Curaçao Gambling Licence Explained

For twenty years the Curaçao licence was the entry ticket to online gambling for anyone who could not or would not get a licence anywhere else: cheap, fast, unsupervised, and recognised nowhere that mattered. Since December 2024 the island has been replacing that system with a direct licensing regime under a new law and a new regulator. This guide explains what the licence was, what it is becoming, what it costs and requires, and what it does and does not permit, for operators considering it and for everyone who has to assess a business that holds one.

The old system

From 1996 Curaçao licensed online gambling under an ordinance written for offshore lotteries. The government issued a handful of master licences, and the master licence holders sold sub-licences to operators, in unlimited numbers, with due diligence that ranged from light to nominal. The regulator supervised the master licence holders in theory and the sub-licensees not at all; there was no public register, no player-protection code, no real anti-money-laundering supervision and no enforcement to speak of. A sub-licence could be obtained in weeks for a few thousand dollars.

The result was the world's largest population of licensed online gambling operators, serving grey markets everywhere, with reputational consequences the island eventually found intolerable. Pressure from the Netherlands (Curaçao is a constituent country of the Kingdom, and Dutch financial support after the pandemic came with conditions on gambling reform), from international anti-money-laundering reviewers and from the industry's own more reputable participants produced the reform.

The LOK

The National Ordinance on Games of Chance (Landsverordening op de kansspelen, the LOK) took effect on 24 December 2024. It abolished the master and sub-licence structure, created a single regulator, the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), and provided for direct licensing of every operator and supplier. Sub-licences issued under the old system ceased to have effect in early 2025; former sub-licensees were moved onto provisional licences while their full applications were processed, and the transition period ran through 2025.

The regulator was known during the transition as the Gaming Control Board and was reorganised and renamed as the CGA when the new framework came into force. It maintains a public register of licensees, which the old system never had.

The two licences

B2C licence. For operators offering gambling to players: casino, sportsbook, poker, lottery products and the rest under one authorisation. Issued to a Curaçao company.

B2B licence. For suppliers to those operators: platforms, game studios and aggregators, payment and other critical service providers.

Both are issued by the CGA directly, on application, after due diligence on the company, its owners and its key people.

Costs

The CGA publishes its fee schedule and advisers' summaries of it differ, so treat the following as orders of magnitude and check the regulator's page. A one-off application fee in the low thousands of euros; an annual licence fee in the tens of thousands (advisers quote figures in the range of 25,000 to 50,000 euros, and the LOK provides for fees to be set by regulation); due diligence fees per person vetted; a small annual fee covering domains. Local incorporation, a registered office, a resident director, local staff and the professional fees for the application add to it. All-in, advisers quote first-year costs from roughly 50,000 euros upward for a compliant set-up, several times the old sub-licence cost and a fraction of a Malta or regulated-market licence.

Curaçao levies a low profit tax on licensed gaming companies; the rate and the base are matters for local tax advice.

Substance and compliance requirements

The LOK's most consequential changes are the ones that make the licence a real licence.

Local presence. A Curaçao company, a registered office (a physical office, not a virtual one), at least one director resident in Curaçao, and local employees. The presence requirement became mandatory for all licensees from the start of 2026.

Fit and proper. Identification, source of wealth and source of funds for beneficial owners and key people, criminal record checks, and the CGA's power to refuse.

Anti-money-laundering. Customer due diligence, risk assessment, a compliance officer, reporting of unusual transactions to the local financial intelligence unit, and the CGA's supervision of it.

Responsible gambling. Age verification (no under-18s), self-exclusion, limits and the other player-protection measures the old system never required.

Prohibited markets. Licensees may not serve residents of Curaçao itself, of the Netherlands and the other Kingdom countries, of the United States, or of any jurisdiction where the CGA's rules or the local law prohibit it. The licensee is responsible for knowing where it may operate.

Reporting and audit. Financial reporting, player-balance reporting, incident reporting and the CGA's power to inspect and audit.

Enforcement. The CGA can suspend and revoke, and the new register makes the status of a licence checkable for the first time.

