Curaçao vs Anjouan: Cost, Credibility, Banking and Timeline Compared

Curaçao and Anjouan both license online casinos and sportsbooks from small island jurisdictions, and they differ sharply on price, standing and what they ask for on the ground. This comparison sets them side by side as of October 2026 on cost, regulator standing, banking, timeline, requirements, verticals and crypto, with a verdict on each and where Georgia's international permit fits.

Curaçao vs Anjouan at a Glance

Every figure below comes from the two regulators' own documents as read in October 2026, except the timelines, which neither regulator publishes and which are industry estimates.

Cost: Curaçao vs Anjouan

The CGA fee document charges €4,592 to apply, €150 per beneficial owner, €250 for the main domain and €47,450 a year, split between €24,490 for the National Treasury and €22,960 for the CGA. Anjouan's fee page charges €17,828 to issue and the same to renew each year, with €500 per additional domain per licensing cycle and an application fee it does not publish.

On fees alone Anjouan costs about €29,600 a year less. The gap widens once local setup is counted, because Curaçao's local company, local director and Tier IV hosting are costs Anjouan does not impose.

Verdict on cost. Anjouan, clearly, on fees and on local setup.

Credibility and the Regulator's Standing

The Curaçao Gaming Authority licenses under Curaçao's own National Ordinance on Games of Chance, in force since 24 December 2024, and publishes its fee document, license conditions and policy notices on its website. The reform also tightened what it asks of licensees, from supplier approvals to a substance rule from 2027.

Anjouan Gaming says it operates under the authority of the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority. On 8 December 2025 the Central Bank of the Comoros published a communiqué naming that authority and saying it is not recognised in the Union of the Comoros, has no legal authority to issue approvals or licenses for financial or banking activities, and that no license for online gambling or sports betting has been issued on Comorian territory. It warns against doing business with entities operating under these licenses.

Verdict on standing. Curaçao. Its regulator's authority is not disputed by its own state, and Anjouan's is.

Banking and Payments

Neither license comes with a bank account or a merchant account. Banks and payment providers decide on their own risk rules, which makes a bank account for a gambling company a separate project from the license under either regulator.

Anjouan's position is the harder one, because the central bank's warning is addressed to anyone entering into business with entities operating under AOFA licenses, and that includes the institutions an operator banks with. Curaçao's constraint is older. A 2024 analysis published in the Curaçao Chronicle described US correspondent banks limiting services to gaming companies over money laundering concerns, which restricts what local banks can offer the sector.

Card rules add a structural point. Visa requires an acquirer to accept transactions only from merchants in its own country, using the merchant's principal place of business for online sales, so an Anjouan licensee incorporated in a third country, or a Curaçao company run from elsewhere, needs an acquirer willing to register a gambling merchant licensed in another jurisdiction.

Verdict on banking. Curaçao, though neither license makes payments easy on its own.

Timeline

Neither regulator publishes a processing time. Anjouan's application process page says it depends on how complete the documents are, and industry estimates published in 2026 mostly run from two to seven weeks after a complete application. Estimates for Curaçao under the LOK run from roughly two to four months to three to six months, and Curaçao's company, local director and hosting have to be in place first.

Verdict on timeline. Anjouan, by weeks against months.

Requirements and Local Substance

A Curaçao gambling license goes only to a Curaçao company with its registered office there, under Article 2(1) of the CGA's license conditions, which also keep critical player, game and financial data on a Tier IV server in Curaçao, name two compliance officers among the key persons and require prior approval of platform, game and payment suppliers. The LOK's local substance rule applies from 1 April 2027 after a general extension.

An Anjouan gaming license carries no local company, director or office rule under Anjouan's conditions. They require a key person, a compliance officer with a deputy, an AOFA-approved dispute resolution provider, financial ratios as AOFA notifies, and suppliers holding an Anjouan B2B license or recognition certificate.

Verdict on requirements. Anjouan, which asks for far less on the ground.

Verticals and B2B Suppliers

Both issue one B2C license that covers casino and sports betting without a split by vertical. Anjouan's license types page also lists poker, bingo, prediction markets and crypto gaming.

