Binance wants back into the UK, and the FCA now has to price an $8bn sanctions file

Binance is working toward re-entry into the United Kingdom, according to a Telegraph report, years after the Financial Conduct Authority revoked its authorization in June 2021 ^[1][2]. Any approach lands on the FCA's desk alongside reports of roughly $8 billion in Iran-related trading activity through the exchange since 2018 ^[3], which makes this a test of how much weight a regulator puts on sanctions history when it decides who gets a licence.

The Iran figures arrive in tiers. Roughly $1.7 billion in transactions from Binance-linked accounts had been traced to Iranian entities as of February 2026 ^[4]. The Wall Street Journal separately reported that $850 million of transactions were connected to a single key Iranian financier by May 2026 ^[5]. On those numbers, about a fifth of the reported $8 billion has been tied to identified Iranian entities ^[1], and roughly half of that traced amount sits with one person ^[2]. Binance has denied wrongdoing on the Iran allegations and says it takes compliance seriously ^[6].

The relevant context is that this would not be a first look at the same conduct category. Binance settled a $4.3 billion enforcement action with US authorities in late 2023 that included charges related to sanctions violations, and founder Changpeng Zhao served a four-month prison sentence as part of that resolution ^[7][8]. The FCA is therefore not weighing allegations against a clean file; it is weighing fresh allegations against a party that has already paid for adjacent findings. The settled amount is roughly half the size of the reported Iran-linked flow total, which gives some sense of the scale being discussed ^[3].

The UK exclusion has been thorough rather than nominal. The 2021 revocation was followed by formal cancellation of any unused permissions in June 2023 ^[9], and new UK sign-ups have been closed entirely since late 2023 for lack of FCA authorization ^[10]. That is close to three years with the front door shut on new British customers ^[4], which is a real revenue argument for trying again.

The European comparison is the part worth studying. As of July 1, 2026, Binance suspended services to customers in multiple EU countries after withdrawing its MiCA licence application in Greece ^[11]. MiCA requires authorization before an exchange operates across the bloc ^[12]. Withdrawing an application is a decision, not an outcome imposed by a regulator, and it suggests the exchange preferred exit to adjudication in at least one venue.

What to watch: whether Binance files a formal FCA application under its own name or arrives through a UK-authorized entity or partner, which would change who bears the fitness-and-propriety question. Watch whether the traced Iranian figure moves above $1.7 billion ^[4], since a rising number during an application is a different proposition for a regulator than a static historical one. Watch whether the FCA treats the 2023 US settlement as a closed matter or as evidence in a continuing pattern, given the exchange has now retreated from the UK, and from parts of the EU, on authorization grounds ^[2][11]. And watch the Greek withdrawal for any published reasoning, because it is the nearest available read on how a MiCA-era regulator assessed the same applicant.