How to get a gambling licence in Denmark: fees and steps

A single national authority licenses and supervises all commercial gambling. It reports to the Skatte- og Vækstministeriet (formerly Skatteministeriet), which also owns the tax side through the Danish Tax Agency.

• The regulator is Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority, at spillemyndigheden.dk. It issues licences, runs the certification programme, operates ROFUS (the register of self-excluded persons) and the SAFE data warehouse, and supervises operators for compliance and anti money laundering.
• Spillemyndigheden is an agency of the Skatte- og Vækstministeriet (formerly Skatteministeriet). The gaming duty is collected by the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen), a separate arm of the same ministry, so an operator deals with the authority for the licence and with the tax agency for the duty.
• The framework covers betting, online casino, land-based casinos, gaming machines, lotteries and charity lotteries as separate categories, each with its own executive order. This guide focuses on the two commercial online licences: online betting and online casino.
• The legal age to gamble is 18.

Laws that apply

• Gambling Act (spilleloven), current consolidated text LBK nr 1182 af 22/09/2025. The original Act on Gambling was adopted in 2010 and the licensed market opened on 1 January 2012.
• Executive Order no. 682 on online casino and Executive Order no. 684 on online betting (the operative bekendtgørelser for the two online licences).
• Gambling Duties Act (spilleafgiftsloven, LBK nr 1209 af 13/08/2020), which sets the gaming duty: 28 percent of GGR for online casino (section 11) and for betting (section 6) since 1 January 2021 under lov 2226/2020, because the 2020 consolidation still prints 20 percent. Administered by the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen).
• Gambling Act (spilleloven) sections 42(1) to 42(6) and 42a, which set the fees themselves at 2010 levels; the published amounts are those levels indexed each year under section 20 of the Personal Tax Act (personskatteloven).
• Anti-Money Laundering Act (hvidvaskloven), current consolidated text LBK nr 433 af 17/04/2026, under which licensed operators are obliged entities.
• Lov 467/2024 of 8 May 2024, amending the Gambling Act: match-fixing powers, wider sanctions and the section 24 a supplier licence, in force from 1 January 2025.
• For contrast: Executive Order no. 1290 on land-based casinos and Executive Order no. 1289 on gaming machines in arcades and restaurants.

The current market dates from 1 January 2012, when the old monopoly on betting and online casino gave way to open licensing. The statute has been consolidated and amended since, most recently to add B2B supplier licensing.

There are two main online licences, which can be combined, plus a short revenue-restricted licence and the separate B2B supplier licence. Online licences run for up to five years.

Two charges are payable to Spillemyndigheden: a one-off application fee due when you file, and an annual fee tiered by gross gaming revenue. Both are indexed each year, so the figures below are the 2026 amounts.

A foreign company can hold a Danish licence. If it is not established in the EU or EEA, it must appoint an approved representative in Denmark. The people behind the applicant must pass an integrity check.

• The applicant is a company. It does not have to be Danish, but an applicant that is not resident or established in an EU or EEA country must appoint an approved representative in Denmark. That representative is documented in Annex C (form 2-04).
• Every applicant files the main application (form 2-01) with Annex A (form 2-02) and Annex B (form 2-03), and Annex C where a representative is required. A budget template supports the financial assessment.
• Fit-and-proper is run through Annex A personal declarations. These must be completed by the individual behind a sole proprietorship, the stakeholders of a participating joint venture, all executive-board and board members, any appointed Danish representative, and the beneficial owners in the group behind the applicant.
• Spillemyndigheden assesses criminal records and a declaration of debt for each Annex A person, and whether there is a significant probability that the applicant would misuse access to gambling activity. The applicant must have no debt to public authorities.

The gambling system must be certified, wired to the national digital ID, checked against the self-exclusion register on every login, and stream data continuously to the authority.

• Certification: the operator must be certified under the Spillemyndigheden Certification Programme (SCP). The documents cover general requirements (SCP.00), the random number generator (SCP.01), the base platform (SCP.02), an information security management system (SCP.03), penetration testing (SCP.04), vulnerability scanning (SCP.05), change management (SCP.06) and requirements for the games themselves (SCP.07). Testing is carried out by an accredited testing house and reported through the DGA games register.
• SAFE and TamperToken: the operator must give Spillemyndigheden access to a data warehouse called SAFE, to which it continuously transfers and stores gambling data using the security system TamperToken. This is the reporting spine of the regime.
• MitID: the gambling system must support an eID from a Danish identification scheme or an eID approved by the DGA. In practice this is MitID, the Danish national digital ID, accessed through a broker, and the assurance level must be substantial or higher.
• ROFUS: on every login the operator must check whether the player is registered in ROFUS (the register of self-excluded persons) and deny access if so. Standard XSD interfaces for ROFUS and for TamperToken are published with the technical requirements.

