A gambling license costs anywhere from a few thousand euros to well over a million pounds a year, depending on the regulator and the size of the business. This guide puts the published fees for four jurisdictions in one table, using each regulator’s own documents, and explains what drives the differences. It also explains why a bigger fee does not mean you are better protected as a player.
It is general information, not legal advice. Anyone planning to apply should read the regulator’s current pages and take advice from a lawyer. Content is for adults aged 18 or over.
How to read the numbers
- Currencies are as published. The UK charges in pounds sterling. Malta, Curaçao and Anjouan charge in euros. We have not converted anything, because we have not verified an exchange rate for a single date. A direct comparison of a £ figure with a € figure would be misleading.
- Fees are for operators. These are paid by the company that runs the casino, not by players.
- Fee types differ. An application fee is paid once. An annual fee is paid every year. Some regulators add a charge that grows with revenue. The table keeps these apart.
- Fees change. All figures were read on 2026-10-28. Check the regulator’s page before relying on a number.
The comparison table
| UK (Gambling Commission) | Malta (MGA) | Curaçao (CGA) | Anjouan (issuer’s figures) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence type costed | Remote casino operating licence | B2C Gaming Service licence | B2C licence | B2C licence |
| Application fee | £8,185 (band F1, smallest) to £165,069 (band J1, largest) | €5,000, one-time and non-refundable | €4,592, one-time and non-refundable, plus €150 per ultimate beneficial owner | €17,828 issuance, one-time |
| Annual fee | £7,000 (F1) to £1,453,949 plus £272,324 per extra £200 million (J1) | €25,000 fixed fee (€10,000 if offering only Type 4 controlled skill games) | €47,450 (€24,490 licence fee to the National Treasury plus €22,960 supervisory fee to the CGA) | €17,828 |
| Extra charge linked to revenue | Fee band is set by gross gambling yield | Compliance contribution: casino (Type 1) €15,000 to €375,000 a year | None found in the fee document we read | None published |
| Extra domain | Not covered here | €100 per domain | €250 one-time per main domain | €500 per domain |
| First-year note | First annual fee cut by 25%, due 30 days after issue | Fixed fee is non-refundable | See fee document | Issuer says fees are “subject to periodic review” |
| Isle of Man | Not researched |
How to read the table: the UK and Malta both scale with the size of the business. Curaçao and Anjouan, in the fee documents we read, are flat figures. That is the main reason the “start-up” cost looks very different from the “large operator” cost in the first two columns.
We have not researched the Isle of Man’s licence fees. There is no Isle of Man row because we have no verified fee figures for it, and we will not guess. Our Isle of Man GSC guide covers what the regulator does and its licence holders, without fees.
United Kingdom
The Gambling Commission’s remote casino licence page carries the note “New fees came into effect on 1 October 2026.” It sorts applicants into bands from F1 to J1 by annual gross gambling yield (GGY), the money players lose to the operator over a year, before the operator’s costs. The F1 band is for a GGY under £250,000. J1 is for £1.6 billion or more (Remote casino operating licence, Gambling Commission, read 2026-10-28).
- Smallest operator (F1): £8,185 to apply and £7,000 a year.
- Largest operator (J1): £165,069 to apply and £1,453,949 a year, plus £272,324 for each complete additional £200 million of GGY above £1.6 billion.
- First-year reduction: “Your first annual fee is due 30 days after your licence is issued and is reduced by 25 percent.” For F1 that is a first annual fee of £5,250 (£7,000 less 25%, our arithmetic). With the application fee, the first year at F1 comes to £13,435 (our arithmetic).
- Personal Management Licence (PML): people who run licensed operators need one. It costs £463 to apply (Personal Management Licence guide, Gambling Commission, read 2026-10-28).
The Commission also says that “Regardless of where you are based in the world, you need a licence from us if” you provide gambling facilities to consumers in Great Britain online. The full tables and the licence types are on our UK gambling license page, and our UKGC guide covers what the licence means for players.
Malta
Malta’s fees sit in the Gaming Licence Fees Regulations, S.L. 583.03. We used S.L. 583.03 as last amended in 2019 (consolidated to L.N. 266/2019), the most recent text we could open on legislation.mt. We could not rule out later amendments, because the official version history only loads in a browser. Confirm the current figures with the Malta Gaming Authority before relying on them.
Under those regulations a B2C licence fee has two parts: a compliance contribution for each licence period, and a non-refundable fixed annual licence fee (Gaming Licence Fees Regulations, S.L. 583.03, Government of Malta, reg. 3 and First Schedule, read 2026-10-28).
