Anjouan Gaming Licence Cost in 2026: The Real All-In Budget

An Anjouan gaming licence costs €17,828 per year in official regulator fees — a single permit covering casino, sportsbook, poker, eSports and crypto, with 0% tax on gaming revenue and issuance in four to eight weeks. But that fee is the licence, not the launch: the realistic all-in first-year budget is €40,000–€70,000 once the mandatory Costa Rica applicant company, compliance documentation and payment stack are counted. In our practice taking 300+ operators through licensing end to end, nobody has gone live on Anjouan for €17,828 alone.

This guide breaks down the real all-in budget: the official fee and what it actually includes, the mandatory pieces that sit outside it — the Costa Rica applicant company, compliance documentation, and payments — and a realistic year-one range of €40,000–€70,000. Every line is itemised below, so you can read any provider’s quote against it and see exactly what you are paying for.

The official fee: €17,828, and what it buys

The regulator’s own schedule states one headline figure: €17,828 to issue the licence, renewing at the same amount each year. That fee is paid to the Anjouan Betting & Gaming Board (ABGB) and includes two authorised domains (URLs) on the record; extra domains are a small per-URL add-on beyond the included two.

What makes this fee unusually good value is coverage. A single Anjouan B2C authorisation spans casino, sports betting, poker, lotteries, eSports and crypto gaming — you do not license each product line separately, and you do not stack per-vertical fees. Cryptocurrency operations are expressly permitted rather than merely tolerated, and the July 2025 revision aligned the regime with the FATF Travel Rule for virtual assets. For the full legitimacy and register picture, see our flagship Anjouan guide.

Why the real budget is €40,000–€70,000

The €17,828 buys a licence for a business that does not exist yet. To reach that permit — and to operate lawfully once you hold it — you need an incorporated applicant company, a compliance stack the regulator will accept, key-person due diligence, and payment rails that survive a high-risk category. None of that is inside the government fee, and none of it is optional.

That is the gap between the advertised number and the invoice you actually pay. Below is how the year-one total is built, line by line.

The spread is wide for a reason: a crypto-only casino running a lean stack lands near the bottom; a multi-vertical B2C brand with a Cyprus payment agent, nominee structure and proprietary-game certification lands near the top. Your model, not the regulator, decides where you sit.

Two lines swing the total more than any other. The first is certification: if you licence only third-party games from studios that already hold their own RNG certificates, this cost is small; if you run proprietary games or an in-house RNG, independent-lab testing is unavoidable and can run into five figures. The second is the payment layer — a lean EMI-only setup is cheap, but a full Cyprus payment-agent structure with corporate accounts for both entities is where a serious operator’s budget grows. Decide those two things early and your year-one figure stops being a range and becomes a fixed number.

The applicant company: Costa Rica, not Anjouan

One of the quiet cost savings of Anjouan is that you do not incorporate on the island. There is no local office, no resident director and no local staff requirement — so the applicant company is set up in Costa Rica, filed remotely, with no travel. This is the standard structure for Anjouan operators, and it keeps incorporation costs modest compared with jurisdictions that force a local entity and a resident director onto your balance sheet.

That single design choice is a big part of why Anjouan undercuts Curaçao on total cost. For how the entities fit together, see our Anjouan corporate structure guide; for the full document and eligibility checklist behind the €4,400 compliance line, see the Anjouan licence requirements.

Payments: the line most budgets get wrong

The licence is the easy part; the payment stack is where money and time actually go. Gambling is a high-risk category everywhere, and offshore gambling doubly so — which is why you do not use a mainstream processor. The right setup is an EMI or neobank account, often paired with a payment-agent company incorporated in Cyprus to hold PSP relationships and handle settlement.

Budget this before you apply, not after. Operators who leave payments to the end are the ones who hold a valid licence and still cannot accept a deposit. Our Anjouan payments guide and Anjouan crypto payments guide cover the rails in detail, and the broader iGaming payment processing picture explains why high-risk accounts price the way they do.

Ongoing cost: what year two actually looks like

Year one carries every one-off: incorporation, initial document drafting, first-time account opening, certification. Year two and beyond are materially leaner. You renew the licence at the same €17,828, keep the Costa Rica company and any Cyprus payment agent in good standing, and carry a compliance retainer for policy upkeep, annual reporting and key-person renewals.

The running tax posture stays favourable: 0% on gross gaming revenue, no VAT and no corporate income tax on an internationally-operating IBC-structured entity. That is a feature of the Anjouan regime, not of your personal residency — where you and your holding structure are taxed is a separate question you should structure deliberately.

A useful way to think about it: year one is a capital cost, year two onward is an operating cost. Once the entities exist and the accounts are open, your recurring outlay is the renewal fee, agent and registered-office upkeep for the Costa Rica and Cyprus companies, and the compliance work needed to keep the AML programme you filed actually running. Operators who under-budget the second year are usually the ones who treated compliance as a one-off document exercise rather than an ongoing obligation — and the fastest way to lose an Anjouan licence is to stop operating the programme you promised.

Anjouan vs the alternatives on cost

Put side by side with the regimes operators actually shortlist, Anjouan wins decisively on total cost of ownership. Curaçao carries multiple fees plus a mandatory local entity, resident director and certified on-island server; Malta runs into six figures once capital, gaming tax and compliance headcount are counted.

If cost and speed are decisive, Anjouan is the natural first licence — many operators start here and scale into EU-regulated regimes later. For the full trade-off, read why operators switch to Anjouan, the Curaçao-to-Anjouan migration route, and the wider how much does a gambling licence cost breakdown.

Budget it right the first time

The honest Anjouan number is two numbers: €17,828 for the licence, and €40,000–€70,000 for the year-one business around it. Anyone quoting only the first is selling you paper; anyone hiding the second inside “government fees” is hiding their margin. Price it line by line — official fee, Costa Rica company, compliance, Cyprus payment agent, EMI/neobank, certification — and you will know exactly what you are paying for.

We handle the full Anjouan file end to end, itemised and transparent, from the Costa Rica incorporation to a working payment stack. Want a real quote for your model rather than a headline figure? Book a free consultation or explore the Anjouan gaming licence service.

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional before acting.