PayPal Europe pauses Bitcoin purchases over CARF tax rules

PayPal has hit pause on cryptocurrency purchases for its European users in Luxembourg, effective June 25, 2026. The culprit: a new international tax reporting framework that requires the company to collect and verify detailed customer information before it can legally facilitate new buy orders. The temporary freeze applies specifically to new purchases of Bitcoin and other crypto assets through PayPal’s platform in Luxembourg. Users who already hold crypto in their PayPal accounts can still sell or manage those positions. They just can’t add to them for now. What CARF actually requires The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, is the OECD’s answer to a simple question: how do you tax something that moves across borders as easily as an email? Developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, CARF creates a standardized way for countries to share information about crypto transactions, much like the Common Reporting Standard already does for traditional bank accounts. Luxembourg has now written CARF into local law, which means any company facilitating crypto transactions there needs to collect specific data from its customers. That includes account holder a...