Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has informed the firms it supervises that Spain’s markets regulator wants spot-quoted futures and perpetual futures sold to Spanish retail clients to be treated as contracts for difference (CFDs). The position, communicated on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, was relayed at the request of Spain’s Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV).
According to CySEC, the CNMV holds the view that spot-quoted futures (SQFs) must be classified as CFDs for regulatory purposes. As a result, these products fall under the scope of the CNMV resolutions of 2019 and July 2023, which impose leverage caps, an advertising ban, and other restrictions on the sale of CFDs to retail clients in Spain.
The July 2023 resolution banned CFD advertising to retail clients in Spain and curtailed certain sales practices. Under the CFD regime, retail crypto leverage is capped at 2:1. By applying the CFD framework to SQFs, perpetual futures, and analogous products, the CNMV is extending these protections to a broader set of derivatives marketed to retail clients.
CySEC’s latest circular introduces an explicit reference to SQFs, “perpetual futures, or analogue products,” language that was not present in its October 2023 notice on the same rules. The new instruction does not set any deadline or impose additional reporting obligations on firms, but clarifies the reach of Spain’s existing intervention measures.
The move aligns with a statement issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on February 24, which said that perpetual futures meeting the CFD definition already fall within the European Union’s product intervention framework, regardless of their commercial name. ESMA stated that the assessment applies “irrespective of their commercial name,” emphasizing substance over branding for regulatory classification.
The SQF label entered the market through CME Group, which launched bitcoin, ether, and equity index spot-quoted futures on June 30, 2025. Spain’s approach targets over-the-counter versions of these products that brokers market to retail clients under the same or similar labels, rather than exchange-traded contracts.
For Cyprus investment firms that passport services heavily into Spain, CySEC’s notice functions more as a regulatory signal than a rule change. It indicates that the CNMV has observed SQFs, perpetual futures, or analogous products being offered cross-border to Spanish retail clients and expects them to be treated as CFDs with the associated leverage limits, advertising restrictions, and sales practice rules.