Timeline

Under the old system, weeks. Under the LOK, advisers report two to six months for a complete application, depending on the readiness of the fit-and-proper file and the local set-up, with the regulator's own capacity a constraint during the transition.

What the licence permits

This is the question that matters and the one the sales pages avoid.

A Curaçao licence authorises an operator to offer gambling from Curaçao. It does not authorise offering gambling into any country that licenses online gambling itself, and the number of those countries grows every year. Britain, every large European market, Ontario, the American states, Brazil, Australia, and a widening set of Asian, African and Latin American jurisdictions treat a Curaçao-licensed operator serving their residents as unlicensed, with blocking of domains and payments, enforcement against the operator and its marketing partners, and in some cases criminal liability.

What remains is the grey market: countries where online gambling is neither licensed nor effectively prohibited. That is still a large part of the world, and a Curaçao licence is the most common way to serve it, but the revenue is less bankable than regulated revenue, payment and advertising access is harder, and each grey market can regulate or enforce at any time. The Offshore Gambling Explained guide covers the model, and the Illegal Gambling Market guide the pressure on it.

The reform improves the licence's standing without changing this. A licensed operator under the LOK is a supervised business with local substance and anti-money-laundering controls, which helps with banks and payment providers and with counterparties' due diligence; it is still an offshore licence, and it still licenses nobody into a regulated market.

Curaçao's competitors

The reform raised Curaçao's cost and requirements, and the operators that wanted the old product looked for it elsewhere. Anjouan (in the Comoros) and Kahnawake (a Mohawk territory in Canada with a gaming commission dating from the 1990s) are the destinations most often cited, and both have seen application growth. Neither offers the CGA's scale or the reputational lift the LOK is designed to provide, and both are subject to the same limitation: an offshore licence serves grey markets only.

At the other end, operators for whom the reform made Curaçao's cost comparable to a more respected jurisdiction have moved up: to Malta for European-facing groups, to the Isle of Man, and to Estonia for some crypto-focused operators. The Malta Gaming Licence Explained guide covers the main step up.

Assessing a Curaçao licensee

For an operator's counterparties (payment providers, affiliates, suppliers, buyers), the practical checks in 2026 are: is the licence a direct CGA licence under the LOK, and is it on the CGA's register; has the company met the substance requirements; which markets does it serve and does it exclude the prohibited ones; and what are its anti-money-laundering and responsible-gambling controls in practice. A licensee that answers all four is a different proposition from a former sub-licensee that has not completed the transition.

For regulators in the operator's target markets, none of this matters: a Curaçao licence is not a local licence, and the operator is either licensed locally or it is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is a Curaçao licence still valid? Yes. The old sub-licences are not; every licensee now holds or is applying for a direct licence from the Curaçao Gaming Authority under the LOK, and the CGA's register shows who is licensed.

How much does a Curaçao gaming licence cost? Advisers quote first-year costs from about 50,000 euros including local substance and professional fees, with annual regulator fees in the tens of thousands. The CGA's fee page is the source; figures from advisers vary.

Can I serve UK, EU, US or Brazilian players with a Curaçao licence? No. Every one of those markets licenses online gambling itself and treats a Curaçao licensee serving its residents as unlicensed. The LOK also prohibits serving Dutch and American residents outright.

How long does it take? Two to six months for a complete application under the new regime, against weeks under the old one.

Do I need an office in Curaçao? Yes. A physical office, a resident director and local staff have been mandatory since the start of 2026.

Is Curaçao better than Anjouan or Kahnawake? It is larger, more established and now supervised, which helps with banks and counterparties. All three are offshore licences that serve grey markets only.

Related on iGaming Times

Gambling Licensing Jurisdictions Compared sets Curaçao alongside Malta, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and the regulated markets. Market Entry and Licensing is the full course. How to Start an Online Casino covers the launch decision the licence is part of, and Crypto Casinos and Blockchain Gambling the sector most associated with the licence.

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Regulation, tax and market figures move quickly, sometimes mid-year. Where this guide gives a number, treat it as a starting point and confirm the current position with the named primary source before you rely on it.