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

The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 replaces Ireland’s old, fragmented framework and hands a single statutory regulator, the GRAI, control of betting, gaming and lotteries: in person and online. It is being switched on in phases, and the old law is being switched OFF in step with it: the Betting Act 1931 and the Totalisator Act 1929 were repealed by S.I. No. 31 of 2026, but the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 regime is still operative for gaming and lotteries. GRAI’s own position is that new applicants should continue to engage with the Revenue Commissioners on gaming licences (and the District Courts on lottery licences and An Garda Síochána on gaming and lottery permits) until those licence families open: the GRAI compliance FAQ gives 2027 for gaming and 2028 for lotteries.

• Three licence families: Business-to-Consumer (B2C, betting, gaming or lottery to the public), Business-to-Business (B2B, gambling products/services to other operators), and charitable/philanthropic licences. Each B2C licence is in-person, remote, or both.
• Phased go-live: the Minister signed the commencement order (press release of 3 February 2026), and the GRAI formally opened for BOTH in-person and remote betting applications with effect from Monday 9 February 2026. Licences have been issued since 1 July 2026, and the public register listed 40 licence holders and 42 licences when last updated on 20 October 2026. In-person betting applications opened alongside remote ones; the Department of Justice said in-person operators would be licensed from 1 December 2026, when their Revenue licences expire.
• Everything else follows: the GRAI compliance FAQ gives 2027 for remote gaming and 2028 for lottery, B2B and charitable licences.
• Business-to-Consumer licences run for 3 years (S.I. No. 38 of 2026); the B2B term is still to be prescribed, and renewal fees will be set by a later regulation.

Laws that apply

• Gambling Regulation Act 2024 (No. 35 of 2024)
• GRAI Guidance on Relevant Obligations (B2C) & Advertising Obligations
• Betting Act 1931 (repealed from 5 February 2026) / Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 (still governs gaming and lotteries)
• Finance Act (betting duty, collected by the Revenue Commissioners)
• Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010

There is no minimum-capital rule and no requirement to be an Irish company (only a charitable licence applicant must be domiciled or established in Ireland, s.118(2)(a), not yet in force), but the GRAI vets the applicant, its owners and its funding before a licence issues.

• Any corporate applicant may apply; the GRAI assesses ownership disclosure, the fitness and probity of relevant officers and beneficial owners, and the source of funds behind the business.
• Relevant officers and beneficial owners are named and individually assessed: map your ownership chain to ultimate beneficial owners before applying.
• The GRAI must be satisfied that winnings will be funded from lawful activities (s.114(1)(a)(ii)) and refuses where it is not (s.114(3)).

Application fees are a one-off, non-refundable charge set on a tiered basis by the applicant’s turnover: where "turnover" means Gross Win (total wins minus losses, i.e. Gross Gambling Revenue), on the Irish-facing business, in the preceding year (or estimated first-year for a new entrant). The schedule below is now statutory: the Gambling (Licence Application Fees) Regulations 2026 (S.I. No. 37 of 2026) were made by the GRAI under sections 9 and 38 of the Act with the consent of the Minister for Justice. The fee bands sit in Schedule 1, and the per-premises charge and the remote-fee waiver are in regulation 3. Three later instruments under the same sections add €1,200 for each premises added to a land-based licence (S.I. No. 480 of 2026); for any betting licence, remote included, 25% of the original application fee to add pool betting or €1,250 to change its events (S.I. No. 481 of 2026); and Appeals Panel fees of €1,000, or €1,500 against a notice of non-compliance, refunded if the appeal succeeds (S.I. No. 482 of 2026).

Applications are made through the GRAI Operator Portal and run on a rolling basis. The GRAI’s guidance describes a multi-stage assessment (legal/corporate, relevant-officer/beneficial-owner, and, for land-based, premises) supported by a full policy suite.