A supplier-side licence now sits behind the operator licence. A B2C operator may only run games that come from a licensed supplier, or its own certified games.

• The B2B licence introduced on 1 January 2025 reaches further than most operators expect. It covers two distinct populations: suppliers of online casino games, and suppliers that process or settle bets. A data or settlement partner can therefore need its own Danish licence even though it never publishes a game.
• An operator that only offers its own games does not need a separate B2B licence, but it must submit game certificates to the DGA games register. In practice most operators source games from third-party studios, so those studios must hold the B2B licence.
• The B2B licence runs for up to five years. The applicant must have its games, platform, business procedures and systems tested by an accredited certification body, mirroring the operator-side certification.
• Fees (2026): a B2B application costs DKK 67,600 and the annual fee is DKK 45,100.

The duty is set by the Gambling Duties Act and collected by the Danish Tax Agency, separately from the licence fees. Online casino and betting are both taxed at a flat 28 percent of gross gaming revenue, due monthly.

Licensed betting and online casino operators are obliged entities under the Danish AML Act and are supervised by Spillemyndigheden for compliance.

• Betting and online casino are covered by the Anti-Money Laundering Act (hvidvaskloven), consolidated as LBK nr 433 af 17/04/2026, which implements the EU money-laundering directives.
• Core duties: a documented risk assessment, customer due diligence and identification (reinforced by MitID at onboarding and login), beneficial-owner checks, ongoing monitoring, record-keeping and a compliance function.
• Suspicious transactions must be reported to the Danish Money Laundering Secretariat (the financial intelligence unit). Spillemyndigheden supervises gambling operators for AML compliance and can act on breaches.
• The 2024 amendment (lov 467/2024) widened Spillemyndigheden's sanctions. In 2026 it has issued orders (påbud) and reprimands (påtaler) for AML Act breaches, for example to 25syv A/S on 20 April.

Marketing must be responsible and adult-directed, responsible-gambling tooling is mandatory, and the 2026 live-sport advertising bill has lapsed.

• Marketing must present gambling as entertainment, state odds accurately, disclose bonus conditions clearly, and must not target under-18s or suggest that gambling solves financial problems. Under the online casino and betting orders a promotion may not exceed DKK 1,000, and the player has at least 60 days to meet its terms.
• Responsible-gambling tooling is built in: 18-plus only, mandatory checks against ROFUS on every login, and player-account controls. ROFUS is the national self-exclusion register at rofus.nu, and it is growing fast: 55,899 registrations at the end of 2024, 68,026 at the end of 2025, and 73,192 as at 1 June 2026 on Spillemyndigheden own figures. Roughly two thirds of registrations are permanent rather than temporary.
• StopSpillet is the national gambling helpline (stopspillet.dk), and operators must surface responsible-gambling and self-exclusion information to players.
• The much-reported 2026 advertising reform is not law. A political agreement of 24 October 2025 (Spilpakke 1) would have brought a whistle-to-whistle ban on gambling advertising during live sport, from 10 minutes before to 10 minutes after, plus restrictions on advertising in and around public transport and near schools, limits on using under-25s in ads, and social-media age filters. The implementing bill, L 127, was introduced on 25 February 2026, and the Prime Minister called a general election the next day. The Folketing was dissolved, the election was held on 24 March 2026, and L 127 is on the published list of bills that lapsed as a result. No successor bill had been introduced in the new session by 22 September 2026.

Spillemyndigheden blocks unlicensed sites, supervises licensees, and publishes an official operator list and market statistics. The licensed market is large and growing.

• Unlicensed operators are blocked: Spillemyndigheden pursues court-ordered DNS blocking of illegal gambling sites, and since 2024 brings cases twice a year. In 2025 it blocked 334 domains by court order and saw a further 36 sites remove or change their offering after it made contact. The cumulative total is 870 illegal gambling sites blocked since 2012, and a further 98 were ordered blocked on 8 July 2026. Be careful with the widely quoted figure of 178: that was a single Frederiksberg Court ruling of 26 June 2025, the largest one-case blocking since 2012, not a cumulative count. Spillemyndigheden also issues orders (påbud) and reprimands (påtaler) directly, and refers criminal matters to the police.
• The official source of truth for who is licensed is the list of licensed gambling operators (and the list of licensed game suppliers) published on spillemyndigheden.dk, which listed 90 holders when read on 5 October 2026: 44 companies hold online casino and/or betting licences, and the supplier list has 65. For calendar 2025 Spillemyndigheden reported 27 betting licences (25 plus 2 revenue-restricted) and 41 online casino licences (38 plus 3), against 1,970 licences across all categories. Verify a live count on the register rather than from a press snapshot.
• Market size, from Spillemyndigheden own report The Gambling Market in Numbers 2025 (published 29 June 2026): total Danish gross gaming revenue was DKK 11.5bn in 2025, down about 1% on 2024. By segment: online casino DKK 4,309m (38%), the monopoly lotteries DKK 3,492m (30%), betting DKK 2,130m (19%), gaming machines DKK 1,181m (10%), land-based casinos DKK 378m (3%) and land-based bingo DKK 30m, a new category following liberalisation on 1 January 2025. That works out at DKK 2,356 per adult. Two caveats on comparing years: the totals are stated at 2026 price levels, and 2025 excludes charity lotteries because Spillemyndigheden could not calculate them under the new rules, so it is not directly comparable with older headline totals.

