Gambling License Cost by Country: Fees, Tax and Year-One Totals

A gambling license costs between €17,828 and about €80,800 per vertical in government fees in its first year, as of October 2026, and that is only the fixed part. Gaming tax, levies and profit tax on revenue, share capital and the setup the regulator requires can cost more. This guide prices eight licenses line by line, with Georgia's costs set out next to the others.

What Makes Up the Cost of a Gambling License

The fee is one part of what an online gambling license costs to hold. Government fees are the fixed part: an application or due diligence fee, the annual license fee, and charges per domain, per key person or per beneficial owner. Charges on revenue grow with the business: gaming tax, levies such as Malta's compliance contribution, monitoring fees and profit tax.

Capital and setup never appear on a fee schedule. Some regulators require share capital or a guarantee, which ties up money rather than spending it. And every license needs a setup around it, from the company and local directors to servers, platform certification and the policies the regulator reviews.

Gambling License Cost by Country

The table covers government and regulator fees only, in euros, from each regulator's own fee schedule as read in October 2026, except Tobique, whose commission publishes none. Dollar and sterling fees are converted at the National Bank of Georgia's rates for 24 October 2026.

Curaçao

The Curaçao Gaming Authority's fee document splits the €47,450 a year into €24,490 for the Treasury and €22,960 for the authority, due in full by 15 January. The first year is charged pro rata within 14 days of the grant notice. Smaller charges add up for a layered group: €150 for each holder of a 10% interest, €2,551 for each listed beneficial owner entity, €383 for a certificate application and €128 to change or add a beneficial owner. The authority notes that the amounts may be modified by national decree.

Anjouan and Tobique

Anjouan publishes €17,828 for issuance and €17,828 for renewal, B2C and B2B alike, plus a non-refundable application fee whose amount it does not publish. That makes it the lowest fee here and the first name among the cheapest gambling licenses, but the Central Bank of the Comoros warned on 8 December 2025 that the authority behind these licenses is not recognised in the Union of the Comoros and that no online gambling license has been issued there.

Tobique publishes no fees. Licensing firms quote a non-refundable €2,500 preliminary review, €33,500 on approval, then €18,000 a year plus €650 in administration and €1,225 as a social contribution, with a yearly subscription to the commission's appointed agent on top.

Malta

Malta's annual fee is the small part. The MGA fact sheet sets a monthly compliance contribution on gaming revenue that, for casino games, starts at 1.25% of the first €3,000,000 and falls in bands to 0.40%, with a minimum of €15,000 and a maximum of €375,000 a year. Fixed-odds betting starts at 4% and has a €25,000 minimum and a €600,000 cap. Qualifying start-ups get a 12-month moratorium, renewal costs €5,000 every ten years, and the 5% gaming tax applies only to revenue from players based in Malta.

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man adds duty on gambling yield to its fees: 1.5% where yearly yield does not exceed about €23.9 million, falling to 0.5% and then 0.1% as yield grows, with pool betting at the UK rate. The regulator's guidance says no other levy is charged beyond a proportionate contribution to problem-gambling research and support, and the standard company tax rate on the island is 0%.

Kahnawake

Kahnawake's application fee includes due diligence, the first year's fee and one key person permit, and the first year's fee comes back if the application is denied. Each additional key person costs about €4,500 to apply for, renewal every five years costs another €4,500 or so, and the control-system assessment is billed separately. There is no gaming tax.

Estonia and Costa Rica

Estonia charges once for the activity license (€47,940 for casino, €31,960 for betting) and €3,200 per operating permit, with no annual fee published, and taxes remote gambling at 5.5% of bets less prizes in 2026. Costa Rica issues no gambling license; Law 9050 taxes companies that process online bets by headcount, at 57 base salaries a year for up to 50 employees, 85 for 51 to 99 and 113 for 100 or more, and the tax is not deductible for income tax.

Tax and Charges on Revenue

Revenue charges decide the long-run cost more than fees do. Some regulators charge nothing on revenue and leave profit to the company's tax home, others charge a levy on revenue and tax profit separately, and Georgia taxes gross gaming revenue instead of retained profit, with 5% withheld on dividends paid abroad.

Where profit tax applies, the bill depends on the margin, where the company is incorporated and how the group is built, so iGaming tax by jurisdiction is a separate calculation from the license fee. Georgia's charge does not move with the margin: it is 6% of gross gaming revenue in a profitable month and in a loss-making one. Georgia's 58 tax treaties can cut the dividend withholding, to 0% under several, including those with Malta, Cyprus and the UAE.

Capital, Guarantees and Security

Capital does not leave the business, but it has to be there before the license is. Malta asks for issued and paid-up share capital of €100,000 each for casino-type games and fixed-odds betting, cumulative up to €240,000. Estonia asks €1,000,000 for games of chance, €130,000 for betting and €25,000 for games of skill.

The others set no fixed sum. Curaçao requires sufficient funds at all times to pay out prizes, with player money in a segregated account, and the Isle of Man secures player funds held outside a designated client account at 100%. Kahnawake decides case by case whether to ask for security. Georgia has no minimum capital; a sports betting permit needs a prize fund security of about €3,400 by bank guarantee or insurance.

Setup Costs Around the License

Every license needs a structure the fee schedule does not price. Curaçao needs a local company, a local director and a server in a Tier IV data center on the island; the Isle of Man two resident directors, servers on the island and a Manx bank for player funds; Kahnawake hosting in its licensed co-location facility; Georgia a company, a management address and servers in the country. Platform certification, AML and responsible gambling policies, a compliance officer and accounts come on top in every jurisdiction.

Staff are part of the setup too. Average gross monthly earnings in Georgia were about €821 in the second quarter of 2026, and about €1,513 in information and communication, according to Geostat.

Professional fees for the filing, the company and the policies belong in this line too. Ours for a Georgian permit is a fixed fee, quoted after a 30-minute call. Where the setup is the obstacle, the choice between a white label and your own license is a choice about who carries these costs and who keeps control.

What a Georgian Gambling License Costs

The largest fixed line in the cost of a Georgian gambling license is the permit fee, about €34,400 a year per international permit under Article 7(10) of the permit fees law, paid for the first year before the permit is issued and then within every 12 months of the issue date. Random Systems Georgia, which runs the state's control system, charges up to about €12,000 per activity type for the platform audit and up to about €34,400 per permit holder for integration. Those are caps set by Government resolution; the exact amount is fixed in each operator's contract.

On revenue, gambling tax in Georgia for foreign players is 5% of gross gaming revenue a month, plus the 1% monitoring fee, and international permits pay no quarterly gambling business fee. Gambling services are exempt from VAT without the right to deduct, so input VAT on purchases becomes a cost.

What the money buys is a permit under national law. The Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance issues it for five years, against a yearly renewal in Anjouan and Tobique, and must decide an application within 20 days or the permit is deemed issued. There is no minimum share capital, where Malta asks €100,000 paid up for casino or betting.

Georgia's domestic online permits cost far more. A standalone domestic online casino permit costs about €1,718,800 a year and a standalone domestic online slots permit about €343,800, and both are taxed at 20% of gross gaming revenue from Georgian players.

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