Cyprus Betting Licence 2026: Class B Fees, the 15% Rate Since December 2024, and Why Casino Is Off the Table

One sentence that creates the licence and limits it

S.16(2) of the Betting Law of 2019 issues two licences. A Class A bookmaker’s licence authorises bets conducted in licensed premises, excluding horse-racing betting, through authorised agents in shops licensed by district; a Class B bookmaker’s licence authorises “the provision of electronic betting services, excluding slot machines, online casino games and electronic horse-racing betting”. That exclusion is not a policy note; Part IX turns it into offences, and horse-racing betting sits outside both classes. S.83 prohibits slot machines, s.84 online casino games, s.85 betting exchanges, s.86 spread bets and s.87 dog-racing bets. Casino gaming in Cyprus is land-based, under the Casino Operations and Control Law and a different regulator, the Cyprus Gaming and Casino Supervision Commission, whose framework is one integrated resort and four satellite casinos.

So a Cyprus licence is a sportsbook licence, and the rest of this piece prices it as one. Draft bills to widen online gambling beyond betting have sat in parliamentary committees since 2025 with no enactment date; anyone told otherwise should ask for the bill number.

Capital, guarantee, company and the server

S.32 sets four conditions and they are all quantified. The applicant is a company limited by shares, incorporated in Cyprus or abroad with a branch registered at the Cyprus Registrar of Companies, whose main activity is managing bets and whose issued and paid-up share capital is at least EUR 500,000. The application carries a bank guarantee of EUR 550,000 from a credit institution, valid until six months after the licence expires, under which the bank is irrevocably bound to pay what the bookmaker fails to pay: to a winning player, to the Republic as betting tax, to the Authority as contribution, or as any other debt to the Republic. If the NBA finds the guarantee does not cover 10% of the bookmaker’s annual turnover, it may require it raised to that level, which for a book taking EUR 100 million a year means a EUR 10 million guarantee. And a Class B applicant files, with the application, the details of a backup server installed in Cyprus, connected in parallel to the main server and storing the data the Authority specifies.

None of this is a fee. The capital stays in the company and the guarantee stays at the bank; our cost calculator lists both as locked capital and keeps them out of the regulator total. Directors and beneficial owners file the personal declaration form; the Class B application is form NBA.EN.2024.01.B with a business plan on the NBA template.

Fees: a regulation, not a quote

The Betting (Payable Fees) Regulations of 2019, R.A.A. 84/2019, issued under s.30, fix the fee for a Class A or B bookmaker’s licence at EUR 30,000 for one year or EUR 45,000 for two years, payable by bank transfer to the NBA’s account with the application. A Class A authorised agent’s licence is EUR 2,000 or EUR 3,000; a premises licence for each shop beyond the first, which is free, is the same, or EUR 170 a month when the underlying Class A licence has less than a year left. Under s.31 a refused application gets the fee back less 25%; an application withdrawn before assessment gets it all back.

Item	Amount	Basis
Class A or B licence, one year	EUR 30,000	R.A.A. 84/2019
Class A or B licence, two years	EUR 45,000	R.A.A. 84/2019
Authorised agent’s licence	EUR 2,000 / 3,000	R.A.A. 84/2019
Premises licence, each beyond the first	EUR 2,000 / 3,000, or EUR 170 a month	R.A.A. 84/2019
Refund on refusal	Fee less 25%	s.31
Share capital, paid up	EUR 500,000	s.32(1)
Bank guarantee	EUR 550,000, up to 10% of turnover	s.32(2)

That is the whole schedule. There is no application fee separate from the licence fee, no annual fee inside the term, no per-product charge and no supervisory levy beyond the contribution below. Against the EU licences on this site, EUR 45,000 for two years is the cheapest entry: Estonia’s state fees for one product are EUR 51,140, Romania’s fixed charges EUR 1.28 million a year.

The 15%: what the Gazette says, what the FAQ says, what the press said

Part VIII taxes net revenue, which s.74(5) defines as X minus Y: the total paid to the bookmaker for bets in the accounting period, less the total paid to players, with a bonus counted in X when the player bets it and in Y when the winnings are paid, and a voided bet’s refund counted as a payout (s.74(6)-(8), as Directive 14.2025.v2 restates them). On that base the licensee pays two things by the end of the month after each accounting period (s.75): betting tax of 10%, collected by the NBA and passed to the Consolidated Fund, and a contribution to the Authority.

