Belgium Online Gambling Licence 2026: Every Route Is Capped and Full, the New Fees, and the Brussels Casino

The short answer: no route is open to a new applicant

Belgium does not issue an online licence on its own. Article 43/8 of the Law of 7 May 1999 lets the Gaming Commission grant a supplementary licence for play through “information-society instruments” only to a company that already holds the matching land licence:

Online licence	What it covers	Land licence required	Cap on the land licence	Register, 23 Oct 2026
A+	Casino games	A (casino)	9 casinos (art. 29)	9 A, 9 A+
B+	Arcade games	B (gaming arcade)	180 arcades (art. 34)	175 B, 48 B+
F1+	Betting	F1 (betting organiser)	30, from 31 July 2022 to 31 July 2031 (Royal Decree of 22 December 2010, art. 1)	30 F1, 24 F1+

The Commission’s licence pages say it plainly for each land class. For casinos: “all 9 licences for casinos, as stipulated by the Gambling Act, have been granted. Therefore, there is no possibility to apply for an A licence.” For arcades and for betting organisers, the wording is the same: “There is currently no possibility to apply.” A place reopens only when a licence is withdrawn or surrendered. The Commission then publishes the vacancy in the Moniteur belge and on its website, and applications follow a procedure set by royal decree.

The arcade cap of 180 and the 175 B licences on the register leave a gap of five. The Commission still offers no application route. Vacant B licences go through the separate procedure of the Royal Decree of 24 April 2014.

Two more limits narrow the online right. A land licensee may hold “at most one” supplementary licence. The supplementary licence covers only games “of the same nature as those offered in the real world”, so an F1+ site takes bets and an A+ site offers casino games, not both.

Our reading: for an operator outside Belgium, the licence question is really a partner question. The realistic ways in are a brand agreement with an existing licensee, which is what the registers show most international brands doing, or taking a stake in a licensed company, whose shareholders and final beneficiaries the Commission already asks to see. An application of your own becomes possible only if a vacancy is published, and the Commission gives no date for one.

What it costs in 2026

The Commission is funded entirely by its licensees (art. 19). Each year a royal decree fixes the contribution. The decree for 2026 is dated 11 March 2026, was published on 13 March and applies from 1 January 2026. It raised every amount by 15%:

Licence	2025 (EUR)	2026 (EUR)	Increase
A (casino)	22,085	25,398	+3,313
A+ (online casino games)	11,042	12,698	+1,656
B (arcade)	11,042	12,698	+1,656
B+ (online arcade games)	11,042	12,698	+1,656
F1 (betting organiser)	12,603	14,493	+1,890
F1+ (online betting)	12,603	14,493	+1,890
E, services for online gambling	12,603	14,493	+1,890

The contribution is paid once a year, per licence, “whatever the duration of operation” (art. 2), so a licence granted in December pays the full year. Casinos also pay EUR 821 per gaming machine, with a minimum of EUR 24,696.

The report to the King gives the reason for the increase. The Commission’s spending ceiling for 2026 is EUR 9,180,000. Contributions at the old rates would have brought in EUR 7,741,121, leaving a gap of EUR 1,438,879. The 15% uplift raises EUR 1,316,168, which covers 91.5% of the gap. Contributions had not been indexed or raised since 2018.

There is also a guarantee. Article 71 requires a deposit in cash or public funds with the Caisse des dépôts et consignations at least five days before operations start:

Pair of licences	Contributions per year (EUR)	Guarantees (EUR)	Cash in year one (EUR)
A + A+	38,096	500,000	538,096
B + B+	25,396	150,000	175,396
F1 + F1+	28,986	85,000	113,986

These figures cover the regulator only. Gambling taxes in Belgium are regional: the Commission asks every applicant for a tax certificate from the Flemish, Walloon or Brussels administration, depending on where the establishment or servers sit. This article does not cover the regional tax rates.

One formal step remains for the 2026 amounts. Article 19 obliges the King to put a bill confirming each contribution decree before Parliament. The 2025 decree was confirmed by article 166 of the law of 18 December 2025. The Justel record of the 2026 decree, read on 28 October 2026, shows no confirming law yet.