• Notice of Intention (Section 95): a statutory pre-step. You must publish notice of your intention to apply at least 28 days before submitting the application, then send GRAI a copy at [email protected] with the newspaper name and publication date. For a REMOTE licence the notice goes in a national newspaper only, in both the physical and online editions. You can complete business registration during the 28-day window, but the application itself cannot be filed until it has run. If any detail in the notice does not mirror the application, the application may be refused and a fresh notice (and a fresh 28 days) is needed.
• Corporate & ownership: business registration, group/ownership structure to ultimate beneficial owners, and relevant-officer details.
• Funding & probity: evidence of source of funds and the fitness/probity of officers and beneficial owners.
• Tax clearance certificate (Section 96(1)(w)): a certificate under s.1094 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 must be IN FORCE for the proposed licensee and, where applicable, each relevant officer and each beneficial owner. Applicants who are not Irish-domiciled and not paying Irish tax apply on Revenue form TC1. GRAI checks validity against the TRN, so start this early: it gates the whole file.
• Mandatory policies, fit for purpose before you file, the GRAI Policy Guidance for Licence Applicants lists EIGHT: (1) AML/CFT, (2) Know Your Customer, (3) Responsible Gambling, (4) Customer-Facing Policies including terms and conditions, (5) Whistleblowing, (6) IT Security, (7) Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan, and (8) a Remote Gambling Operational Map, a diagram showing the location and provider of every system and activity used to deliver the gambling service. The Whistleblowing Policy is only required where the licensee has 50 or more staff, and a policy from the licensee’s own jurisdiction is accepted where it is resident outside Ireland.
• Fee: pay the tiered application fee in full at submission via the portal (invoice generated in the "Fees and Charges" tab). Assessment does not begin until it is paid.

• Applications are assessed on a rolling basis via the Operator Portal; the clock runs on a complete file with the fee paid, so incomplete policies, unclear ownership or unpaid fees are the usual causes of delay.

The Act builds consumer protection into the licence conditions, but Ireland is mid-rollout and the obligations commenced in tranches. The commencement instrument is S.I. No. 31 of 2026, which appointed 5 February 2026 for the provisions listed below as IN FORCE. Anything not commenced binds you only from a date GRAI will notify in advance, so build for it but do not assume it applies today.

• Safer-gambling and AML/KYC controls run through your mandatory policies, with separate obligations under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010.
• Some commenced obligations still need regulations before they bite: GRAI gives the s.170 requirement to lodge money in a gambling account as its own example. Those take effect once the regulations are made.
• ATMs: s.178 is an IN-PERSON obligation and is not a flat ban. GRAI’s wording is that licensees "shall not permit automated teller machines (ATMs) on their premises unless their licence specifies that they can do so". It has no application to a remote-only operator.

GRAI licensing is separate from tax. Betting duty is collected by the Revenue Commissioners on a place-of-consumption basis (a remote operator anywhere pays Irish duty on bets from customers in the State). Ireland taxes betting on TURNOVER, not gross profit: low by headline rate but broad by base.

This is the most commonly misreported part of the Irish regime. The Act contains a full advertising code in Part 6 Chapter 1 (sections 143 to 151), and the GRAI has published Guidance on Advertising Obligations describing it: but almost NONE of it is in force yet. S.I. No. 31 of 2026 commenced, out of that whole chapter, only section 142(1) (the ban on engaging a child as an employee, servant or agent in providing a gambling activity). The GRAI states it directly: "the legislative restrictions set out below shall apply from a date to be confirmed. Licensees will be notified in advance of these restrictions taking effect."

• When s.149 does commence it will bar gambling advertising on television and radio between 05:30 and 21:00.
• When s.146 commences, the social-media rule is narrower than it is usually reported: the recipient must hold an account with the PLATFORM (or with the influencer’s service) and must have subscribed to the LICENSEE’S account on that platform. It is not a rule about holding a betting account with the operator.
• GRAI may add further advertising restrictions by regulation under s.144, and has said there will be a public consultation before any such regulations are made.
• Nothing here displaces the general law: the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) codes, consumer-protection law and the platforms’ own gambling-ad gates all continue to apply while the statutory code waits to commence.

