Panama Gaming Licence Requirements in 2026

A Panama gaming licence requires five years’ experience in the gaming industry, a company constituted or registered in Panama with a legal representative there, a ten-year probity file, and B/.600,000 in bonds. Those requirements come from the Junta de Control de Juegos (JCJ) regulation on online gaming, Resolución No. 11 of 6 March 2020. Where a light offshore route asks for little more than a company and a fee, Panama asks for a real business on the ground: a local or locally-registered company, offices and a call centre, bonded guarantees and a compliance programme, all vetted by the national regulator itself.

We work from this same checklist when we build a file. It covers what the regulation demands of the applicant, the people behind it, the documents and the gaming system, so you can price the licence on what it actually takes rather than on the fee alone. If you are weighing Panama against a light offshore route, this is what you are really paying for.

The company and the national regime

Everything starts with the applicant. Resolution 11 requires a company applicant to be duly constituted in Panama, or registered as a foreign company in Panama’s Public Registry, and every applicant to have a legal representative in Panama. This is the first hard difference from the light offshore permits, and it is deliberate. On routes like Anjouan, Tobique or Kahnawake the applicant company is set up in Costa Rica and no local presence is required; Panama is the opposite.

What you get in exchange for the heavier build is a licence from a national regulator, issued under an administration and operation contract that the Contraloría General countersigns. For the bigger picture of how the file moves, our flagship Panama gaming licence guide maps the process, and the pillar Panama gambling licence service page covers how we run the file end to end.

Costs sit outside scope here — for the B/.50,000 (US$50,000; the balboa is at par with the dollar) fee per licence, the bonds and the 10% of gross income, see the Panama gaming licence cost guide. For a shorter read that puts the fee, the requirements and the term question in one place, start with what a Panama gambling licence involves.

Experience, presence and bonds

This is the requirement that catches operators pricing Panama on its fee alone. The regulation sets four conditions that have nothing to do with paperwork:

• Five years in the industry — the applicant must have at least five years’ experience in the gaming industry. For a company, the majority shareholder or the President must have it.
• A company constituted or registered in Panama — with a legal representative in the country, and articles that carry the clauses the JCJ prescribes: an objects clause for operating games of chance over the internet under JCJ rules, and a bar on issuing or transferring shares except as the JCJ allows.
• Offices and a call centre in Panama — the operator must have both, and the records the regulation requires are kept there.
• Two bonds — a B/.500,000 compliance bond in favour of the JCJ for each contract, and a B/.100,000 prize-payment bond issued by an insurer, presented every year and before operations start.

Note the contrast with the light offshore regimes: this is exactly what permits like Anjouan and Tobique do not require, and it is why they stay cheap and fast. The bonds are guarantees rather than fees, but securing B/.600,000 is a real test of the applicant’s balance sheet. One thing the regulation does not contain is a minimum number of directors: the three-director rule quoted on some sites is not in Resolution 11.

Probity and background investigation in Panama

Under Resolution 11 the JCJ’s Director has a duty to investigate the qualifications and competence of every applicant. The investigation runs through state security bodies or, at the Director’s discretion, private agencies, and the applicant pays for it. The regulation fixes no amount. For a company it covers the board of directors and the shareholders, up to the ultimate beneficial owner.

Ten years of background on the people. The application gives complete personal, criminal, commercial and financial background for each director, officer and key employee, and for anyone else the JCJ considers to have a significant relationship with the operation, covering the ten years before filing. A single unresolved file (a missing document, an unexplained connection) holds up the whole application.

Everyone with an interest, named. The file lists every person directly or indirectly involved in the proposed operation and the nature of their interest: shareholders, the ultimate beneficial owner, directors, officers and the legal representative. Notarised certificates from the company secretary confirm the shareholders, the outstanding loans and charges, and the ten highest-paid people on the payroll.

Source of funding. The applicant must prove where the money for the operation comes from. Funding that cannot be documented is the most common reason a file stalls.

Financial records. Certified financial statements for the three fiscal years before the application, and tax returns for the last three years. A company that has not traded for three years files a notarised certificate saying so.

Certificates of suitability. Anyone who will act as an officer, director, key employee or shareholder of the operator must also obtain a certificate of suitability from the Director, applied for through a lawyer.

Because these files take the longest to assemble, especially certified documents from multiple jurisdictions, start them on day one alongside the company set-up rather than treating the investigation as a closing step.

The document and technology pack Panama asks for

Alongside people and presence, the JCJ reviews a defined set of documents, and the gaming system must be certified before you go live. Filing with any of these missing, or written for a different product, is what holds an application up. The core pack is:

Two elements deserve emphasis. The AML/KYC procedures must be operable documents, because player verification has to comply with Panama’s Law 23 of 2015 on money laundering and each new player is checked against the JCJ’s exclusion list. Our primer on iGaming AML and KYC covers what an operable programme looks like. And the gaming system must be registered, bought from a registered provider and covered by a Certificate of Compliance from an entity registered with the JCJ, wherever the servers are; if they sit outside Panama the operator must state exactly where. The regulation defines the licensed web domain by reference to Panama’s country-code domain, currently .pa, a point to settle with the JCJ before you plan the brand’s address.

Ongoing Panama requirements and payments

The requirements do not stop at issuance. Each licensed site must start operating within three months of its licence being issued. After that you keep the company, the offices and the call centre in good standing, present the prize-payment bond every year, and pay the JCJ 10% of gross income within the first 10 calendar days of each month. Players must be able to self-exclude, each player may hold one account, and an account opens with at least B/.20 and never exceeds B/.10,000. Share issues and transfers need JCJ approval, and fines run up to B/.100,000 per infringement, doubled for a repeat. According to press reports, Ley 527 of 23 May 2026 added player spending and time limits, biometric identity checks and powers to block unlicensed sites.

On the payments side, the JCJ credential opens better rails than a light offshore permit — but the rails still have to be built correctly. Mainstream consumer processors prohibit gambling, so Panama operators route funds through an EMI or neobank account and specialist high-risk acquirers rather than consumer fintech. Card schemes treat gambling as a high-integrity-risk category under programmes like the Visa Integrity Risk Program, so acquiring is a specialist exercise regardless of how respected the licence is. The credential earns you access to better rails; it does not exempt you from the fact that gambling remains a restricted category everywhere.

Assembling the Panama file in the right order

Constitute or register the company, add the JCJ clauses to its articles and appoint the legal representative first. Assemble every background file and the three years of financial records at the same time, because they take the longest, and open the bond conversation with an insurer or bank early. Draft the internal control manual and the AML/KYC procedures against your actual operating model, then finalise the gaming-system registration and its Certificate of Compliance. Only then does the JCJ application go in. For a step-by-step run to go-live, see the Panama launch checklist.

The JCJ regime asks for an experienced operator, a real company, offices and a call centre in Panama, bonded guarantees and a real compliance programme, and in exchange gives you a national credential and stronger banking standing. The regulation sets no processing deadline, so the one part of the timeline you control is a complete and consistent file.

Ready to assemble your JCJ requirements pack, or want a second opinion on a file you have already started? Our team handles the full Panama presence, probity and document build end to end and will review any application against the regulator’s expectations before you submit. Book a free consultation and we will tell you exactly what is missing.

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.