Which countries host the servers or infrastructure commonly used by 2025 carding marketplaces?

1. A distributed playbook: why carding sites move servers and domains

Carding marketplaces use multiple hosting layers and domain strategies to survive takedowns: darknet hosting, clearnet domains, VPS/VDS/RDP access and advertised SSH shells to rent or probe servers. Reporting on BidenCash shows operators maintained dozens or hundreds of domains that could be seized en masse by authorities, indicating a reliance on dispersed clearnet infrastructure as well as anonymizing networks ^[1]. Market summaries and forum chatter describe RDP/VDS/VPS offerings and SSH access as commodities in the carding economy — an explicit signal that operators shop for servers and relocate as risk demands ^{[3] [5]}.

2. Where the public reporting points — broad regions, not precise hosts

Open-source mapping of underground markets highlights repeated references to Eastern Europe, Russia-facing marketplaces and Western-hosted infrastructure without naming exact countries for every node. Overviews of top markets in 2025 list actors such as STYX, Brian’s Club, Russian Market and TorZon as dominant hubs for stolen cards and related services, but these profiles focus on market offerings rather than publishing a verified hosting-country roster ^{[2] [3] [4]}. Available sources do not mention a comprehensive list of countries that host the servers for each listed marketplace.

3. Law enforcement actions reveal common patterns, not full maps

Takedowns reported by Europol, the U.S. Department of Justice and others reveal two tactical truths: first, authorities can seize domains and servers when they can attribute or access them (example: BidenCash domain seizures), and second, successful operations often involve coordination across many countries because infrastructure and payment rails are international ^{[1] [6]}. Europol’s Archetyp and Genesis actions illustrate that marketplaces rely on multi-country ecosystems, but reporting emphasizes outcomes (arrests, seized domains) rather than enumerating every host nation involved ^{[6] [7]}.

4. Market and forum evidence of preferred hosting choices

Underground forums and commercial “carding” guides routinely advertise VPS/VDS providers, SSH shells and non-cooperative jurisdictions as preferred options for hosting illicit services, implying operators favor regions with affordable, fast infrastructure and slower legal cooperation — Eastern Europe, parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore appear in general hosting guides as popular offshore options for privacy-focused or resilient hosting ^{[8] [9] [10]}. That guidance reflects the same considerations criminal operators use, but the sources are advisory and do not definitively tie specific marketplaces to specific countries ^{[8] [10]}.

5. The data-center reality: infrastructure concentration versus criminal choice

Global data-center maps show a heavy concentration of hosting capacity in the United States and Western Europe (U.S. ~38% of data centers; major counts in UK, Germany, France), making those regions both attractive and visible targets for marketplace operators and investigators alike ^[9]. At the same time, offshore-hosting lists identify Switzerland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Singapore as jurisdictions advertised for privacy or legal friction — a contrast that explains why operators balance performance and legal opacity when choosing hosts ^{[9] [8]}.

6. Conflicting incentives and the information gap

Security reporting, forum chatter and takedown notices all point to a deliberate obfuscation strategy by carding operators: fragmentation across providers, use of rented shells and quick domain rotation reduce the value of any single public attribution. Consequently, despite multiple sources documenting market names, takedowns and the types of hosting used, available sources do not publish a validated country-level inventory of where 2025 carding marketplaces host servers ^{[1] [3] [5]}. Researchers and law enforcement publish outcomes and tactics, not exhaustive host lists.

7. What this means for defenders and policymakers

Defenders should treat carding marketplaces as transnational, multi-layered operations that exploit both major data-center regions for capacity and “offshore” jurisdictions for legal friction; law enforcement successes (domain and server seizures) come from coordinated international action, not single-country policing ^{[1] [6]}. Policymakers who rely on public reporting to prioritize action should note that the sources emphasize takedown outcomes and ecosystem behavior rather than providing a definitive map of hosting countries ^{[1] [7]}.

Limitations and final note

This analysis is drawn from open reporting, marketplace roundups and forum material in the provided sources; those publications document markets, takedowns and hosting tactics but do not supply a validated, country-by-country host list for 2025 carding marketplaces — that specific mapping is not found in current reporting ^{[2] [1] [3]}.