Google this week stopped accepting registration from the AMF's Digital Asset Service Provider status as grounds for advertising cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets in France, closing a national licensing pathway that had run alongside the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework since April 2025.

The change took effect July 1, 2026, according to Google's Advertising Policies Help Center. Advertisers who had relied on DASP registration through the Autorité des marchés financiers must now hold authorization as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider, or CASP, under the MiCA regulation before their crypto exchange or software wallet campaigns can run in the French market. The update follows the expiration of a transition period that Google had built into its original April 2025 policy overhaul, and it marks the final closure of a grace window that gave French advertisers considerably more runway than their counterparts in Finland or Germany.

What changed and why

France's transition arrangement traces back to an EU-wide update Google published on March 24, 2025, with an effective date of April 23, 2025. That update rewrote the company's Cryptocurrencies and related products policy for the 27-country bloc, requiring advertisers targeting Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden to demonstrate CASP licensing under MiCA. Because three member states, Finland, France, and Germany, had historically allowed Google to accept country-specific licenses instead, the company carved out separate transition windows for each.

Finland's window closed first, on June 30, 2025. Germany followed on December 30, 2025. France received the longest runway of the three, running until June 30, 2026, before Google's July 1 update brought the country in line with the rest of the bloc. Advertisers holding valid country-based licenses in these three markets were permitted to continue running campaigns throughout their respective windows, but once each deadline passed, only MiCA authorization would satisfy Google's requirements going forward.

The mechanism driving these deadlines is not arbitrary. Article 143(3) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, the legislative text establishing MiCA, sets out transitional periods that individual EU member states may define for firms already operating under earlier national regimes. Google's policy documentation states plainly that the France deadline "follows the expiration of France's transitional period outlined in the original" April 2025 change log, tying the advertising platform's enforcement calendar directly to the underlying regulatory timeline rather than to any independent commercial decision.

For French crypto exchanges and wallet providers, the practical effect is simple but consequential. A DASP registration, once sufficient on its own to satisfy Google's country-specific carve-out, no longer opens the door to advertising eligibility. Firms must instead secure CASP authorization from a relevant national competent authority, comply with any additional local legal requirements beyond MiCA itself, and separately obtain certification directly from Google. Missing any one of those three elements means an advertiser's crypto campaigns in France will not run, regardless of how long that advertiser had operated under the prior DASP framework.

The certification and compliance framework

Google's broader Cryptocurrencies and related products policy divides crypto-adjacent advertising into three tiers, and understanding where an advertiser sits within that structure matters more than ever now that France has aligned with the EU-wide standard. The first tier, allowed content, covers businesses that do not buy, hold, or exchange cryptocurrencies themselves. Examples include companies that merely accept crypto as a form of payment, cryptocurrency mining hardware sellers, and blockchain-based educational materials, provided that educational content stops short of offering investment advice, financial calculators, or technical trend analysis. Blockchain-based games involving non-fungible tokens also fall into this allowed category, so long as in-game NFT items are consumed or used to enhance gameplay rather than functioning as tradable financial instruments.

The second tier, prohibited content, remains off-limits everywhere regardless of jurisdiction. This includes initial coin offerings, decentralized finance trading protocols, cryptocurrency loans, initial DEX offerings, token liquidity pools, unhosted software wallets, and unregulated decentralized applications. Google's policy documentation also bars aggregator sites that compare cryptocurrency issuers, platforms offering cryptocurrency trading signals or investment advice, games permitting NFT wagering for real-world value, social casino games that reward NFTs, and any real-money gambling destination, even one that merely appears as an advertisement within an otherwise compliant crypto game's destination page.

The third tier, restricted content, is where the France update lands most directly. This category, covering cryptocurrency exchanges, software wallets, coin trusts, and hardware wallets designed to hold private keys, can only be advertised after an advertiser applies for and receives approval to advertise these categories specifically. Hardware wallets carry a narrower additional requirement: the physical device must be designed solely to hold private keys for cryptocurrencies, NFTs, or similar crypto-based assets, without offering supplementary services such as buying, selling, exchanging, or trading. Hardware wallet advertisers are also exempt from the licensed-provider requirement that applies to exchanges and software wallets, according to Google's policy documentation, though certification remains mandatory across the category.