- Application: €5,000, one-time and non-refundable. The renewal fee is also €5,000.
- Fixed annual fee: €25,000, or €10,000 for operators offering only Type 4 gaming services (controlled skill games).
- Compliance contribution, by game type. It is calculated on gaming revenue and held between a minimum and a maximum for each licence period:
| Game type | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Type 1 (casino-type games of chance against the house) | €15,000 (the regulations except the first licence period) | €375,000 |
| Type 2 (betting where the operator manages its own odds) | €25,000 | €600,000 |
| Type 3 (peer-to-peer games, for example poker, bingo and exchanges) | €25,000 | €500,000 |
| Type 4 (controlled skill games) | €5,000 | €500,000 |
- Type 1 rates. The contribution is 1.25% on the first €3 million of gaming revenue, 1.00% on the next €4.5 million, 0.85% on the next €5 million, 0.70% on the next €7.5 million, 0.55% on the next €10 million and 0.40% on the remainder.
- Extras: €100 to add a domain and €1,000 to add a game vertical.
From these figures, a Type 1 casino operator pays at least €40,000 in each later licence period: the €25,000 fixed fee plus the €15,000 minimum contribution (our arithmetic). Malta also has a separate gaming tax regime that this page does not cover. For the regulator’s role, see our Malta Gaming Authority guide.
Curaçao
The Curaçao Gaming Authority publishes its fees in one document (License Fees under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK), Version 2.0, Curaçao Gaming Authority, 2025-10-15).
- A B2C (casino operator) application costs a one-time, non-refundable EUR 4,592, plus EUR 150 for each ultimate beneficial owner.
- A B2C licence costs EUR 47,450 a year: EUR 24,490 licence fee to the National Treasury plus EUR 22,960 supervisory fee to the CGA.
- A B2B (supplier) licence carries a single EUR 24,490 annual supervisory fee and no Treasury licence fee.
- Adding a main domain costs a one-time EUR 250.
The figures are flat: they do not change with the operator’s revenue in the document we read. Our Curaçao Gaming Authority guide explains the licence and register statuses.
Anjouan
The Anjouan figures come only from the issuer’s own site, and the issuer’s authority is disputed. The Comoros central bank named the “Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority” a fictitious structure in a 2022 communiqué about financial licences, and the UK is an excluded territory under the issuer’s licence conditions. Read our Anjouan guide before using this row.
Anjouan Gaming publishes €17,828 for licence issuance and €17,828 for annual renewal, with €500 for each additional domain (Fees, Anjouan Gaming, read 2026-10-28). It adds that “Fee schedules are subject to periodic review.” We found no official gazette publication of these fees, so they are the issuer’s claim, not a government schedule.
What drives the differences
Fees alone do not explain a regulator. Four things help explain the gap we see in the table.
- How the fee scales. The UK sets fees by GGY band, and Malta adds a revenue-based compliance contribution. A small operator pays little, a very large one pays a great deal. Flat-fee systems charge everyone the same.
- What the regulator does for the money. The fee table cannot show what supervision, complaint handling or enforcement a regulator provides. Fees are one input, and the table does not measure the service behind them.
- Which market the licence unlocks. A UK licence is needed to offer gambling to people in Great Britain wherever the company is based. Other licences do not unlock that market.
- Fixed charges around the licence. Application, renewal, extra domains, extra game verticals and personal licences all add up differently in each country.
Why cost does not equal protection
It is tempting to treat the biggest fee as the best licence. The figures do not support that. A fee tells you what an operator pays. It does not tell you what happens when you have a dispute or a withdrawal problem.
What you can check is what the regulator does for you. Does it take complaints? Is its register public? Does it publish licence conditions? These differ more than the fees do. For example, Anjouan Gaming says it “does not handle, mediate, or adjudicate player complaints”, while the Gambling Commission publishes a public register you can search. The Swedish Gambling Authority judged Curaçao and Anjouan to have very low supervision and consumer-protection requirements in its 2025 report on traffic to unlicensed sites (Spelinspektionens lägesbild – onlinespel utanför den licensierade marknaden, Spelinspektionen, 2025-03-20; section 2.4.2, our translation from Swedish). That is one regulator’s view about Sweden, not a ruling on any one operator.
A cheap licence is not proof of a weak operator, and an expensive one is not proof of a good operator. Use the fee only as one fact. Compare the regulators on protection in Curaçao vs MGA vs UKGC: what each licence protects.
What to do next
- If you want to check a casino’s licence yourself, follow how to check a gambling license or use our casino licence checker.
- If you want the application steps, not the prices, read how to get a gambling license.
- If gambling is causing you harm, see our responsible gaming page.