Anjouan Gaming Licence in 2026: Cost, Process & Legitimacy

If you are scanning fresh offshore options in 2026, Panama’s KUNAISA regime is a recent low-cost entrant, but the Anjouan gaming licence is still one of the fastest and cheapest ways to put an online gambling business on a legal footing. One permit covers casino, sportsbook, poker and crypto gaming, gross gaming revenue is taxed at 0%, and the public register lists more than 1,500 valid licences (our Anjouan register data page tracks the current count). It is also an offshore licence with real limits, and it carries a legitimacy debate that most guides quietly skip.

This guide covers all of it: the official fee schedule and how to tell it apart from an agent’s mark-up, a realistic timeline, exactly where the licence lets you operate and where it does not, and a straight answer on legitimacy, including how to check any Anjouan licence against the official register in under a minute. The numbers here come from the Anjouan files on our own desk rather than from other agents’ marketing.

What is the Anjouan gaming licence?

The Anjouan gaming licence is a single B2C permit issued under the Computer Gaming Licensing Act of 2005. One licence authorises every major online gambling vertical at once (casino, sports betting, poker, lotteries and crypto gaming), so you do not license each product separately. Crypto casinos use it widely, although the regulator publishes no crypto-specific rulebook, so the crypto AML programme (Travel Rule data, on-chain wallet screening) is yours to build.

Anjouan is an autonomous island of the Union of the Comoros, off the East African coast. Its licensing framework dates to the 2005 Act, and permits are issued through Anjouan Licensing Services Inc. (ALSI) under the island’s gaming authority.

In practice the operators who use it fall into three groups: startups that cannot justify a six-figure Malta budget, crypto-first casinos that established regulators still treat awkwardly, and operators serving markets where no local licensing regime exists at all. If your business plan depends on entering the UK, US or EU regulated markets, this is the wrong licence — more on that below.

How many operators actually hold it

The official public register lists every licence holder, and because it is public you can check the current figure yourself. We mirror it weekly on our Anjouan register data page, which showed 1,527 valid licences in the 20 September 2026 snapshot. Each entry shows the company name, licence number, status, issue and expiry dates, and authorised domains.

The regime that a dozen operators treated as an experiment five years ago is now one of the highest-volume offshore licensing jurisdictions in iGaming. That matters because much of what is written about Anjouan is badly out of date — one widely-read guide still cites “19 licensees as of April 2024.” One pattern from our own analysis of the public register as of 27 September 2026: 257 of the 1,526 licence holders were Costa Rica limited companies (registry numbers starting 3-102), the standard applicant structure for Anjouan.

Real cost: the official fee schedule

The official licence fee is €17,828 — that is what the regulator’s own schedule states for issuance, and the same amount renews it each year. The schedule is refreshingly short:

The ongoing tax posture is the headline advantage: 0% tax on gross gaming revenue. Corporate tax is a separate question: it follows the licensed company rather than the licence. In our structure the applicant is a Costa Rica company, so its tax position, and that of your holding structure, is something we map with you while we build the structure.

The timeline

Advertised: 2–4 weeks. Realistic end-to-end: 4–8 weeks. Both figures are true — they simply measure different things. The short one covers the regulator processing a clean application; the longer one is what operators actually experience from “let’s do this” to “we can accept deposits,” because the licence is only one dependency in the chain.

The step that slips timelines is document readiness rather than regulator speed: one incomplete UBO file, or one policy that needs redrafting, adds a week each round. Get the paperwork right the first time and the advertised window becomes achievable.

Requirements and ongoing compliance

There is no local office, no local director and no local staff requirement — but the obligations that do exist are real, and non-compliance is the one reliable way to lose the licence.

At application you will need corporate documents for the applying entity, KYC files for every UBO and key person, a business plan describing products and target markets, and AML/KYC policies drafted to the regulator’s expectations rather than template filler. After issuance you carry annual key-person authorisation and compliance renewals, and you are expected to run the AML programme you filed day to day.

Where you can (and can’t) operate

An Anjouan licence is authorisation to run a gambling business — it is not market access. No offshore licence is. As standard practice, Anjouan-licensed operators geoblock at minimum the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Australia, plus FATF-blacklisted countries.

Is it legitimate? How to verify yours

Yes — it is a real, working regime: a statutory basis (the Computer Gaming Licensing Act of 2005), an official public register where any genuine licence can be looked up in under a minute, and more than 1,500 valid licences on it in September 2026. The practical test is industry acceptance: game studios, platforms and payment processors onboard Anjouan-licensed operators every day.

The risk that actually burns operators is counterfeits — fake “licences” sold outside the official channel, and lookalike “regulator” websites. Almost every real horror story is someone who paid for paper that was never in the register. Protect yourself in one minute:

1. Open the official register. Go to the register on anjouangaming.com yourself instead of following a link inside the certificate you were sent.
2. Search the company or licence number. A genuine entry shows status, issue and expiry dates, and authorised domains.
3. Match the domains. The site you are dealing with should be one of the authorised URLs on the record.

Anjouan vs Curaçao vs Kahnawake

Among the three offshore regimes operators actually shortlist, Anjouan wins on cost and speed; the trade-off is reputational weight and, for some counterparties, banking friction.

Banking and payments after licensing

Banking and payment infrastructure take far more work to secure than the licence. Accounts get declined because gambling is a high-risk category everywhere, and offshore gambling doubly so, even when the licence itself is perfectly valid.

Work out the payment stack while the licence application is still being prepared, covering which PSPs accept Anjouan-licensed merchants, where settlement accounts sit and how crypto rails fit. Operators who leave it until the licence issues can stall for months, while those who plan it early launch within weeks. It is also the single reason to work with a partner who has done it repeatedly rather than a broker who only sells the paper.

Ready to license — or want a second opinion on a licence you have been offered? Our team handles the full Anjouan process end to end, and we will check any licence against the register for free. See the Anjouan gaming licence service.

Iryna H.

Gaming Licensing at Vantegris

Iryna H. is part of the Vantegris team, which prepares and files licence applications across 40+ jurisdictions. This article was reviewed by Vladyslav S. (Compliance & Legal).

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