Who holds an Israeli crypto licence
Israel has no single crypto law, but it does have a clear licensing rule. Under the Supervision of Financial Services (Regulated Financial Services) Law, 2016, virtual currency is a "financial asset", and anyone providing a service in it to the public, such as exchange, brokerage or custody, needs a licence from the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority (CMISA). That is what people mean by an Israel crypto license. For the wider picture, including the Securities Authority, the Bank of Israel and the digital shekel, see is crypto legal in Israel. This page is about the licence itself.
The first permanent licences were only granted in September 2022, and a 2024 legal review counted "only four more" after that. It is a very small club. As of October 2026, these are the firms known by name:
| Firm | Licence / status | Who it suits | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bits of Gold | Permanent, no. 56716 (Sep 2022) | Retail, buying and selling in shekels | First active exchange to be licensed. 9 coins. Data incident in Aug 2026 |
| Bit2C (Bitosi eToro Ltd) | No. 72080 | Retail, including a shekel order book | Acquired by eToro in Q2 2026. The licence sits with the Israeli company |
| Horizon (Altshuler Shaham) | Permanent, as reported | Mainly larger clients | Israel’s third crypto licence. We could not check its website in Oct 2026 |
| Tectona Custody | Licensed; reported valid to 31 Dec 2026 | Institutions and businesses, custody | Listed on the TASE. Not a retail exchange |
| Bitcoin Change | Temporary continuation permit, no. 57960 | Cash buying and selling at branches | Full licence application pending, per its website |
| Hybrid Bridge Holdings | First licence (14 Sep 2022) | — | Reportedly ceased operating in Oct 2024 |
Based on the companies’ own disclosures, press reports and legal summaries. We could not machine-check the CMISA register, so verify it yourself before you deposit.
Bits of Gold has operated since 2013 and received its permanent licence on 18 September 2022 from then-Commissioner Moshe Barkat. It is a broker: you buy and sell at the rate it quotes, and your coins sit in a managed cold wallet or go to your own wallet. One small detail is telling: its help centre credits the licence to the "Israel Securities Authority", while press coverage of the 2022 award names CMISA, which is the body that actually issues crypto licences. Our full take is in the Bits of Gold review.
Bit2C runs the only licensed order book in shekels. Its website footer names the licensee as Bitosi eToro Ltd, following eToro's completed acquisition in Q2 2026. Precision matters here: the licence belongs to the Israeli Bit2C entity, not to eToro's international app. Details are in the Bit2C review.
Horizon, part of the Altshuler Shaham investment house, reportedly received Israel's third crypto licence, the first signed by Commissioner Amit Gal. Tectona was, according to the same legal review, the fifth licensee overall and the first publicly traded one; it focuses on institutional custody. Both are real licensees, but neither is the obvious choice if you just want to buy ₪1,000 of bitcoin from your phone.
How to check a licence in the CMISA register
The table above relies on what the firms publish and on press reports, because we could not read the official register on gov.il automatically. So the most useful advice on this page is to check for yourself. It takes a few minutes, and it is worth doing before your first deposit rather than after.
- Find the licence number on the firm’s site
A licensed firm shows its number, usually in the footer, on the About page or in the help centre. No number at all is already a warning sign.
- Note the legal entity name
Licences are issued to a company, not a brand. Bit2C’s licensee, for example, is Bitosi eToro Ltd. You will find the legal name in the terms of use or the footer.
- Open the CMISA register
On the CMISA pages of gov.il, search for the register of financial-asset service licence holders (in Hebrew: מאגר בעלי רישיון שירות בנכס פיננסי). It is the only official source; a screenshot on a company’s site is not a substitute.
- Compare name, number and status
Check that name and number match, and look at the type: a permanent licence, or a temporary continuation permit such as Bitcoin Change’s. Note any expiry date shown.
- Confirm who you are contracting with
A group can hold a licence in one company and serve you from another. The terms of use name your counterparty, and that is the entity that must appear in the register.
