Nevis vs Anjouan Gaming Licence 2026: Which to Choose

If you’re picking an all-vertical offshore gaming licence in 2026 and you want a 0%-tax base, two names keep coming up: Nevis and Anjouan. They sit in the same corner of the market — one permit covering every vertical, no gaming tax, offshore reach — and on a spec sheet they look close. They aren’t the same product. One is a brand-new Caribbean regime that asks for real local substance; the other is the fastest, cheapest, presence-free permit in the field.

In our practice we license operators on both, so this is a genuine head-to-head, not a pitch for one side. Here is how they actually differ, and how to decide.

The two regimes at a glance

Cost: Anjouan wins on the number

There’s no getting around it — Anjouan is the cheaper licence. Its official fee is €17,828 a year, one of the lowest headline figures of any credible offshore regime, and it comes without a mandatory local company or resident officer to fund. Nevis is a flat €28,000, which covers the application and your first year in a single number, plus a non-refundable application fee of $2,500–$3,000. Add the Nevis company and the resident Reporting Officer and first-year all-in lands around €34,400.

So on fees alone, Anjouan is roughly €10,000 lighter, and its no-substance model keeps the surrounding costs down too. But the fee is only one line of a year-one budget: compliance build, RNG certification and payment setup are broadly similar between the two. If budget is the deciding factor, Anjouan is the answer. What Nevis buys for the extra spend is a different kind of value — a purpose-built 2025 framework and a genuine Caribbean structure, which we unpack in our Nevis gaming licence guide.

Framework and tax: Nevis is the newer, more substantial base

Where Nevis earns its higher fee is in how it’s built. The Nevis Online Gaming Authority (NOGA) was established under the Nevis Online Gaming Ordinance 2025 — a modern statute written for contemporary iGaming, operating within the Nevis Island Administration and part of the Federation of St Kitts & Nevis. Anjouan’s regime dates to 2005 and is well-established — a known quantity with roughly 1,400 licence holders on its public register — but it’s the older model. Anjouan does have one framework edge worth naming: its rules reference crypto expressly, and a July 2025 revision aligned it with the FATF Travel Rule for virtual assets, which crypto-first operators like to see in black and white.

The tax story is close but not identical. Both charge 0% on gaming revenue. Nevis goes one step further with a territorial system that applies 0% to foreign-sourced income — so a Nevis structure serving international players can be genuinely tax-neutral at the corporate level, not just on gaming. For an operator building a long-term base rather than a quick permit, that territorial angle is a real part of the Nevis case.

Structure and banking: where they genuinely diverge

This is the section that actually separates the two. For Anjouan, the applicant company is set up in Costa Rica — no local Anjouan or Comoros incorporation, no resident director, no island staff. The whole file is handled remotely through an authorised agent, which is a large part of why it clears in 4–8 weeks. Nevis is the opposite by design: you incorporate a Nevis company (typically 5–7 days) and appoint a Reporting Officer who is a permanent Nevis resident, and NOGA reviews the company and its beneficial owners before issuing. That local substance is what pushes the timeline to 2–3 months and the cost up — but it’s also what makes Nevis feel like a real jurisdictional base rather than a paper permit.

On banking the two behave similarly. Neither is banked as broadly as a heavier onshore regime, but both are workable for a well-structured operator. In both cases settlement runs through an EMI or neobank account, not a mainstream processor, because Stripe, PayPal and Wise all prohibit gambling. Where a dedicated gambling payment agent is used, it is incorporated in Cyprus for either licence. Because the payment plumbing rhymes even though the applicant structures differ, an operator can hold both permits and run them in parallel without much friction — Anjouan for lean speed, Nevis for a substance-backed Caribbean face.

Which verticals, which operators

On coverage the two are twins. Each issues a single licence spanning casino, sports betting, poker, lottery, bingo and eSports — no per-vertical permit, no add-on approvals for a standard multi-product build. Anjouan names crypto explicitly and is a common home for crypto casinos; Nevis is equally comfortable with crypto and multi-vertical operators under its one authorisation. Whichever you pick, remember a gaming licence is not market access: both require you to geo-block regulated markets you aren’t separately licensed in, plus sanctioned and FATF-listed territories.

Where they part company is the type of operator each suits best. Anjouan is the natural first licence for a startup that wants the lowest cost, the fastest launch and zero local footprint — get live, prove the product, scale later. Nevis fits the operator who wants a fresh, less-crowded name, is willing to carry real local substance, and values a territorial 0% income-tax base for the long term. Anjouan’s own case is laid out in Anjouan as a viable alternative to Curaçao, and you can compare the full Anjouan build on its gambling-licence service page.

How to choose

Strip it back and the decision is simple. Pick Anjouan if the lowest recurring fee, the fastest issuance and a presence-free structure are your priorities, or if you want crypto named explicitly in the framework. Pick Nevis if you want the newest statutory regime, are happy to run a genuine Nevis company with a resident Reporting Officer, and want a territorial 0% income-tax base under a fresh Caribbean flag. Both are all-vertical, both are 0% gaming tax, and both are lean to run compared with onshore regimes.

If you’re still weighing them, that’s exactly the conversation we have every week. Read the full Nevis picture in our Nevis gaming licence guide or start from the Nevis gambling-licence service page — then book a free consultation and we’ll match the licence to your budget, structure and target markets.

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