Revolut drops USDT for European customers: balances convert automatically on 31 August

Revolut has a month left. On 31 August 2026 at 12:00 GMT, all remaining USDT balances held by European retail customers will be converted automatically into euros or another currency, at whatever rate applies at that moment. It closes a wind-down that began quietly in early July, and ends USDT at the last major European platform still offering it.

The three dates that matter

On 6 July 2026 Revolut stopped selling USDT. New purchases became impossible from that point; existing positions stayed put.

On 30 July 2026 deposits closed. USDT sent to a Revolut address after that date is refused. Anyone still holding a balance on an external wallet who assumed they could bring it in later has missed the window.

On 31 August 2026 at 12:00 GMT the automatic conversion follows. Whatever is still there will be converted without customer input, at the rate applying then. That last point is not a detail: with a stablecoin meant to track a dollar the rate is usually undramatic, but the moment of conversion is fixed and the customer does not choose it.

Why Revolut is doing this

Revolut operates in the European Union under a CASP authorisation granted in Cyprus in November 2025. Through MiCA's passporting mechanism that authorisation covers roughly thirty European countries. It is precisely that authorisation which forces USDT out.

MiCA treats a stablecoin pegged to a single currency as an e-money token, an EMT. Article 23 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 bars an authorised service provider from offering an EMT whose issuer does not itself meet the regulation's requirements. The provision therefore bites not on the coin but on the issuer, and through it on everyone holding the coin on behalf of customers.

The formulation has become standard across the industry: a fully authorised crypto-asset service provider cannot list a stablecoin whose issuer has not itself met the regulation's requirements. Coinbase reached the same conclusion in December 2024. Revolut is the last big name to follow.

What article 23 actually requires

The core requirement is dull, and hard for exactly that reason. An EMT issuer must be authorised in the European Union, must hold fully backed reserves, and must keep those reserves in a particular way. For issuers designated as significant a concrete threshold is added: at least 60 per cent of reserves must sit with European credit institutions.

That collides head-on with how Tether invests its reserves. In the first quarter of 2026 between 80 and 83 per cent of reserves sat in short-term US Treasury paper, behind 184 billion dollars (roughly €161 billion) of USDT outstanding. That same structure produced roughly 1.04 billion dollars (roughly €910 million) of profit in the quarter.

Moving 60 per cent of reserves into European bank accounts would dent that model and, as Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino has repeatedly argued, leave the issuer more exposed during a wave of redemptions: bank deposits are not more liquid than Treasury paper in all conditions. Whether that argument carries legal weight is beside the point. The regulation applies.

Tether picks the other side

Tether's response has not been to adapt but to reorient. In November 2024 it withdrew EURT, its euro-pegged stablecoin. In January 2026 came USAT, aimed at the American market and issued through Anchorage Digital Bank.

The effect in Europe is measurable. USDT trading volume on European platforms fell by more than 70 per cent between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2025. The Revolut delisting is therefore not a beginning but the formal end of a process trading itself had largely completed.

Globally, meanwhile, little changes. At 184 billion dollars (roughly €161 billion) outstanding, USDT remains the largest stablecoin in the world, against roughly 73 billion dollars (roughly €63.9 billion) for USDC. Europe is a small part of that market, and Tether has evidently done the arithmetic.

What comes in its place

For Revolut, with more than 75 million users and a valuation of 75 billion dollars (roughly €65.6 billion), the trade-off is simple: the authorisation is worth more than the coin. What remains are stablecoins whose issuers do hold European authorisation, USDC and EURC foremost among them.

That is precisely the outcome the legislator had in mind. MiCA was not written to ban stablecoins but to have them issued by parties under European supervision. The side effect is that the European stablecoin market narrows, and grows more American in supply, while the largest dollar coin of all drops out of view.

What this means for you

If you hold USDT at Revolut, you need do nothing to keep your money: on 31 August it converts automatically. If you want to choose the timing and the destination yourself, you have to act before that date. Selling works, converting into another currency inside the app works, sending to an external wallet works.

What no longer works is sending USDT to Revolut. That door shut on 30 July. Anyone wanting to hold USDT outside Revolut has to house it elsewhere, at a platform that still carries the coin or in a wallet of their own.

Look at the wider picture too. If you keep your crypto mainly in one European app, this is the second time in short order that regulation has decided what may sit in your portfolio. That is no disaster, but it is a reason to know which coins have an authorised issuer in Europe and which do not, before the next deadline turns up in your app.

Sources: Revolut, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, TechTimes, Coinpaprika, CryptoTimes, KuCoin, Yahoo Finance. Last checked: 1 August 2026.