United Kingdom · licence fees · read from SI 2026/828 on 10 October 2026
UK Gambling Licence Cost from 1 October 2026: The New UKGC Fee Bands
On 1 October 2026 the UK replaced its gambling licence fee tables. A remote casino with £500,000 of yield now pays £12,375 a year instead of £4,199, and the bands themselves moved. Most published fee guides still show the old numbers.
The UK gambling licence cost is set by statutory instrument, not by the Gambling Commission: since 1 October 2026 a remote casino operating licence costs £8,185 to £165,069 to apply for and £7,000 to £1,453,949 or more a year, depending on annual gross gambling yield, under Schedules 5 and 6 of the 2017 Fees Regulations as replaced by SI 2026/828.
Quick facts
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| In force | 1 October 2026. SI 2026/828 was made on 14 July 2026 and replaced the remote and non-remote fee tables of SI 2017/303 |
| Remote casino application fee | £8,185 (GGY under £250,000) to £165,069 (GGY £1.6bn and above) |
| Remote casino annual fee | £7,000 to £1,453,949, plus £272,324 for each complete £200m of GGY above £1.6bn |
| Remote betting (real events) | £6,535 to £90,648 to apply; £5,937 to £1,402,455 or more a year |
| First annual fee | 75% of the annual fee, due within 30 days of the licence being issued |
| Personal management licence | £463 to apply and £463 every five years (was £370) |
| Headline increase | 25% across the Commission's fee income, unevenly spread; remote casino rises in every band |
| Gambling levy (separate) | 1.1% of GGY a year for remote casino, betting and bingo licences, paid before 1 October |
What changed on 1 October 2026
The fees for a UK gambling licence are not set by the Gambling Commission. They are set by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in a statutory instrument, and on 1 October 2026 a new one took effect. The Gambling (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/828, made on 14 July 2026, replaced all six fee tables in the 2017 Fees Regulations (SI 2017/303) and raised the personal licence fees.
Two things moved at once. The amounts went up, and the gross gambling yield (GGY) ranges that decide which band you are in were redrawn. Remote casino used to have nine bands running from under £550,000 to £1bn and above; it now has nine bands running from under £250,000 to £1.6bn and above. The Commission’s application-cost page now carries the note that “fees effective from 1 October 2026 have replaced the previous fee information”.
DCMS describes the change as a 25% headline increase in the Commission’s fee income, not spread evenly. Its explanatory memorandum says remote casino operators “will be subject to a higher percentage increase than 25%”, while some other groups get smaller increases or reductions.
Remote casino fees from 1 October 2026
These are the amounts in Schedules 5 and 6 of the 2017 Regulations, as substituted by SI 2026/828. GGY means stakes plus other income from the licensed activity, less prizes and winnings (regulation 3(2)(a)(i)). The year-one column adds the application fee to the first annual fee, which regulation 13(3) sets at 75% of the annual fee.
| Band | Annual GGY | Application fee | Annual fee | First annual fee (75%) | Year one |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Under £250,000 | £8,185 | £7,000 | £5,250 | £13,435 |
| F2 | £250,000 to £875,000 | £14,483 | £12,375 | £9,281 | £23,764 |
| F3 | £875,000 to £3m | £25,628 | £19,569 | £14,677 | £40,305 |
| G1 | £3m to £10.5m | £40,475 | £27,337 | £20,503 | £60,978 |
| G2 | £10.5m to £36.75m | £55,060 | £51,975 | £38,981 | £94,041 |
| H1 | £36.75m to £130m | £74,902 | £112,556 | £84,417 | £159,319 |
| H2 | £130m to £455m | £101,895 | £394,875 | £296,156 | £398,051 |
| I1 | £455m to £1.6bn | £122,274 | £1,181,625 | £886,219 | £1,008,493 |
| J1 | £1.6bn and above | £165,069 | £1,453,949 + £272,324 per complete £200m above £1.6bn | £1,090,462 at the band floor | £1,255,531 at the band floor |
Each range starts at the lower figure and stops just below the upper one, as the Schedule words it (“or greater, up to but excluding”). Remote bingo and remote virtual-event betting carry exactly the same amounts as remote casino.
