What a Gambling Licence Really Costs: Nine Jurisdictions and Their Three-Year TCO

Where the state takes a share of revenue, the regulatory fee is usually the smallest line item in the budget (Brazil, where the outorga fee dominated, is the exception). We compiled the price lists of nine regulators, tax rates, and mandatory requirements, and calculated the cost of a single licence over three years based on an annual GGR of €5 million. The range is from €53,000 to €6.9 million, although the most expensive one, Brazil’s, has been terminated by MP 1.394/2026, which is being challenged in the STF.

Key Takeaways

• The application fee is almost always between €5,000 and €50,000: €5,000 in Malta, €4,592 in Curaçao, £5,250 on the Isle of Man, and £40,475 in the UK for an operator with a GGY of £3–10.5 million. It is not the application fees that make the difference, but the government’s share of GGR: 0% in Anjouan and Kahnawake, 1.5% on the Isle of Man, about 20% in Ontario (per press reports), 22.4% in Alberta, and a 40% Remote Gaming Duty in the UK starting April 1, 2026;
• According to 15M’s calculations, a three-year licence with a GGR of €5 million costs approximately €53,000 in Anjouan, €68,000 in Kahnawake, €150,000 in Curaçao, €253,000 in Malta, €358,000 on the Isle of Man, €3.2 million in Ontario, €3.7 million in Alberta, €6.3 million in the UK, and €6.9 million in Brazil. This does not include salaries, servers, auditors, or corporation tax;
• Brazil is the warning: 85 operators paid R$2.55 billion for authorisations, but Provisional Measure (MP) 1,394/2026 of 25 September 2026 banned fixed-odds betting and terminated the authorisations after 30 days, with no refund of the outorga fee. An expensive licence protects against competitors, but not against the state.

How to Calculate: Four Layers of Cost

When people ask “how much does a licence cost?”, they usually mean “how much will the regulator charge for the application?” That is the first and cheapest layer. The second is annual fees and charges for key persons, domains, and amendments. The third is the state’s share of revenue: GGR tax, compliance contribution, provincial revenue share. The fourth is mandatory compliance that cannot be avoided: a local company, resident directors, servers in the jurisdiction, game certification by an accredited laboratory, and external audits.

We price the first three layers in money and describe the fourth as requirements, because its cost depends on the size of the company and regulators do not publish it. Model assumptions: one brand and one site, an online casino, GGR of €5 million a year, all players outside the licensing jurisdiction (except Ontario, Alberta, the UK and Brazil, where the licence gives access to a single market and GGR is counted from it). Exchange rates are fixed: £1 = €1.15, C$1 = €0.65, US$1 = €0.85, R$1 = €0.16.

The fourth layer is not free either; its price is simply not set by the regulator. In Malta, the MGA approves eight key functions, from CEO and gaming operations to AML and internal audit, for €50 per application, but each must be held by a real person with verified qualifications. In the UK, senior managers receive a Personal Management Licence for £463. On the Isle of Man, two resident directors and a Designated Official mean salaries on the island. In Curaçao, a local director and Tier-IV hosting mean invoices from local providers. That is why Table 2 puts these items in the “not included” column: they cannot be compared by price list, but they cannot be forgotten.

Table 1. What Regulators Charge

Table 1. Fees, taxes and requirements across nine jurisdictions, as of November 4, 2026. Sources: 1–13, 15–34, 37, 41, 44.

Europe: Malta, the UK, the Isle of Man

Malta remains the most predictable. The application fee is €5,000, the fixed annual fee is €25,000, and the licence is granted for 10 years. The main item is the compliance contribution, calculated monthly on gaming revenue on a declining scale: for casino (Type 1), 1.25% on the first €3 million and 1% on the next €4.5 million, with a minimum of €15,000 and a maximum of €375,000 a year. At €5 million GGR, that is €57,500 a year. The 5% gaming tax was levied only on players located in Malta; from 1 October 2026, rates differ by game type (Legal Notice 84 of 2026), and the MGA has promised separate guidance. For an operator with an international audience, this tax is close to zero, so it is not included in the model.

As of October 1, 2026, the United Kingdom raised fees by approximately one-quarter. For remote casinos with GGY ranging from £3 million to £10.5 million, the application fee is £40,475, and the annual fee is £27,337; according to Harris Hagan, the first annual fee remains at 75% of the full amount. But the fees are a minor detail compared to the other two items. The statutory levy, effective April 6, 2025, is 1.1% of GGY for remote casinos, betting, and software. And most importantly, HMRC Excise Notice 455a states: “From 1 April 2026, RGD is charged at the rate of 40% of a gaming provider’s profits from remote gaming with UK persons.” Before that, the rate was 21%. Sports betting is subject to a 15% General Betting Duty, and corporation tax is 25%.

