My country is not on the restricted list. Does that mean I can use it?

Not automatically. The list tells you where the company will definitely not serve you. Local regulators, product-level restrictions and your own circumstances can all still apply, and none of them appear on that list.

Can I use a VPN to access it from a restricted country?

No. It breaches the platform's terms, and the usual outcome is a frozen balance during a later review rather than a working account. This is one of the most reliably expensive ideas in crypto.

Which entity serves me if I live in the EU?

Bybit EU GmbH, authorised in Austria as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR. Its published services centre on custody, exchange, transfers, a card and fiat on-ramps. Services are not currently available to residents of Malta.

What about Japan and Korea?

Bybit has been withdrawing services for residents of Japan. In Korea the company publicly restricts affiliates from targeting the Korean market. Neither is a market where this site offers guidance about opening an account.

Bybit availability by country, explained

Updated 2026-09-20

"Is Bybit available in my country" looks like a yes-or-no question. It is not, and treating it as one is how people end up with a verified account they cannot withdraw from. There are three separate questions hiding inside it, and they have different answers.

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The three questions

One: does the company serve residents of your country at all? This is the published restriction list, and it is binary.

Two: which entity serves you? In the European Economic Area it is not the global platform, and the entity determines your product set, your paperwork and your fees.

Three: which specific products are available to you? A country can be served for spot trading while derivatives, a card or a lending product are unavailable, either because the company chose that or because a local regulator requires it.

Most confusion comes from answering question one and assuming it settled questions two and three.

The published restriction list

Bybit's own help centre names its service-restricted jurisdictions. As published, these are the United States, the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine (the wording currently includes the Crimea, Donetsk, Rostov and Luhansk regions), Sevastopol, Sudan and Syria. There is also a restriction covering Dubai in the case of Bybit Virtual Asset Platform Operator LLC — an entity-specific carve-out rather than a blanket rule for the United Arab Emirates.

Separately, the company does not serve sanctioned parties: individuals and entities on United States Treasury, European Union or United Kingdom sanctions lists, and entities substantially owned or controlled by them.

We reproduce that wording rather than paraphrasing it, because the wording is the thing with legal weight — and because the list of disputed territories is not something an information site should reinterpret on its own.

Why "not on the list" does not mean "yes"

This is the trap. The restriction list tells you where the company will definitely not serve you. It does not tell you that everywhere else is fine, because:

a national regulator may prohibit or restrict the promotion or use of the service locally, without

the exchange listing your country;

a specific product — leveraged derivatives most often — may be unavailable or restricted in your

market even when the platform itself works;

local rules on tax, reporting or currency controls may apply to you regardless of what the exchange

permits;

your own circumstances (residency, citizenship, sanctions exposure) can differ from your location.

A responsible answer for any given country requires checking the platform's availability, the local regulator's position, and the product set separately. Anyone who gives you a confident one-word answer for a hundred countries has checked none of them.

The European Economic Area is its own case

EEA residents are served by Bybit EU GmbH, authorised in Austria as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR. It is a distinct company under a distinct European framework. Its published services centre on custody, exchanging crypto for funds and for other crypto, transfer services, a card and fiat on-ramps. Services are not currently available to residents of Malta.

The practical consequence: if you are in the EEA, figures and product descriptions written for the global platform do not describe your account. Check the entity's own documentation, not a global guide.

Japan and Korea

Bybit has been withdrawing services for residents of Japan following regulatory pressure. In Korea, the company has publicly restricted affiliates from targeting the Korean market and Korean users. Neither is a market where this site offers guidance about opening an account, and we say so plainly rather than quietly leaving the pages up.

How to check your own situation

Open the exchange's own service-restricted list and read it for today's date — it changes.
Search your national financial regulator's site for the exchange's name. Warnings and registration

entries both matter.

Check whether the specific product you want exists for your country inside the app, not in a review.
Confirm there is a working route for your local currency in and out, which in many markets means

peer-to-peer rather than a bank transfer.

If anything contradicts, treat it as a no until it resolves.

What we will and will not tell you

We will describe the entity, the published restrictions, the regulator register entry and the product availability, each with a date. We will not tell you that using the service is legal for you — that depends on your residence, your tax position and rules we cannot see, and it is advice we are not qualified to give. Our editorial policy explains where we draw that line.

If availability checks out, the next steps are creating the account and verification. If they do not, stop here — that is the useful outcome.

Country guides in detail

Availability is only the first question. Once a country is open, the rails, the paperwork and the legal position differ enough to deserve their own page. Three of the markets where this site is read most now have one: using Bybit from Nigeria, where identity is confirmed with a NIN or BVN and the naira only arrives through peer-to-peer; using Bybit from Kenya, where M-Pesa ceilings decide the size of a single trade and the licensing regime changes in November; and using Bybit from South Africa, where the exchange operates through a licensed local representative and tax reporting tightens from March 2026. India has its own page too — see Bybit in India. Two more sit on the fiat restriction list rather than the service list, which changes the route in rather than closing it: using Bybit from Ghana, where cards and bank deposits are out and the central bank cut banks off from crypto dollar wallets in June 2026, and using Bybit from Uganda, where a 2022 circular bars payment providers from converting crypto to mobile money and the High Court upheld it. Two further markets sit on neither list, which makes them the most open in the region: using Bybit from Tanzania, where a 3% withholding tax attaches to gross disposal value and the High Court has treated crypto contracts as enforceable, and using Bybit from Zambia, where the central bank has barred the institutions it regulates from paying virtual asset providers that missed a March 2026 registration deadline. Two more are named on that same fiat list: using Bybit from Botswana, which licenses virtual asset providers through NBFIRA under a law it says reaches platforms operating into the country, and using Bybit from Zimbabwe, which began registering crypto firms in June 2026 under rules that require a locally incorporated company. Two further markets are on none of the fiat lists at all: using Bybit from Malawi, where the obstacle is a parallel exchange-rate premium the IMF measures rather than anything Bybit does, and using Bybit from Mozambique, which caps foreign card spending at three million meticais a year and requires residents to declare assets held abroad. All of these are compared side by side in Bybit in Africa.

If the country question is really a choice between two venues, the licences each one holds where you live are compared in OKX vs Bybit: fees, products and licences.

Frequently asked questions

My country is not on the restricted list. Does that mean I can use it?: Not automatically. The list tells you where the company will definitely not serve you. Local regulators, product-level restrictions and your own circumstances can all still apply, and none of them appear on that list.
Can I use a VPN to access it from a restricted country?: No. It breaches the platform's terms, and the usual outcome is a frozen balance during a later review rather than a working account. This is one of the most reliably expensive ideas in crypto.
Which entity serves me if I live in the EU?: Bybit EU GmbH, authorised in Austria as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR. Its published services centre on custody, exchange, transfers, a card and fiat on-ramps. Services are not currently available to residents of Malta.
Why does this page not simply list every allowed country?: Because a responsible answer for each country requires checking platform availability, the local regulator's position and the product set separately. A single global list would be a guess dressed up as a fact.
What about Japan and Korea?: Bybit has been withdrawing services for residents of Japan. In Korea the company publicly restricts affiliates from targeting the Korean market. Neither is a market where this site offers guidance about opening an account.