What a licence actually gives you
A licensed crypto exchange is not a bank, and a licence is not deposit insurance. What it does give you is an Israeli firm that meets capital requirements, keeps your assets separate from its own, identifies customers, reports to the anti-money-laundering authority, and answers to an Israeli regulator you can complain to. In everyday terms, it also brings a few practical advantages that are hard to get on an international exchange.
Shekels and your bank. On a licensed platform you deposit shekels from your own bank account and withdraw to the same account. That is the "closed loop" (gan sagur): buy, hold and sell on one Israeli platform. Under Bank of Israel Directive 411, a bank may not refuse money simply because it is crypto-related, but it checks the source of funds above roughly ₪100,000 a year, and money coming back from a licensed firm with clean records goes through far more easily. Bits of Gold even issues a signed "Closed Loop Certificate". How this plays out at the branch is covered in crypto and Israeli banks.
What a licence does not give you. It does not guarantee a price, protect you from a falling market or prevent incidents. In August 2026 Bits of Gold reported a data security incident in which personal details, including Israeli ID numbers, may have been exposed; the company says funds, passwords and keys were not affected. Coin choice is also narrow: 9 coins at Bits of Gold and 4 at Bit2C, partly because of CMISA's new listing rules.
A licence is a safety net, not a seal of approval on price. If you plan to move serious shekel amounts and bring them back to an Israeli bank, a licensed platform is where you gain the most.
A typical case: a freelancer in Haifa buying bitcoin through a standing order and planning to withdraw to a Leumi account in a few years. For her, closed-loop records are worth more than half a percent in fees. Someone who wants a wide coin choice or a quick card purchase will look at an international exchange, knowing Israeli protection does not apply there.
International exchanges: no Israeli licence, and Amendment 18
As far as we could find, no major international exchange holds a CMISA licence: not Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Bybit or CEX.IO. Using them is not prohibited and plenty of Israelis do, but you are a customer of a foreign entity under its own law. Even eToro, founded in Tel Aviv, holds no Israeli licence for its own app. It withdrew its application to the Securities Authority back in 2016, and the group's Israeli licence today belongs to Bit2C.
CEX.IO, our pick for buying with a card or Apple Pay, shows what "regulated" can mean abroad. It is a FinCEN-registered money services business in the US with state money-transmitter licences, holds a UK FCA registration for anti-money-laundering purposes only (not FCA authorisation), and operates in Gibraltar. It has no EU MiCA licence and no Israeli licence. Israeli customers are served by its international entity, so Israeli investor protection does not apply, and it supports neither shekels nor Hebrew. The full comparison is in our exchange ranking.
This may change. On 11 May 2026 the government published Amendment No. 18 to the 2016 law, a bill that would let foreign firms regulated abroad obtain a CMISA licence on tailored terms, if CMISA is satisfied that their home supervision is "an adequate substitute". It is not EU-style passporting: decisions would be case by case. The bill went to first reading, and as of October 2026 we found no confirmation that it passed its second and third readings. Until it does, every foreign exchange serves Israelis without an Israeli licence.
How a firm gets a financial-asset service licence
In practice there are two tiers: a basic licence and an extended licence. The extended tier also covers custody of client assets and requires more capital. We could not confirm each firm's tier against the register, so we do not state it in the table; it is exactly the kind of detail to check yourself. CMISA also looks at who owns and runs the applicant: Bitin's application was refused in 2022 because of a prior criminal investigation of its operator.
In 2026 CMISA moved from deciding who gets a licence to defining what a licensee must do. According to summaries by the law firms Shibolet and Gornitzky:
- Own funds (circular of 19 July 2026): minimum equity of ₪2 million, or ₪2.5 million for a firm that provides custody, plus 0.25% of the value of client assets in custody. The capital must sit in low-risk, liquid assets and be recalculated if client assets change by more than 50%. It applies six months after publication, so around January 2027.