Isle of Man — mid-range. Application fee: £5,250; annual fee for a full licence: £36,750; processing time, according to the GSC guide, is 10–12 weeks after the application is accepted. Gambling duty: 1.5% of GGY up to £20 million; above that, 0.5% and 0.1%. Corporation tax is 0%. Requirements for “substance”: The GSC requires “appointing at least two directors who are natural persons and residents,” a resident Designated Official, registration and gaming servers physically located on the island, and player accounts at a Manx bank. “Shell company” applications are rejected.

Offshore Jurisdictions: Curaçao, Anjouan, Kahnawake

After the LOK took effect on December 24, 2024, Curaçao ceased to be a “weekend licence.” CGA Fee Policy Version 2.0, effective October 15, 2025: application fee of €4,592, €150 per beneficiary, €250 for the primary domain, and an annual fee of €47,450 — of which €24,490 goes to the treasury, and €22,960 is a supervisory fee. There is no GGR tax. However, the licence terms effective December 17, 2025, require a company incorporated in Curaçao and a server “hosted in a Tier-IV certified data center located in Curaçao,” and games must be certified by an approved laboratory. The CGA has deferred the local staffing requirement (Article 5.12) until April 1, 2027. On October 19, 2026, the regulator announced the launch of an interim licensing portal, although its client-facing services were still undergoing adjustments and security testing as of early November.

Anjouan is the cheapest option in the table: €17,828 for issuance and the same amount annually, with the same price for both B2C and B2B, and €500 for an additional domain. According to the Global Law Experts guide dated October 16, 2026, a local office is not required, and due diligence takes about six weeks. The trade-off for the low price is reputation: the same guide cites a statement from the Central Bank of the Comoros that the AOFA is not recognized by the Union, and that banks and PSPs make their own decisions regarding licensees.

Kahnawake has higher upfront costs: Client Provider Authorization — US$35,000 per application, which already includes the first annual fee, plus US$5,000 for each Key Person. After that, US$20,000 per year for up to six domains, with each additional domain costing US$500. Renewal every five years costs US$5,000. The regulations, as amended on March 25, 2026, require that equipment be housed in a colocation facility operated by an Interactive Gaming Licence holder (Mohawk Internet Technologies), that a separate fee be paid for the Control System assessment, and that an external audit be conducted by a firm approved by the commission. The first CPA is issued for six months.

Canada: Ontario and Alberta

In Ontario, registering an operator with the AGCO costs C$100,000 a year for each gaming site, and the price list expressly warns that investigation costs are charged on top of the fee. The economics sit in the agreement with iGaming Ontario: under Order in Council 210/2024, GGR belongs to iGO and the operator receives a “defined revenue share”. The percentage is not disclosed in the documents; the press (Covers) reported about 20%. Technology is certified by an independent laboratory, and the Control Activity Matrix with independent review must be submitted within three months of launch. Cassels estimates the minimum registration time at 90 days.

Alberta, which opened on 13 July 2026, copied Ontario’s rules but not its price list. The AGLC charges C$50,000 once and C$150,000 a year per site. The province’s share is 3% of GGR to funds plus 20% of AiGC net revenue; by 15M’s calculation from the article on the end of the transition period, that is about 22.4% of GGR. SOC 2 Type 1 is required at launch, and ISO 27001 or SOC 2 Type 2 within two years.

Brazil: The Most Expensive Licence That No Longer Exists

The Brazilian licence cost R$30 million for five years and up to three brands, plus a monthly taxa de fiscalização starting at R$54,419.56 and a 12% tax on GGR. Operators were required to have a Brazilian company with a local partner holding at least 20% of the capital, as well as system certification. According to TaxUp’s database, as of September 24, 2026, the SPA had issued 85 authorisations for 188 brands; in total, according to Yogonet, operators paid R$2.55 billion.

On September 25, 2026, the president signed Provisional Measure No. 1.394/2026. Article 1: “Ficam proibidas, no território nacional, a exploração, a oferta, a intermediação e a publicidade” of fixed-odds bets (“The operation, offering, intermediation and advertising […] are prohibited in the national territory”). Article 4: authorisations terminate 30 days after publication, and the operator has no right to a refund of the outorga or to compensation. Sites had to go offline within 10 days, deposits are banned from the date of publication, and the penalty for failing to return funds to players is R$200,000 per day.