Old and new fees at the same yield
The band letters survived the change but their meaning did not, so the only fair comparison is at a fixed GGY. We placed the same operator in the 2021 schedule (SI 2017/303 as amended by SI 2021/701) and in the new one and computed the difference.
| Annual GGY | Application, 2021 schedule | Application, from 1 Oct 2026 | Annual fee, 2021 schedule | Annual fee, from 1 Oct 2026 | Change in annual fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £200,000 | £4,224 | £8,185 | £4,199 | £7,000 | +66.7% |
| £500,000 | £4,224 | £14,483 | £4,199 | £12,375 | +194.7% |
| £1m | £10,323 | £25,628 | £10,056 | £19,569 | +94.6% |
| £5m | £10,323 | £40,475 | £14,694 | £27,337 | +86.0% |
| £20m | £16,235 | £55,060 | £20,626 | £51,975 | +152.0% |
| £100m | £38,363 | £74,902 | £105,626 | £112,556 | +6.6% |
| £300m | £54,131 | £101,895 | £211,505 | £394,875 | +86.7% |
| £1bn | £91,686 | £122,274 | £793,729 | £1,181,625 | +48.9% |
Every remote casino operator in this table pays more, and the steepest rises hit operators at £500,000 and at £20m. That sits awkwardly next to the memorandum’s line that “more than 1,100 smaller operators generating less than £10 million annual GGY will receive a reduction in fees in cash terms”. Both can be true. The memorandum’s own example of a widened bottom band is land-based (betting shops, bingo, adult gaming and family entertainment centres, from under £200,000 to under £250,000), and remote casino is the group it names as rising by more than 25%. For a remote casino under £10m, none of the bands fell.
The application fee moved further than the annual fee at the bottom. Entry for a new casino with projected yield under £250,000 rose from £4,224 to £8,185, an increase of 93.8%.
Remote betting on real events: where the fee fell
Remote general betting on real events, the licence a sportsbook holds, has its own application and annual amounts on the same nine bands: £6,535 to £90,648 to apply, and £5,937 to £1,402,455 a year, plus £272,205 for each complete £200m of yield above £1.6bn. Its old schedule was cut differently (six ranges up to £110m, then four more), which produces falls as well as rises.
| Annual GGY | Annual fee, 2021 schedule | Annual fee, from 1 Oct 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| £500,000 | £5,282 | £11,531 | +118.3% |
| £5m | £15,536 | £24,300 | +56.4% |
| £10m | £51,334 | £24,300 | −52.7% |
| £20m | £72,365 | £49,612 | −31.4% |
| £50m | £72,365 | £104,219 | +44.0% |
| £100m | £116,602 | £104,219 | −10.6% |
| £300m | £435,640 | £365,625 | −16.1% |
A sportsbook at £10m of yield now pays less than half its previous annual fee, while one at £500,000 pays more than double. Its application fee rose at every size we tested, from £4,693 to £12,649 at £500,000 and from £10,323 to £38,368 at £10m.
What a first year costs
The application fee is paid when you apply and is not refunded if the application fails or is withdrawn. If the licence is granted, the first annual fee is due within 30 days of issue. After that the full annual fee is due before each anniversary of the licence; the Commission invoices six weeks ahead, does not accept instalments, and says it “must revoke” a licence whose fee is not paid.
Most operators hold more than one activity on a single combined licence. For a combined licence, regulation 19 charges the highest application fee in full plus 25% of each of the others, and regulation 22 charges the sum of every annual fee, with no discount. Take an operator applying for remote casino with projected yield of £4m and real-event betting with projected yield of £1m:
| Item | 2021 schedule | From 1 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Application: casino in full | £10,323 | £40,475 |
| Application: 25% of betting | £1,173 | £6,121 |
| Annual fee: casino + betting | £28,126 | £44,581 |
| First annual fee (75%) | £21,095 | £33,436 |
| Year one | £32,591 | £80,031 |
The same business pays about 2.5 times as much to the Commission in its first year as it would have on 30 September.
Casino, bingo and virtual betting on one licence: a text the instrument left alone
There is one corner where the new schedule did not reach. Regulations 21 and 24 set a separate formula for a combined remote licence that holds two or three of remote casino, remote bingo and virtual-event betting and nothing else: a principal amount by yield, plus a small add-on for each extra activity. SI 2026/828 raised the add-ons, to £2,100 and £4,200 on application and £6,250 and £12,500 a year. It did not touch the principal amounts or their yield ranges in regulations 21(3) and 24(4). The legislation.gov.uk list of changes the 2026 instrument makes to the 2017 Regulations names regulations 21(4) and 24(5) and stops there.
Read as written, those paragraphs still carry the 2021 figures on the 2021 ranges. A combined casino and bingo licence with £5m of yield would pay £14,694 plus £6,250, or £20,944 a year, while a casino-only licence at the same yield pays £27,337. At £20m the combined licence would pay £26,876 against £51,975.
We have not seen how the Commission’s fee calculator or its invoices treat this, and the Commission may read the regulations differently. If you hold one of these combined licences, check your next invoice against regulations 21 and 24 before you pay it or budget from it.
Personal licences and the smaller fees
| Fee | 2021 schedule | From 1 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Personal management licence, application | £370 | £463 |
| Personal management licence, maintenance (every five years) | £370 | £463 |
| Personal functional licence, application | £185 | £231 |
| Personal functional licence, maintenance (every five years) | £145 | £181 |
| Variation of an operating licence (regulation 36(2), (3) and (7)) | £40 | £50 |
| Change of corporate control | £160 | £200 |
| Remote general betting (limited) licence, application | £854 | £1,068 |
The personal licence and variation amounts are all close to the 25% headline. Society lottery fees were frozen. A remote gambling software licence, the one B2B game and platform suppliers need, is banded by annual gross sales rather than yield: £7,212 to £99,446 to apply and £7,394 to £191,880 a year.
