Is Bybit Available in Japan? What Changed in July 2026
Bybit finished withdrawing from Japan on 22 July 2026. Japanese accounts can no longer trade, every remaining position was liquidated, and what is left is a withdrawal-only shell. Japan never appeared on Bybit's restricted-countries list, which is the part worth understanding before you choose where to go next.
- Bybit completed its withdrawal from Japan on 22 July 2026. Japanese residents cannot open positions, and every position still open on that date was liquidated.
- Withdrawals still work. Convert, crypto withdrawal and fiat withdrawal stay open so users can move assets out, with Convert limited to BTC, ETH and USDC.
- Bybit identified affected users through Japanese documents, Japanese proof of residence or a Japanese IP address. All three counted, so changing your connection never took an account out of scope.
- Japan is still not named on Bybit's list of excluded jurisdictions. The exit happened anyway, which is why that list is a weak guide to where you can settle next.
- Bitget announced the same wind-down 12 days later. Two of the largest offshore venues have now left Japan inside a single year.
If you are looking for a way to keep trading on Bybit from Japan, that question closed on 22 July 2026. Bybit liquidated every remaining position held by a Japanese resident that day, finishing a wind-down it had been running since October 2025. A Japanese account there is not restricted in the sense of waiting for an appeal. It is a withdrawal-only shell. The useful question is no longer how to get back in. It is where the balance goes next, and what that venue does when the same pressure reaches it.
Can Japanese residents still trade on Bybit?
No. Bybit stopped serving Japanese residents on 22 July 2026, and the company has confirmed the wind-down is complete. Its announcement of 24 July states that as of 22 July it has completed all remediation measures for users residing in Japan, closing a process that began in October 2025.
What survives is narrow and deliberate. Convert, crypto withdrawal and fiat withdrawal stay available so users can retrieve their assets, and Convert works only for crypto-to-crypto conversions into BTC, ETH or USDC. Everything else stopped: spot, derivatives, One-Click Buy, P2P, Earn, structured products, the Bybit card, copy trading relationships and trading bots.
Registration is closed to Japanese residents too, so there is no route back in with a fresh account. If you still hold a balance, the only remaining action on it is getting it out. Our Bybit safety review covers the platform itself; this page covers market access.
How Bybit decided who counted as Japanese
Bybit used three separate signals: Japanese identity documents, a Japanese proof of residence, or a Japanese IP address. Its January 2026 notice names all three, and any one of them was enough to put an account inside the scope of the wind-down.
That is a wider net than the test Bitget used seven months later, which ran on the verification address alone. It also settles the question people ask first. A different connection did not help, because a Japanese document already on file was reason enough on its own, and a Japanese IP was reason enough even without one.
Users who believed they had been categorised in error had until 22 January 2026 to complete Identity Verification Level 2, meaning proof of address, and demonstrate that they lived elsewhere. After that date the classification stood.
The wind-down, in order
Bybit ran this in stages over 9 months, and each stage was published in advance. The date most users felt was 23 March, when accounts flipped to close-only and copy trading and bots were terminated.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| October 2025 | Bybit begins the remediation process for users residing in Japan |
| 22 December 2025 | Bybit announces it will discontinue services for Japanese residents and phase in account restrictions |
| 22 January 2026 | Deadline to complete Identity Verification Level 2 for anyone categorised as Japanese in error. Second notice published with the full schedule |
| 23 March 2026 | Accounts move to close-only. No new positions, no spot, no derivatives, no card, no P2P or Earn. Copy trading relationships and trading bots terminated. Convert and crypto withdrawals remain |
| 22 July 2026 | All remaining open positions liquidated across every product. Card services suspended |
| 24 July 2026 | Bybit confirms remediation is complete. Convert, crypto withdrawal and fiat withdrawal stay open for asset retrieval |
Source: Bybit official announcements, verified 5 August 2026. Times in the original notices are 12:00 GMT+9.
Japan is still missing from Bybit's restricted-countries list
Bybit's own list of excluded jurisdictions does not name Japan, and did not name it while the exit was under way. Checked on 5 August 2026, that list covers the United States, the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, Sevastopol, Sudan and Syria.
A Japanese trader who checked that page in early 2026 would have concluded, correctly by the letter of it, that Japan was not excluded. The exit arrived through announcements instead, on a separate part of the site, on a schedule the list never reflected.