Approval to advertise in this restricted tier depends on three simultaneous conditions being met. The services and ads must comply with local laws and industry standards. The targeted location must appear on Google's list of approved markets, and the advertiser's application for that location must be approved. And the advertiser must hold a license recognized in that jurisdiction, unless the product in question is a hardware wallet. Google's documentation is explicit that any location falling outside this approved list simply cannot host crypto exchange or wallet advertising at all, stating the company "doesn't support advertising in non-approved markets at this time."

Enforcement carries a warning period, not immediate suspension

Advertisers who fail to meet the new France requirement will not see their accounts suspended without notice. Google's policy states that violations "will not lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning," and that a warning will be issued at least seven days before any suspension takes effect. This grace mechanism has applied consistently across Google's crypto policy rollouts in other jurisdictions, and it gives affected advertisers a narrow but real window to bring their campaigns into compliance, either by completing MiCA certification or by pausing non-compliant ad activity, before enforcement escalates to account-level consequences.

Advertisers whose ads are disapproved under this policy retain two paths back into compliance. They can apply directly to advertise cryptocurrency exchanges, software wallets, or related restricted content from within their Google Ads account, accessible through the Policy tab under the Admin menu and then Apply for certification. Alternatively, if an advertiser believes an ad was disapproved in error, they can appeal the decision directly from their account to request a review. Should that review confirm compliance, the ad becomes eligible to run again; if the advertiser cannot or chooses not to resolve the underlying violation, Google recommends removing the ad voluntarily to avoid the risk of account suspension from repeated policy breaches.

Separately, Germany's crypto advertisers are facing their own procedural shift. Beginning in June 2026, Google will no longer accept crypto certification applications for Germany through the Advertising Policies Help Center interface; instead, those applications must be submitted directly through the advertiser's Google Ads account. Existing certifications already granted will not be affected by this procedural change, according to the policy documentation, but new applicants in Germany will need to route their requests through the account-level workflow going forward.

A market-by-market pattern spanning several years

France's transition closure fits a recognizable pattern in how Google has approached cryptocurrency advertising since the category first opened to any meaningful degree. The company brought certified Swiss crypto exchanges and wallets into its advertising ecosystem starting September 20, 2024, requiring licensing from Switzerland's Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as FINMA. Roughly three months later, Google announced on December 20, 2024, that UK cryptocurrency exchanges would gain advertising clearance starting January 15, 2025, contingent on registration with the Financial Conduct Authority. Argentina followed in September 2025, when Google opened crypto exchange and software wallet advertising to the market, requiring registration with the Comisión Nacional de Valores' Registry of Virtual Asset Service Providers.

Each of these market openings shares a common structural logic with the France update, even though France represents a tightening rather than an expansion. In every case, Google ties advertising eligibility to a specific national or supranational regulatory body: FINMA in Switzerland, the FCA in the UK, the CNV in Argentina, and now the CASP framework under MiCA across the EU. The company layers its own certification requirement on top of whatever licensing regime applies locally, creating what amounts to a two-step verification process that recurs across jurisdictions regardless of how different their underlying financial regulators happen to be.

This approach mirrors Google's broader financial services verification architecture, which has expanded considerably over the past two years. Google introduced verification requirements for financial services advertisers in Ireland, New Zealand, South Korea, and Thailand starting November 7, 2024, a program that has since grown substantially. Google expanded its financial ad verification program to 24 additional EU and EEA countries, with most facing an enforcement start date of July 23, 2026, bringing the total number of countries under this broader financial verification umbrella well beyond its original scope. That expansion runs on a parallel track to the crypto-specific MiCA requirement, though both reflect the same underlying institutional posture: identity and licensing verification precede advertising eligibility, and enforcement follows a defined timeline rather than arriving without warning.