The fee is not the main cost
Two other charges sit on the same yield. The Gambling Levy, in force since 6 April 2025 under SI 2025/213, takes 1.1% of the leviable amount each year for remote casino, remote betting, remote bingo and gambling software licences, payable before 1 October for the year to 31 March. Remote Gaming Duty, paid to HMRC rather than the Commission, has been 40% of remote casino yield since 1 April 2026; our Remote Gaming Duty guide covers it.
The table assumes all yield comes from UK customers and treats the three bases as equal. They are defined separately in law, so use it for proportion, not for a tax return.
| Annual GGY | Annual fee | Gambling levy (1.1%) | Remote Gaming Duty (40%) | Fee as share of the three |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £1m | £19,569 | £11,000 | £400,000 | 4.5% |
| £5m | £27,337 | £55,000 | £2,000,000 | 1.3% |
| £20m | £51,975 | £220,000 | £8,000,000 | 0.6% |
| £100m | £112,556 | £1,100,000 | £40,000,000 | 0.3% |
At £100m of yield the levy is almost ten times the licence fee. The levy also carries the same sanction: section 123(4) of the Gambling Act 2005 treats unpaid levy as an unpaid annual fee, so the Commission must revoke the licence unless it accepts the failure was an administrative error.
What we corrected on this site
Until today, our UK profile and three of our articles gave the application fee as “GBP 9,664 to 153,000+” and the annual fee as “GBP 5,500 to 1,000,000+”. Neither range matches the 2021 schedule or the new one, and we could not trace where they came from. Those pages now carry the figures above. For the application process itself, see our UKGC licence application guide; for the regime as a whole, the United Kingdom profile; and for UK fees next to eleven other jurisdictions, what a gambling licence costs in 2026.
Regulator, fees, tax and status in one place: United Kingdom gambling licence.
Pitfalls and nuances
1 Budgeting from the 2021 table
Figures such as £4,224 to apply and £4,199 a year belong to the schedule that ended on 30 September 2026. A remote casino with £500,000 of yield now pays £14,483 to apply and £12,375 a year.
2 Assuming your band kept its letter
The GGY ranges moved as well as the prices. Band F1 used to mean under £550,000 of yield; it now means under £250,000. Check the range, not the letter on last year's invoice.
3 Forgetting the first annual fee in the launch budget
The application fee is not the whole entry cost. A further 75% of the annual fee is due within 30 days of issue, which for a £5m casino adds £20,503 to the £40,475 application fee.
4 Moving band after the anniversary
A variation that moves you to a lower band must be granted before the licence anniversary to change that year's fee. Filing it is not enough, and fees cannot be paid in instalments.
5 Treating the levy as optional
The Gambling Levy is due before 1 October for the year to 31 March. Section 123(4) of the Gambling Act 2005 treats it as an annual fee, so non-payment leads to revocation.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a UK gambling licence cost in 2026?
For a remote casino, £8,185 to £165,069 to apply and £7,000 to £1,453,949 or more a year, banded by annual gross gambling yield. These fees apply from 1 October 2026.
When did the new UKGC fees start?
On 1 October 2026, under SI 2026/828, made on 14 July 2026. Annual fees falling due from that date are charged on the new bands.
Did fees go down for small operators?
Not for remote casinos. Every remote casino band we tested rose, by 66.7% at £200,000 of yield and 194.7% at £500,000. Some remote betting bands fell.
When is the first annual fee due?
Within 30 days of the licence being issued. It is 75% of the full annual fee; after that the full fee is due before each anniversary of the licence.
How much is a personal management licence?
£463 to apply and a £463 maintenance fee every five years, up from £370. A personal functional licence costs £231 to apply and £181 to maintain.
Is the gambling levy part of the licence fee?
No. It is a separate charge of 1.1% of yield for remote casino, betting and bingo licences, but unpaid levy is treated as an unpaid annual fee and can cost the licence.
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Sources cited
- The Gambling (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/828 — regulation
- The Gambling (Operating Licence and Single-Machine Permit Fees) Regulations 2017, SI 2017/303 (revised) — regulation
- Explanatory Memorandum to SI 2026/828, Department for Culture, Media and Sport — official document
- The Gambling Levy Regulations 2025, SI 2025/213 — regulation
- DCMS — Government response to the proposals for changes to Gambling Commission fees from 1 October 2026 (30 June 2026) — official document
- Gambling Commission — Fees you need to pay and when you should pay them — regulator
- Gambling Commission — Annual fees — regulator