How international brands appear on .be domains

The registers explain how bwin, Unibet, Betsson, PokerStars and Betano operate in Belgium. They do not hold their own Belgian online licences. A Belgian land licensee holds the licence and lists the website. On the A+ register of 23 October 2026:

Establishment on the register	Licence holder	Website on the A+ register	A+ expires
VIAGE (Brussels)	SA/NV Casinos Austria International Belgium	betanocasino.be	31 Dec 2026
Casino de Spa	SA/NV Casino de Spa	casino777.be	1 Jan 2032
Starcasino.be (Chaudfontaine)	SA/NV Chaudfontaine Loisirs	starcasino.be	2 Jan 2032
Casino Knokke	SA/NV E.C.K.	napoleoncasino.be	3 Jul 2033
Casino de Namur	SA/NV Gambling Management	circus-casino.be, pokerstars.be	11 Dec 2034
Casino Blankenberge	SA/NV Blankenberge Casino-Kursaal	unibetcasino.be	1 Jan 2036
Infiniti Casino Oostende	SA/NV Infiniti Casino Oostende	bwincasino.be	1 Aug 2036
Grand Casino de Dinant	SA/NV Grand Casino de Dinant	casinoladbrokes.be	19 Jan 2038
Casino Middelkerke x Betsson	SA/NV Exploitatie Casino Middelkerke	betssoncasino.be	22 Feb 2039

Betting works the same way, with one difference: the F1 holder does not need a Belgian address. Unibet Belgium Ltd holds F1 and F1+ (unibetsports.be) with a registered address in Sliema, Malta. The other holders on the F1+ list are Belgian companies, among them Leader Bet (bwin.be), Sagevas (betssonsports.be) and Derby (ladbrokes.be).

The platform behind the site needs its own licence. Online platform providers fall under class E: a ten-year licence, a EUR 25,000 guarantee for repair and online services, and a 2026 contribution of EUR 14,493. The A+ application asks for the identity of the “E-licenced partner who provides and maintains the platform”. The law adds a hosting rule. The servers holding the site’s data and structure must sit in a permanent establishment on Belgian territory (art. 43/8 § 2, 3°).

Brussels: one of nine casino licences ends on 31 December 2026

The Brussels casino’s A licence was granted on 25 January 2024 and runs only to 31 December 2026, not the usual fifteen years. Article 25 allows this: when the municipal concession expires before the end of a fifteen-year term, the Commission may grant the licence only up to the concession’s expiry. The A+ for betanocasino.be ends on the same date, because a supplementary licence follows the land licence (art. 43/8 § 3).

The City of Brussels awarded the next concession to SA E.C.K., the company that runs Casino Knokke. On 31 August 2026 the Council of State, in judgment 267.514, suspended that award on three grounds:

• the reasons given for scoring the bids do not show that every element announced in the tender specifications was considered, and some elements taken into account do not appear linked to the concession;
• the assessment of certain partnerships cited in the winning bid appears inaccurate;
• the obligations of the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation were not respected in the award procedure.

On 28 October 2026, 64 days remain before the current licences expire. The Council of State’s news page shows no later ruling on the case. Article 29 still allows one casino in one of the 19 Brussels municipalities, so the ninth A licence does not disappear. What is open is who will hold it on 1 January 2027, and when a new A+ can follow.

Casinos Austria International Belgium also holds F1 and F1+ licences (betanosports.be) that run to 1 July 2029. The betting licences do not depend on the casino concession.

The 2029 renewal wave

The registers also show when places could open:

• 25 of the 30 F1 licences and 20 of the 24 F1+ licences expire in 2029. An F1 licence runs for nine years and an F1+ ends with it.
• The cap of 30 F1 licences applies until 31 July 2031. A licence that is not renewed becomes a vacancy, which the Commission must publish.
• 48 of the 175 arcade licensees (27.4%) hold B+. Of the B+ rows, 25 expire in 2028 or 2029.
• One B+ row, Panache Europe (reddice.be), carries an expiry date of 2 March 2020 and was still on the register of active licences on 23 October 2026.

Player rules that shape the product

Article 54 § 1 bars anyone under twenty-one from gambling “through information-society instruments”. The same law requires the Commission to keep a list of unlicensed gambling sites, publish updates in the Moniteur belge and pass the URLs to internet access providers for blocking (art. 43/8 § 4).

For a licensed operator next door, see the Netherlands profile and our Dutch licence article. Five of the 31 Dutch online licence holders give a Belgian address. For how Belgium’s regulator costs compare with other regimes, see gambling licence costs compared.

Method

The fee amounts were read from the Royal Decrees of 11 March 2026 and 12 December 2024 in the Moniteur belge. The caps, guarantees, terms, age limit and hosting rule come from the consolidated Law of 7 May 1999 and the Royal Decree of 22 December 2010 on Justel. The register figures come from the Gaming Commission’s A, A+, B, B+, F1 and F1+ data files, generated on 23 October 2026 and read on 28 October 2026. Derived figures (increases, year-one totals, shares, day counts) were computed in a script.