We consider a 2D XY model subjected to time-correlated noise, a model of direct relevance to active crystals, which were shown recently to be able to support very large deformations without melting in the presence of persistent fluctuations. We find that our persistent XY model can remain quasiordered in spite of correlations decaying much faster than allowed in equilibrium. We then investigate theoretically and numerically the order-disorder transition and conclude that it remains of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type, but with scaling exponents that vary with the persistence time of the noise.