- Custody (circular of July 2026): client assets held in trust in a separate account, a board-approved custody policy, withdrawals "within a reasonable time" even during unusual events, a free online personal area and a detailed statement every six months.
- Coin listing (draft of 28 July 2026): a coin can be listed only if at least five firms licensed in the EU or New York State list it, its market cap has stayed above a threshold for six months and it ranks in the top 50. No NFTs or privacy coins, and every listed coin is reviewed quarterly.
- Anti-money laundering: since the March 2021 amendment to the AML Order, licensees must identify customers, apply the travel rule and report transactions of ₪50,000 and above, plus unusual activity, to the Israel Money Laundering Prohibition Authority.
For you as a customer, the bottom line is simple. A licensed firm must hold a capital cushion, keep your money apart from its own, let you withdraw even on a bad day and justify every coin it lists. That also explains why Israeli platforms offer few coins and ask about the source of your funds. The full 2026 regulatory story is on our crypto regulation in Israel page.
Enforcement: what happens to unlicensed operators
Providing a financial-asset service without a licence is an offence, and CMISA has shown it will act. On 24 March 2025 Commissioner Amit Gal ordered the unlicensed exchange Bitin to stop operating immediately and imposed a fine of about ₪1.7 million. Earlier, in February 2022, after CMISA raised the licensing question, Binance stopped marketing to Israelis and dropped Hebrew and shekel support.
At the other end of the market are unlicensed "change" dealers selling USDT for cash. They are a target for the police; in a raid on an illegal change shop in Jerusalem, about $101 million in crypto was seized, according to Maariv. Buying from such a dealer risks losing your money, frozen coins and hard questions from your bank. We do not recommend or describe these channels; the common fraud patterns are covered in our guide to crypto scams in Israel.
Frequently asked questions
What is a crypto licence in Israel?
It is a licence to provide a service in a financial asset, issued by the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority (CMISA) under the Supervision of Financial Services (Regulated Financial Services) Law, 2016. Any firm that buys and sells crypto for the public, brokers it or holds customers’ coins needs one. Users need no licence or permission of their own.
Which crypto exchanges are licensed in Israel?
For retail customers, two platforms hold a permanent licence: Bits of Gold (licence 56716) and Bit2C (licence 72080, legally Bitosi eToro Ltd). Altshuler Shaham Horizon and Tectona are also licensed, mainly for larger and institutional clients. Bitcoin Change operates under a temporary continuation permit (57960). We could not machine-check the official register, so check it yourself.
How do I check whether a crypto company holds an Israeli license?
Find the licence number and the legal entity name on the company’s website, then search the CMISA register of financial-asset service licence holders on gov.il. Compare the name, number, licence type and validity. If a firm only shows a foreign registration, such as the UK FCA or US FinCEN, it does not hold an Israeli licence.
Do Binance, eToro or CEX.IO hold an Israeli licence?
No. As far as we could find, no major international exchange holds a CMISA licence, including Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, OKX, Bybit and CEX.IO. The eToro app itself is not licensed in Israel; the Israeli licence in the group belongs to its subsidiary Bit2C. Using foreign exchanges is not prohibited, but Israeli investor protection does not apply there.
Does a CMISA licence mean my money is safe?
Not absolutely. A licence requires minimum capital, segregated client assets, customer identification and AML reporting, and gives you an Israeli regulator to complain to. There is no deposit insurance as with a bank, prices can still fall, and incidents happen at licensed firms too: Bits of Gold reported a data security incident in August 2026.
Sources
- Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority — licence register · checked October 2026
- Bit2C — About (Bitosi eToro Ltd, licence 72080) · checked October 2026
- Bits of Gold — help centre, licence 56716 · checked October 2026
- Bitcoin Change — About (permit 57960) · checked October 2026
- Herzog Fox & Neeman — Amendment 18, tailored licence for foreign providers · May 2026
- Shibolet — A new regulatory framework for digital assets · September 2026
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It holds no Israeli CMISA licence, and neither does any other international exchange in this guide.