A realistic route from decision to a live, duty-registered Danish online operation. The certification and SAFE build is the long pole, so start it early.

1. 01

   Scope the model and budget the cost stack

   Planning

   Decide whether you want betting, online casino, or a combined licence, and budget the stack: the application fee (DKK 343,300 single or DKK 480,600 combined in 2026), the GGR-tiered annual fee, the 28 percent gaming duty, certification and testing, and MitID and SAFE integration.

2. 02

   Set up the entity and, if needed, a Danish representative

   Structuring

   Use a company as the applicant. An applicant established outside the EU or EEA must appoint an approved representative in Denmark, documented in Annex C (form 2-04). An EU or EEA company can apply directly.

3. 03

   Assemble the fit-and-proper dossier (Annex A)

   Compliance

   Collect Annex A (form 2-02) personal declarations for executive-board and board members, any Danish representative, joint-venture stakeholders and group beneficial owners, plus criminal records and debt declarations. Confirm there is no debt to public authorities. Prepare Annex B (form 2-03) and the budget template.

4. 04

   Line up games: B2B-licensed suppliers or your own certified games

   Commercial

   Since 1 January 2025 you may only offer games from a licensed B2B supplier, or your own games with certificates filed in the DGA games register. Check your studios against the licensed-supplier list before finalising the catalogue.

5. 05

   Build the technical setup: MitID, ROFUS and SAFE

   Technical

   Integrate MitID (via a broker, assurance level substantial or higher) for player authentication, wire in ROFUS checks on every login, and stand up the SAFE data-warehouse feed using TamperToken to stream gambling data to Spillemyndigheden.

6. 06

   Certify under the SCP with an accredited testing house

   Technical

   Have the RNG, base platform, information security management system, penetration testing, vulnerability scanning and the games tested against the Spillemyndigheden Certification Programme (SCP.00 to SCP.07) and reported through the games register.

7. 07

   File the application and pay the fee

   Regulatory

   Submit form 2-01 with Annex A (2-02), Annex B (2-03) and Annex C (2-04) where required. Pay the application fee at the latest when you file (DKK 343,300 single or DKK 480,600 combined, 2026). A combined application pays the combined fee.

8. 08

   Assessment and grant of the licence

   Regulatory

   Spillemyndigheden assesses the company, its finances, the Annex A persons and the technical and certification package, and grants a licence for up to five years.

9. 09

   Register for gambling duty with the Danish Tax Agency

   Tax

   Register for gambling duty (form 29.063 on the Danish Tax Agency website). Online casino and betting are both taxed at 28 percent of GGR, reported and paid monthly to Skattestyrelsen.

10. 10

    Stand up the AML programme

    Compliance

    Implement the AML Act (hvidvaskloven) obligations: risk assessment, customer due diligence, beneficial-owner checks, monitoring, record-keeping, a compliance function, and suspicious-transaction reporting to the Money Laundering Secretariat.

11. 11

    Launch with responsible-gambling and compliant marketing

    Compliance / marketing

    Enforce 18-plus, surface ROFUS and StopSpillet, run mandatory player controls, and keep marketing adult-directed and accurate under section 36 and the promotion rules of the online orders, which among other things give players at least 60 days to meet bonus wagering conditions. The whistle-to-whistle package (Spilpakke 1) is not law: its implementing bill L 127 lapsed at the March 2026 election, so plan to today rules and keep the capability to switch a live-sport ad ban on if a successor bill passes.

12. 12

    Operate: pay the duty and annual fee and keep certification current

    Ongoing

    Pay the 28 percent duty monthly, pay the GGR-tiered annual fee, keep SCP certification and the SAFE feed live, renew the licence before its five-year term ends, and expect supervision plus DGA blocking of unlicensed competitors.

Tier-ordered: official government first, then practitioner, then trade media. Every primary figure was read from the in-force text on 30 Jul 2026.