What this means for the advertising industry

For marketers and compliance teams working with cryptocurrency clients, the France transition closing is a reminder that regulatory grace periods, however generous at the outset, do have hard endpoints. A licensing pathway that felt settled for over a year can close on a fixed date tied to legislative text most marketers will never read directly. The MiCA regulation itself did not change on July 1, 2026; what changed is that Google's platform-level accommodation for an older French national regime finally expired, exactly as the original April 2025 announcement had signaled it would.

This has practical implications beyond France alone. Advertisers operating across multiple EU markets simultaneously now face a fully harmonized MiCA requirement across all 27 member states covered by Google's policy, since Finland, Germany, and France, the three countries that previously ran on separate national tracks, have each closed their transition windows in turn. Campaign planning that once required tracking three different national deadlines alongside one EU-wide standard can now proceed against a single regulatory reference point for the whole bloc, at least so far as Google Ads is concerned. Other platforms and other countries' domestic authorities may still impose requirements beyond MiCA itself, and Google's own policy documentation repeatedly emphasizes that advertisers remain responsible for local legal compliance on top of whatever the platform requires.

The broader trajectory also illustrates something about how platform policy and financial regulation increasingly move in lockstep for sensitive advertising categories. Google's enforcement calendar for France was never really its own; it was borrowed directly from the legislative transition period France's government had already defined under MiCA's Article 143(3). That dependency cuts both ways. It means advertisers who track EU financial regulation closely had ample advance notice of this exact date, but it also means platform-level compliance obligations for crypto advertisers will likely continue shifting as other MiCA-related transition periods across different EU jurisdictions reach their own scheduled endpoints in the months ahead.

Timeline

  • September 20, 2024 - Google begins accepting certified Swiss cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets for advertising, requiring FINMA licensing.
  • December 20, 2024 - Google announces UK cryptocurrency exchanges will gain advertising clearance starting January 15, 2025, contingent on FCA registration.
  • March 24, 2025 - Google posts its EU-wide cryptocurrency advertising policy update, introducing the MiCA-based CASP requirement across 27 member states.
  • April 23, 2025 - The EU-wide MiCA policy update takes effect, with Finland, France, and Germany granted separate transition periods for pre-existing country-based licenses.
  • June 30, 2025 - Finland's transition period for country-based crypto licenses expires.
  • September 10, 2025 - Google expands cryptocurrency exchange and wallet advertising to Argentina, requiring VASP registry compliance.
  • December 30, 2025 - Germany's transition period for country-based crypto licenses expires.
  • June 2026 - Google shifts German crypto certification applications from the Advertising Policies Help Center to direct submission through Google Ads accounts.
  • June 30, 2026 - France's transition period for country-based crypto licenses expires.
  • July 1, 2026 - Google's updated France policy takes effect today, requiring CASP authorization under MiCA and no longer accepting AMF DASP registration for crypto exchange and wallet advertising.

Summary

Who: Google, through its Advertising Policies Help Center, announced the policy change affecting cryptocurrency exchange and software wallet advertisers targeting France, along with the Autorité des marchés financiers, whose Digital Asset Service Provider registrations no longer satisfy Google's requirements.

What: Google stopped accepting AMF DASP registration as a basis for advertising cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets in France, requiring advertisers instead to hold Crypto-Asset Service Provider authorization under the EU's MiCA regulation, in addition to Google's own certification and compliance with any other local legal requirements.

When: The policy took effect July 1, 2026, following the expiration of a transition period that had run since Google's original EU-wide MiCA policy update took effect on April 23, 2025.

Where: The change applies specifically to advertising targeting France, though it follows similar transition-period closures in Finland on June 30, 2025, and Germany on December 30, 2025, bringing all three countries into alignment with the MiCA-based standard already governing the other 24 EU member states covered by the policy.

Why: France's transitional arrangement for country-based crypto licenses, established under Article 143(3) of the MiCA regulation, had a fixed expiration date built into the original April 2025 policy. Once that date passed, Google's platform-level accommodation for the older DASP framework closed automatically, leaving CASP authorization as the only path to advertising eligibility for crypto exchanges and wallets in the French market.