• Prediction markets are in scope, and this is the GRAI’s own published position rather than commentary. On its Business to Consumer licensing page the Authority states that it "is of the view that prediction markets that provide betting activities fall within the definition of remote betting intermediary under Irish law", so those operators "are required to obtain the appropriate licence under the Act before making those services available in the State". It goes further on enforcement: operators that need a betting licence and do not hold one "should take appropriate steps to prevent access to their platforms by consumers in Ireland", and failure to do so "may result in enforcement action". If you run an event-contract or prediction venue, the Irish question is a licensing question, not a definitional debate.
• The GRAI can impose administrative financial sanctions of up to €20 million or 10% of annual turnover, whichever is greater.
• It can apply to court to stop prohibited gambling and to direct internet service providers to block access to non-compliant platforms.
• Providing betting without a GRAI licence is already an offence (s.67(1), (4)); the offence for providing a game without a gaming licence (s.67(2)) is not yet in force.

The realistic route to market for an online operator today: a B2C remote betting licence (with the intermediary licence, the only online licences currently obtainable). Steps 1–4 are prerequisites; 5–7 the application; 8–9 go-live and ongoing compliance.

1. 01

   Confirm the licence actually exists for your product

   remote betting = yes · online casino = not yet

   A sportsbook can be licensed now; online casino/slots (gaming) cannot until gaming licences open (2027, by the GRAI FAQ). If you need gaming, plan around the wait rather than assuming a licence is available.

2. 02

   Set up the operating entity & map ownership

   UBOs · relevant officers

   Finalise the corporate structure and map the ownership chain to ultimate beneficial owners; each will be individually assessed for fitness and probity.

3. 03

   Evidence source of funds

   legitimate, documented funding

   Assemble documentary proof that funding is from legitimate, evidenced sources: unclear funding is a ground for refusal (s.114(3)).

4. 04

   Build the mandatory policy suite

   AML/CTF · KYC · RG · risk · whistleblower · BCP

   Draft and make fit-for-purpose your AML/CTF, KYC, Responsible Gambling, Risk Management, Whistleblower and Business Continuity policies before you file: the assessment tests them.

5. 05

   Register on the GRAI Operator Portal

   business registration

   Create your business registration on the GRAI Operator Portal, the single channel for the online application and for generating your fee invoice.

6. 06

   Publish your Notice of Intention

   §95 · national newspaper · 28 days before applying

   Run the §95 notice first (see Documents above for where it must appear and what it must say), then email the copy to GRAI. Two scheduling points: you can register on the portal while the 28 days run, but you cannot submit until they have; and any mismatch between notice and application restarts the clock. Start it early and proof-read it hard.

7. 07

   File the remote betting application + pay the tiered fee

   €20k–€400k by turnover · non-refundable

   Submit the application with the corporate, ownership, funding and policy disclosures, and pay the tiered application fee (by projected/actual Irish Gross Win) in full at submission: assessment does not start until the fee is paid.

8. 08

   Clear GRAI vetting

   legal/corporate · officers & UBOs · source of funds

   Respond quickly to information requests. Applications run on a rolling basis; a complete, well-evidenced file moves fastest.

9. 09

   Register for betting duty with Revenue & go live

   Revenue betting duty · s.164 limits · s.165 credit ban

   Register for Remote Betting Duty (2% of turnover) with the Revenue Commissioners, enforce the s.165 no-credit rule, provide the s.164 monetary-limit facility, run the s.135 segregated customer account, and launch to Irish customers under your 3-year licence. Build the exclusion-register integration now but do not plan around it going live: the register sits in Part 2 Chapter 3, which S.I. 31/2026 did not commence, and GRAI will notify licensees before it becomes operational.

10. 10

    Run ongoing compliance

    commenced duties · SIF levy · AML · reporting

    Maintain AML/KYC and safer-gambling controls, keep records and accounts under s.152 and notify GRAI of changes under s.153, report suspicious gambling patterns under s.156, and budget for the Social Impact Fund levy and GRAI operational charges once those rates are set. Track the commencement of the advertising code (ss.143–151), the inducement rule (s.157), sponsorship (s.159) and the staff-training duty (ss.162–163): all drafted, none in force yet, and GRAI has undertaken to give advance notice.

Tier-ordered: official government first, then practitioner, then trade media. Every primary figure was read from the in-force text on 14 Oct 2026.