That is the practical lesson for choosing where to go next. A restricted-countries page tells you where an exchange has already decided not to operate. It tells you nothing about where it is preparing to stop, and the gap between those two things was 7 months in Bybit's case.
What Japanese traders have left
Two categories exist, and neither one replaces what Bybit offered. There are venues registered with Japan's Financial Services Agency, and there are offshore venues that do not currently name Japan as restricted.
On the registered side, both Binance and OKX discontinued their global platforms for Japanese residents and serve the market through separately licensed Japanese entities instead. Those entities are spot venues. Neither offers the leveraged products that brought most people to Bybit in the first place, so the registered route costs you the product you came for.
On the offshore side, several exchanges do not list Japan among their restricted jurisdictions today. We are not going to present any of them as the safe answer, and the reason is the subject of this article: Bybit was in exactly that position until it was not. The FSA has published warning notices against unregistered operators for years, including three separate notices naming Bybit, and a warning is usually the first step rather than the last.
Bitget removes one more option as of this month. Registrations from Japanese residents stopped on 3 August 2026 and any position still open from 31 December is force-closed, which we covered in the Bitget notice breakdown. Two exits in 12 days is a pattern, not a coincidence.
The cost question that outlives the move
Wherever you land, a share of every trading fee you pay is already leaving the exchange as affiliate commission. That happens whether or not anyone hands it back to you, and it is the one variable in this situation you fully control.
The mechanism is unglamorous. You sign up through an affiliate link, the exchange recognises your public UID in its affiliate dashboard, and the commission it would otherwise pay to a promoter is returned to you instead. Nobody touches your account, your keys or your positions. Our cashback explainer covers how that is calculated and where the money comes from.
Migrating venues is the natural moment to set this up, because the rate is fixed at signup and cannot be applied retroactively to an account you opened last year. The calculator shows what that is worth on your actual monthly volume before you decide anything.
Changing venue? Do not leave the fee rebate behind
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Frequently asked questions
Is Bybit available in Japan?
No. Bybit completed its withdrawal from the Japanese market on 22 July 2026 and confirmed it two days later. Japanese residents cannot open positions or register new accounts, and every position still open on 22 July was liquidated. Existing users keep access to withdrawals so they can retrieve assets.
Can I still withdraw from Bybit if I live in Japan?
Yes. Bybit states that Convert, crypto withdrawal and fiat withdrawal remain available so affected users can move their assets out, and it has not published an end date for that access. Convert is limited to crypto-to-crypto conversions into BTC, ETH or USDC. Treat the absence of a deadline as a reason to act early rather than a guarantee.
Why did Bybit leave Japan?
Bybit describes the exit as bringing its operations into full compliance with applicable Japanese financial regulations. The context is that Japan's Financial Services Agency has published warning notices naming Bybit Fintech Limited for conducting crypto exchange business without registration. Operating an unregistered venue for Japanese residents became the more expensive option.
Did using a VPN keep a Bybit account open in Japan?
No. Bybit identified affected users through Japanese identity documents, a Japanese proof of residence or a Japanese IP address, and any one of those was sufficient. A document already on file cannot be undone by connecting from elsewhere. Users who were categorised in error had until 22 January 2026 to prove residence outside Japan through Level 2 verification.
What happened to open positions on 22 July 2026?
They were liquidated. Bybit's January notice set 22 July 2026 at 12:00 GMT+9 as the point when all remaining open positions across every product would be closed out and card services suspended. Accounts had already been in close-only mode since 23 March, so the liquidation applied to positions that were never manually closed during those 4 months.
Is Japan on Bybit's restricted-countries list?
No, and it was not during the exit either. Bybit's published list of excluded jurisdictions names the United States, the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, parts of Ukraine, Sevastopol, Sudan and Syria. Japan is absent from it as of 5 August 2026, which is a useful reminder that the list records decisions already taken rather than ones in progress.
Which exchanges can Japanese residents still use?
Two kinds. Venues registered with the Financial Services Agency, which in practice means spot trading only, and offshore venues that do not currently name Japan as restricted. Binance and OKX both discontinued their global platforms for Japanese residents and operate through separately licensed local entities. We are not going to name an offshore venue as the safe replacement, because Bybit occupied that description until July.
The Trade Reclaim research desk tracks fee schedules, VIP thresholds and market access rules across the 10 exchanges we cover. Every figure here comes from an exchange's own announcement or a regulator's own filing, checked on the date of publication, because a rate copied from a comparison site is a rate nobody verified.
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