Chronology, according to Vernalha Pereira: deposits have been prohibited since 25 September, platforms have been inaccessible since 6 October, and authorisations were terminated on 25 October 2026. The associations Anseja and ANJL filed a direct action of unconstitutionality (ADI) with the Supreme Federal Court (STF). IBJR and ANJL asked rapporteur Luiz Fux to suspend the MP entirely or to allow at least six months for the transition. As of 4 November, no decision had been made. The MP has been in force since publication, but Congress may reject it, and the STF may suspend it. The first 60-day period expires on November 23 and may be extended for another 60 days; taking vacations into account, this would extend the deadline to early March 2027. So far, 99 amendments have been submitted. For the purpose of our table, R$30 million is not an amortisable asset but a sunk loss.

Table 2. Three-Year TCO: 15M Calculation

Table 2. 15M Calculation: one brand, online casino, €5 million in GGR per year, three years, exchange rates: £1 = €1.15, C$1 = €0.65, US$1 = €0.85, R$1 = €0.16. Sources: 1–2, 6–9, 11, 15, 18, 20, 23–25, 29–31, 33, 34, 44.

The landscape is divided into three tiers. The lowest tier consists of offshore jurisdictions and Malta, where the cost for three years ranges from €53,000 to €253,000; for offshore licences, the payment does not depend on revenue, while in Malta it depends moderately (compliance contribution up to €375,000 a year). The middle tier is the Isle of Man: €358,000, two-thirds of which is duty. The top tier consists of regulated local markets, where the government takes 12–40% of GGR (in Brazil, plus R$30 million to get in) and the cost over three years runs into the millions. It’s important to note that these tiers address different needs: an offshore licence does not grant access to either Ontario or the UK, while a Canadian or British licence is unnecessary for an operator that isn’t entering those markets.

By comparison, Estonia — often referred to as a “low-cost gateway” to the EU — requires a €47,940 operating licence plus a €3,200 operating permit, a minimum authorized capital of €1 million, and a tax on remote gaming of 5.5% of GGR starting March 1, 2026, decreasing to 5% in 2027 and 4.5% in 2028. By 15M’s calculation, the total over three years is approximately €800,000 — higher than the Isle of Man, but without the need for resident directors or local servers.

What This Means

Operators. Compare not the fees but the state’s share multiplied by your GGR plan. At €5 million GGR a year, Ontario costs about €1 million a year, and the UK about €2 million a year in RGD alone. The difference between Malta and Curaçao over three years is about €100,000, and it buys an EU jurisdiction that banks and providers recognise, not access to markets. Three of the nine jurisdictions — Curaçao, the Isle of Man and Kahnawake — require servers or equipment on their territory, and that cost is not in the price lists.

Providers. A client’s economics determine how much it can pay for content. In the UK, after a 40% RGD and a 1.1% levy, an operator is left with less than 59% of GGR before expenses; an operator in Malta is left with more than 98%. Independent game or system certification is required on the Isle of Man, in Curaçao, Ontario and Brazil; independent testing in the UK, a Control System assessment in Kahnawake, and a system audit before launch in Malta; each jurisdiction has its own laboratories.

Affiliates. The marketing budget is what’s left of the money after the government takes its cut. In local markets it is squeezed hardest: the province takes 22.4% in Alberta, and the state takes 40% from casinos in the UK. In Brazil, even the licence can disappear within 30 days, along with the traffic the sites were built around. It’s not only the operators that need to consider diversifying across jurisdictions.

Methodology

As of November 4, 2026. Fees and rates are taken from regulators’ documents and laws listed in the sources; estimates from law firms and consultants are marked with the source’s name. The TCO model counts only regulatory fees and the state’s share of GGR under the assumptions in the Table 2 caption. It does not include corporation tax, salaries of key persons, hosting, audits, certification, the cost of capital (for example, Estonia’s €1 million share capital), or legal support. Exchange rates are rounded and fixed for three years. For the UK, a casino scenario with UK players is used; for Malta and the offshore jurisdictions, players are outside the jurisdiction. Ontario’s iGO revenue share is taken from press reports because the operating agreement is not published. For Estonia: €47,940 + €3,200 + 5.5% × €5 million + 5.0% × €5 million + 4.5% × €5 million = €801,140 ≈ €800,000 (the €1 million capital is not included). For Alberta: 3% + 20% × (100% − 3%) = 22.4% of GGR. This material is not legal advice; check current price lists and consult licensed lawyers before choosing a jurisdiction.

Sources

1. Malta, Gaming Licence Fees Regulations, S.L. 583.03 (consolidated text). https://legislation.mt/eli/sl/583.3/eng/pdf
2. MGA, “Guidance Note — Licence Fees and Taxation”, February 2023, v2. https://www.mga.org.mt/app/uploads/Guidance-Note-Licence-Fees-and-Taxation-1.pdf
3. MGA, “Guidance Note — Application Process”, February 2023, v1. https://www.mga.org.mt/app/uploads/Guidance-Note-Application-Process.pdf