Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) public register currently returns 60 results across its licensing database. The figure illustrates the breadth of businesses recorded by the
Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) public register currently returns 60 results across its licensing database. The figure illustrates the breadth of businesses recorded by the regulator, but it should not be used without qualification as the number of firms authorized to offer every crypto service in Dubai.
VARA’s register covers fully licensed virtual asset service providers and businesses with in-principle approval (IPA). The regulator explicitly says an IPA holder cannot begin virtual-asset operations or serve clients until it receives the full VASP licence. Authorization is also activity-specific.
The register includes entries such as Bybit Fintech FZE, with an October 20, 2026 active licence for exchange services; Payward FZCO, with listed broker-dealer and management-and-investment permissions; and Rain MENA FZE, with exchange and broker-dealer permissions. Those examples show why the authorized entity name and activity matter more than a familiar trading brand.
Each record provides a licence reference, issue date, status and relevant virtual-asset activities. A business listed for broker-dealer services should not automatically be presumed authorized to provide custody or lending. Equally, a proposed or provisional permission cannot be advertised as a completed operating licence.
Crypto brands may operate through different legal entities across countries. A name that appears in a regulator’s database does not establish that a particular website, app, investment promotion or salesperson is covered by the licence. Users should compare the legal name, reference number, scope and status with the provider they are actually dealing with.
This is particularly important amid renewed scrutiny of cross-border exchange compliance risksand changing virtual-asset reporting proposals. Those overseas developments do not change VARA’s own register, but they illustrate why authorization and financial-crime controls deserve separate checks.
The 60-result snapshot is not a measure of trading volumes, customers, market share or the number of active exchanges. It is a count displayed by a register that explicitly covers more than one approval stage, and it can change when the database is updated. For a current decision, the official VARA register remains the relevant reference.
