU entities had about 43,000 clients in Bulgaria. This review covers how Coinbase is licensed, how buying, selling and withdrawing work for a Bulgarian user, what the fees are, and the regulatory record. Facts were checked on 16 September 2026. For a side-by-side table, see our Coinbase comparison.

Entities and licences

Coinbase runs its EEA business through two companies:

• Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. provides crypto-asset services. It is authorised as a crypto-asset service provider by Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) under number N00000004. ESMA's interim MiCA register lists an authorisation date of 20 June 2025 and includes Bulgaria among the host countries. Services listed include custody and administration, exchange of crypto-assets for funds and for other crypto-assets, execution and transmission of orders, placing and transfer services.
• Coinbase Ireland Limited provides e-money services. It is authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland as an electronic money institution (C188493).

The FSC's list of Article 65 notifications includes Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. for Bulgaria. According to Coinbase's help centre, Bulgarian users moved to the Coinbase Luxembourg user agreement on 13 October 2025. Crypto services were earlier provided by Coinbase Europe Limited, the Irish company named in the enforcement action below.

How buying, selling and withdrawing work

Adding euro. Coinbase lists SEPA transfer as the bank method for EU customers. You send money to Coinbase's banking details and enter only your Coinbase reference code in the reference field. The money must come from an account in your own name; business, pooled or shared accounts are not accepted. We found no evidence of an IBAN in the customer's own name.

Other methods. For EU customers Coinbase also lists 3D Secure cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay for purchases, with some methods limited to specific countries. Coinbase does not confirm separately which of these work in Bulgaria.

Buying and selling. A simple buy or sell shows a quoted price that includes a spread, plus a Coinbase fee on the order preview. Coinbase says fees vary by payment method, order size, market conditions, jurisdiction and asset. Under the EEA user agreement, the conversion fee is displayed before each transaction.

Withdrawing. You can cash out by SEPA to your own bank account. The EMEA funding page gives 1-3 business days. The name on the payment method must match your Coinbase account, so payouts to third parties are not possible.

Published fees

Stablecoins

Section 5.15 of the EEA user agreement covers USDC and EURC wallets, both issued by Circle. Decrypt reported that Coinbase told European users it would restrict USDT and other stablecoins that do not meet MiCA from 13 December 2024. In January 2025 ESMA and the European Commission published guidance on stablecoins that do not meet MiCA.

Custody

Coinbase holds client crypto-assets under its authorisation for custody and administration. Your balance in euro is e-money issued by Coinbase Ireland. You can withdraw crypto-assets to an external wallet if you prefer to hold the keys yourself.

Card

The EEA user agreement lists a Coinbase Visa Debit Card as a possible additional service. When we opened coinbase.com/card from Bulgaria, it showed the US card only, so availability in Bulgaria is not published.

Support and language

Coinbase's support page lists chat with a virtual assistant first, phone callback, email and post, available during business hours; exact hours are not given. We found no list of supported languages. Coinbase has no Bulgarian website: the site offers no Bulgarian locale and coinbase.com/bg returned a 404 page. The EEA user agreement says the English version prevails. We found no Coinbase office in Bulgaria.

Regulatory actions and public incidents

• Central Bank of Ireland fine, 2025. On 6 November 2025 the Central Bank of Ireland fined Coinbase Europe Limited EUR 21,464,734 for breaches of anti-money laundering rules on transaction monitoring between 23 April 2021 and 19 March 2025. The regulator said over 30 million transactions, worth about EUR 176 billion, were not properly monitored over a 12-month period. Status: fine imposed, per the regulator's press release.
• Customer data incident, 2025. On 15 May 2025 Coinbase disclosed that bribed support agents outside the US had copied data on under 1% of monthly transacting users, including names, addresses, government ID images, masked bank data and balances. Coinbase said it refused a USD 20 million ransom and would reimburse customers tricked into sending funds. Status: as disclosed by Coinbase; the share of EU customers affected is not published.

Trustpilot

On 16 September 2026 the coinbase.com profile on Trustpilot showed a TrustScore of 4.0 from 23,144 reviews. It is a global profile rather than an EU one, and Trustpilot marks it as claimed by the company.

Who Coinbase suits

Coinbase suits people in Bulgaria who want a large platform with a MiCA licence, free SEPA transfers to and from their own account, and crypto-assets beyond stablecoins, and who are fine with platform custody and support in English. It is less suited to receiving payments from clients into an IBAN in your own name, paying third parties by bank transfer, or getting help in Bulgarian.

Alternatives

Other MiCA-authorised platforms passported into Bulgaria include Kraken, through Payward Europe Solutions Limited in Ireland, and Bybit EU GmbH in Austria. If you need a EUR IBAN and USD account details in your own name, with incoming money converted to USDC in a self-custody wallet, xChange.bg offers that, with accounts and conversions provided by the regulated partner Bridge, a Stripe company. Check the ESMA register for any provider before you open an account.