Kraken review 2026

A volume-dependent scale applies on Kraken Pro. Below US$10,000 of 30-day volume, users pay a 0.25 percent maker fee and a 0.40 percent taker fee (as of 09/2026). It gets much more expensive via the Instant Buy function: here an instant purchase by card or wallet incurs 3.75 percent plus further costs – beginners should avoid this function. Kraken Pro is genuine order-book trading. The spread is therefore visible in the order book at all times and, for the liquid euro pairs, is well below 0.5 percent; there is no broker spread added on top. On payment methods, a SEPA bank transfer deposit is free, while for SEPA withdrawals Kraken charges a flat €1. Scoring (19/30): The taker fee of 0.40 percent is in the up-to-0.50-percent level and gives 7 out of 15 points. The spread shown openly in the order book, below 0.5 percent, brings the full 8 points. Because only the deposit is free but the withdrawal costs €1, there are 4 out of 7 points.

On 26 June 2025, Kraken received a full MiCA licence from the Central Bank of Ireland as the first major global crypto exchange. The licence covers all seven crypto services regulated under MiCAR, including custody, trading and asset management, and is valid across the whole European Economic Area. The regulatory standing for the German market is thus verified. On custody, Kraken states that it holds more than 95 percent of customer holdings in cold storage. In addition, the exchange publishes quarterly a proof of reserves based on a Merkle tree, with which users can check the 1:1 cover of their balances themselves; external third parties carry out the audit every six months. At account level, two-factor authentication, a master key against unwanted password resets, a withdrawal whitelist and the Global Settings Lock are available, which blocks changes to withdrawal addresses even if the password and two-factor method are compromised. Scoring (28/28): The MiCA licence gives the full 12 points. Cold storage, separate custody and a published, externally audited proof bring the full 10 points. Two-factor authentication, address whitelisting and withdrawal lock give the full 6 points.

Kraken lists over 600 assets and thus also covers smaller assets that are missing at European competitors. The euro is one of the main quote currencies: besides Bitcoin and Ethereum, Kraken Pro runs euro order books even for smaller assets, so the detour via dollar stablecoins is generally not needed. Additional products include recurring purchases directly in the app and the Earn offer with staking; margin, futures and tokenised shares are added for experienced users. Kraken expressly points out that staking or Earn is not a regulated financial product and is not covered by regulatory protection. Scoring (18/18): Over 600 tradable crypto assets give the full 8 points. Broad coverage with euro pairs brings the full 5 points. Savings plan function and staking together give the full 5 points.

The Kraken app is available in German and runs from Android 8.0 and from iOS 13; the web interface and help section are also in German. The language requirement is thus fully met. In Kraken Pro's advanced mode, limit, take-profit-limit, stop-loss-limit, trailing-stop and trailing-stop-limit orders as well as bracket orders are available. There is a public status page at status.kraken.com. Partial disruptions have been documented there repeatedly in the past, for example with the deposit and withdrawal of individual crypto assets; we cannot derive trouble-free operation from this. Scoring (12/14): A German-language interface plus apps for iOS and Android give the full 6 points. The very broad range of orders brings the full 4 points. For availability we award 2 out of 4 points, because besides the status page, isolated disruptions are also documented.

Kraken does not supply a finished tax report for the German tax return. The exchange does provide a document centre, however, and documents in its own support articles how the API can be used for the tax return; all the common tax tools support Kraken as a source. On export, Kraken is strong: besides the trades export there is the full ledgers export, which also includes staking income, deposits and withdrawals and fees. There is also a documented REST API with its own endpoints for requesting and retrieving export reports. Important for users: the pure trades export is not sufficient for the tax return. Scoring (7/10): For the tax report we award 3 out of 6 points – Kraken supplies no finished document of its own but documents the connection to tax tools. Full CSV export plus API give the full 4 points.