As explained in the Regulation, the fee charged to crypto service providers has increased significantly compared to 2020. This is reflected in additional fees of €1.1 million for 2020. The fees in 2020 were based on a high estimate of the number of crypto service providers in order to prevent them from incurring excessive costs in the first year. In 2020 the costs could not yet be distributed according to capacity. The steep increase in fees results from the combination of high recalculation with a smaller number of registered crypto service providers in 2021.
Last year we indicated that in 2021 the costs will be distributed among the number of crypto service providers according to their financial capacity, which is why we explicitly opted for a proportional distribution among the population of crypto service providers. For 2021, a fixed fee of €2,000 applies, plus a variable fee based on turnover.
We have requested data on turnover from the population for the purpose of calculating the variable fees. However, some crypto service providers failed to provide this information, while others were unable to submit their definitive data. As a result, we calculated the turnover of the population partly on the basis of a reasoned estimate, on a conservative basis to prevent unnecessary high fees. Given that not all information on turnover was available to us, we included two safety valves to avoid unreasonable fees. First of all, for the benefit of the smaller providers, we decided that the fee will not exceed 10% of turnover, with a minimum of €2,000. In addition, an absolute maximum of €450,000 applies. The fee cannot exceed this amount. For more information, please refer to the Regulation.