The 2019 text set the contribution at 3%, split 2% to the Cyprus Sports Organisation (1.5% to the federation running the football championship, for clubs and academies, and 0.5% to the other team-sport federations) and 1% to the Authority. The Betting (Amendment) Law N.162(I)/2024, published in the Official Gazette on 30 December 2024, amends s.74(3) figure by figure: “three per cent (3%)” becomes “five per cent (5%)”, the Sports Organisation’s 2% becomes 4%, the football share 1.5% becomes 3%, the other sports’ 0.5% becomes 1%. The Authority’s own 1% is untouched. The Directive’s return template shows the result a licensee actually files: betting tax and contribution due (15%), betting tax (10%), contribution (4%), contribution (1%).

Two other accounts of the same change are in circulation. Trade press on 18 December 2024 reported the vote as a rise “from 3% to 4.5%”; the Act as published says 5%. And the NBA’s English FAQ, question 6, still answers that the contribution “shall amount to three percent (3%)”; it has not been updated. Our page carried 13%, the pre-amendment total. The number to model is 15% of net revenue, and it comes with a 5% fine plus default interest for late payment. Corporate income tax on the profit that remains is 15% from 1 January 2026, up from 12.5%, under the reform approved on 22 December 2025.

On EUR 10 million of net revenue: EUR 1 million betting tax, EUR 500,000 contribution, EUR 1.5 million to the state and the Authority before corporate tax. On the same base Estonia takes EUR 550,000 and Romania EUR 3 million plus EUR 1.28 million of fixed charges.

Timeline and the register

The Law gives the NBA no deadline. Its FAQ describes the route: an initial evaluation of the file against the supporting documents, a notice of anything missing, a final evaluation after the additional documents and the background checks, submission to the Authority’s board, notification of the decision, delivery of the licence. Advisers put a complete file at roughly two to three months. Our old page said “4-12 weeks” and cited nothing; the honest statement is that the statute sets no clock and the register shows licences dated throughout the year.

The Class B register is the document to read before any counterparty conversation. In the first quarter of 2026 it lists thirteen bookmakers, every one on a two-year licence and a .com.cy domain: bet365 (Hillside New Media Cyprus, licence B001, 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2026), Stoiximan, Novibet, Winmasters, Meridianbet, Fonbet, Bet on Alfa, Megabetplus and Scorebet under one licensee, in2bet, Cybet, UBET, Copybet and Allwynbet. Six Class A bookmakers run 459 premises. And the blocking list stood at 22,415 websites offering betting without a Class B licence, which internet providers must block under the 2019 Act.

The market, from the NBA’s own table

The Authority publishes quarterly financial results from 2015 onward, derived from licensees’ statements. For January to March 2026: pay-in EUR 360.07 million, up 12% on the first quarter of 2025; payout EUR 314.19 million; GGR EUR 45.88 million, a 13% margin; betting tax EUR 4.59 million. For 2025 as a whole, pay-in reached EUR 1.33 billion, up 8% on EUR 1.22 billion in 2024, with quarterly GGR of EUR 41.5 million, EUR 37.9 million and EUR 47.4 million in the first, second and fourth quarters. Spread across thirteen online licensees and six retail ones, that is a market where a mid-sized sportsbook is a meaningful share and a casino-led brand has nothing to sell. At the January 2026 parliamentary budget hearing the Authority said it had deployed about 150 undercover inspectors posing as customers in betting shops and imposed EUR 46,000 in fines during 2025, EUR 26,000 of it for operating without a licence.

Who Cyprus fits

Cyprus fits a sportsbook that wants an EU member-state licence with a published fee schedule, a fixed 15% rate with no minimum and a regulator that posts its registers and its numbers, and that will serve the Cypriot market on it while licensing other markets one by one; there is no EU passport, and Great Britain needs a UK Gambling Commission licence of any operator taking GB customers. It does not fit an operator whose product needs slots, table games or an exchange, or one that mistakes the EUR 1.05 million of capital and guarantee for a fee. Read s.16 and s.32 of the Act, R.A.A. 84/2019 for the fees, N.162(I)/2024 for the 15%, and the quarterly table before the business plan; between them they answer every question a licence guide would otherwise answer for you.