Both run B2B regimes. Curaçao's supplier license costs €4,592 and €24,490 a year and becomes mandatory for anyone serving a Curaçao B2C licensee on 24 December 2026. Anjouan already requires a licensee's platform and content suppliers to hold an Anjouan B2B license or a recognition certificate.

Verdict on verticals. Level, with Anjouan's list slightly wider on paper.

Crypto Under Curaçao and Anjouan

Curaçao allows virtual currencies as stakes if they are tradable on internationally licensed exchanges, bars the licensee from exchanging crypto for fiat and pays winnings in the currency played. Its Crypto Policy Guideline of June 2026 adds a preference for regulated, fiat-backed stablecoins, blockchain analytics and a ban on mixers and sanctioned sources.

Anjouan lists crypto-enabled and blockchain gaming as permitted activities and requires enhanced monitoring, blockchain tracing and disclosure of B2B settlements in virtual assets. For a crypto casino license, Curaçao's rules are the more prescriptive and Anjouan's the more open.

Verdict on crypto. Both work; Curaçao sets clearer limits, Anjouan fewer.

Markets You Can Serve

Curaçao's conditions carry no list of banned countries and require the licensee to follow the laws of each market it serves (Art. 3(1)). Anjouan names excluded territories, non-exhaustively: Australia, Austria, the Comoros, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, plus sanctioned and FATF call-for-action jurisdictions and any AOFA designates, with GEO-IP blocking expected.

Verdict on markets. Curaçao on paper, though every market's own law binds both.

Curaçao or Anjouan: Which to Choose

Choose Curaçao when:

• Banking and suppliers matter most: a regulator whose standing its own state does not dispute is easier to put in front of a bank.
• The plan runs for years: the license has no end date and no yearly renewal.
• A base in Curaçao is acceptable: local company, director, hosting and, from 2027, substance.

Choose Anjouan when:

• Budget decides: €17,828 a year against €47,450.
• Speed decides: weeks rather than months, on industry estimates.
• The company sits elsewhere: no local company, director or office is required.
• Payment providers have confirmed in writing that they onboard Anjouan licensees.

Where Georgia Fits as a Third Option

Georgia's international permits, created by Law No. 1822 of 25 June 2026, license online casino, slots and sports betting for players outside Georgia from a company based in Tbilisi. They answer the standing and banking questions differently from both islands, and they are one of the eight licenses we use to compare gambling licenses.

The issuer is the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance, a state tax authority acting under national law, which must decide within 20 days of a complete filing or the permit is deemed issued. Each permit runs for five years, between Curaçao's open term and Anjouan's yearly renewal, and the law sets no minimum share capital.

On payments, Georgia's 2021 ban on gambling payments, in Article 13¹ of the Payments Law, applies only to foreign gambling companies and to payments by Georgian residents, so it does not stop Georgian banks and payment providers serving a Georgian-licensed operator. Georgian-licensed operators already take Visa, Mastercard and American Express deposits, with channels at TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia and Liberty Bank, and Visa's rules fit a permit that puts the license, the company and a Georgian acquirer in one country.

Tax falls on revenue, at 5% of foreign players' gross gaming revenue plus a 1% monitoring fee, with no corporate tax on profit kept in the company, where Curaçao taxes profit at 15% to 22% and Anjouan publishes no tax. Dividends paid abroad carry 5% withholding unless one of Georgia's 58 tax treaties lowers it, against Curaçao's four treaties.

The costs are stated per vertical. Each permit costs about €34,400 a year, less than Curaçao's €47,450 and more than Anjouan's €17,828, and online casino games and online slots are separate permits, so a casino with slots pays about €68,800 a year. Year one adds one-off charges, as Curaçao's €4,592 application fee does, and the cost of a Georgian gambling license in year one includes a platform audit of up to about €12,000 per activity type and control-system integration of up to about €34,400, caps the contract settles. The company needs a management address and servers in Georgia, Georgian citizens may not play, and there is no lawful crypto deposit route today.

Curaçao vs Anjouan FAQ