Rain review: Bahrain and UAE licences, fees and GCC bank deposits

Who runs Rain

Rain is a crypto platform founded in 2017 by AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago and Yehia Badawy. Its main company, Rain Management W.L.L., says it is headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain; Rain says it operates in 10 countries in the region. The website is rain.com (the address rain.co is a parked domain, not the exchange). All facts in this review were checked on 18 October 2026 on Rain’s pages and in two regulators’ registers.

Licences

• Bahrain: Rain Management W.L.L. is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain as a Category 3 Crypto-Asset Services Provider; Rain dates the licence to 2019. No licence number is published (Rain points to the CBB’s Licensure Directory). It is “the entity operating in Bahrain”.
• UAE (Abu Dhabi): Rain Trading Limited holds a Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market. The FSRA register shows FSP number 210063 (22 December 2022), status Active, for providing custody and dealing in investments as agent in virtual assets. Rain calls it “our entity operating in the UAE”.
• UAE (Dubai): Rain MENA FZE appears in the VARA public register with VASP licence VL/26/10/001 for exchange and broker-dealer services, issued on 5 October 2026. Rain’s own pages still describe an in-principle approval (IPA/26/04/001) and say the licence was not yet held, so they have not caught up with the register. No page says which customers this company serves.
• Türkiye: Rain says it operates there and is applying for a local licence; no licence is listed.

Fees

• Rain Pro (the order book, switched on in your profile): 0% maker and 0.05% taker on all supported pairs. Orders are routed to a market maker or directly to an exchange.
• Instant buy, sell or swap in the app: for customers of Rain Management (Bahrain), the quoted price includes a fee of 0.5%. In the UAE, Rain advertises 0% trading fees, but the quoted price includes “an internal margin determined by Rain”, which is not published.

Deposits and withdrawals

Rain does not charge deposit fees and credits the amount it receives; intermediary banks may still take a fee on international transfers.

• Bahrain: Fawri and Fawri+ (Fawri+ within 24 hours, up to 3,000 BHD a day per IBAN); funds arrive within one day.
• UAE: AED by Easy Deposit (connecting your bank) or bank transfer, available within one business day.
• Other GCC countries: bank transfer to Rain’s IBAN in 1–4 working days; the Kuwait and Oman guides give 4 business days.
• Cards: you can buy crypto directly with a card — debit or credit in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, debit only in the UAE.

Local withdrawals in BHD (Bahrain) and AED (UAE) are free. International withdrawals from Rain Management cost KWD 5, AED 50, OMR 5, SAR 50 or USD 15, which Rain says covers correspondent bank charges.

Sending USDT

Rain’s network guide lists one network for USDT and for USDC: ERC20, which Rain explains is the Ethereum main network. No TRC20 or other network is listed for either. The send fee is dynamic: it follows network conditions and is shown before you confirm, so there is no fixed fee to quote.

Staking, margin and safeguards

Rain Management offers staking with custody at BitGo Trust Company. Rewards are variable and, in Rain’s words, “may decrease, increase or stop entirely without notice”; staking is not a fixed-return product, and you can lose money. Rain MENA FZE describes spot margin trading up to 5x, but presented it as conditional on its VARA licence, and no page says it has started. Leverage multiplies losses as well as gains.

Rain says it keeps a 1:1 ratio between assets and customer funds and holds 98% of customer crypto in cold storage, but we found no proof-of-reserves page.

Before you open an account

• Check whether you will be a customer of Rain Management (Bahrain) or Rain Trading (UAE): fees and products differ.
• Compare the app’s quoted price with Rain Pro before a large buy.
• Send USDT to Rain only on ERC20, the network it lists.

We have not tested Rain with our own account yet; this review will be updated when we do.