How to get a gambling licence in Spain: tender rules and costs

The DGOJ is the national regulator for state-level (interregional) gambling. It licenses operators, homologates gaming systems on the certification of designated entities, runs the national registers and enforces against unlicensed supply. Purely intra-regional gambling (some land-based activity confined to a single autonomous community) is regulated by that community, but all online gambling offered across Spain is state-level and falls to the DGOJ.

• Ley 13/2011 came into force in 2011; online gross gaming revenue reached EUR 1,698.7 million in 2025 and EUR 539.2 million in the second quarter of 2026, 31% more than a year earlier (DGOJ open data).
• The DGOJ sits under the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda (Ministerio de Derechos Sociales, Consumo y Agenda 2030). It was previously under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and, originally, the Ministry of Finance (Hacienda).
• The minimum age to gamble is 18; the state lottery and pools monopolies (SELAE, ONCE) sit outside the licensed-operator regime.
• Detail is set by royal decree: RD 1614/2011 (licences and registers), RD 1613/2011 (technical requirements), RD 958/2020 (advertising), RD 176/2023 (safer gambling) and RD 520/2026 (joint deposit limits).

Laws that apply

• Ley 13/2011, de 27 de mayo, de regulación del juego, the Gambling Act and umbrella statute
• Real Decreto 1614/2011, licences, authorisations and registers (licence categories, terms, guarantees)
• Real Decreto 1613/2011, technical requirements of gambling activities (gaming system, certification)
• Real Decreto 958/2020, commercial communications (advertising), partially annulled by the Tribunal Supremo in April 2024
• Real Decreto 176/2023, safer gambling environments (RGIAJ, responsible-gambling plan, deposit limits)
• Real Decreto 520/2026, centralised per-player joint deposit-limit system (in force 25 March 2027)
• Ley 10/2010, de prevencion del blanqueo de capitales, the anti-money-laundering statute

Online gambling requires two layers of authorisation. A general licence (licencia general) authorises a category of activity; a singular licence (licencia singular) authorises each specific game type operated within that category. An operator cannot run a game without both the parent general licence and the matching singular licence.

• General licences run for 10 years and are extended for an identical period, unless the number of licences was capped and a third party asks for a new call at least 24 months before expiry (Ley 13/2011 art. 10.6).
• Singular licences run for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 5 years and are renewable for successive identical periods.
• A general licence alone does not permit play; the operator must hold a singular licence for each game type it exploits.
• Lotteries are excluded from the licensed-operator model and reserved for the designated state operators.

General licences are not granted on demand. They are awarded through a public tender (convocatoria) run by the DGOJ under the principles of publicity, competition, equality, transparency, objectivity and non-discrimination. The tender bases (pliego) are published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), and a new entrant must apply within the tender window.

• The last call, Orden HFP/1227/2017 (BOE 16 December 2017), gave one year to apply; the BOE records no call since, so a new entrant today must request one or acquire an existing licensee (a transfer needs authorisation).
• An interested party may formally request a fresh tender for a given game modality once at least 18 months have elapsed since the previous call for that modality, which is the mechanism by which a new operator forces market entry between scheduled tenders.
• Singular licences, by contrast, are granted on application at any time to a holder of the relevant general licence, without a tender.
• The tender file must demonstrate the applicant's legal, economic-financial and technical solvency; incomplete or deficient files are rejected or given a cure period.

The applicant must be a company whose sole corporate object is the organisation, marketing and operation of gambling, and must satisfy legal, economic-financial and technical solvency tests. Establishment inside the European Economic Area is required, with a local point of contact for the Spanish authorities.

• The operator must be a Sociedad Anónima (public limited company) or an equivalent form established in Spain or another EEA member state, with gambling as its exclusive corporate purpose (Ley 13/2011 art. 13; RD 1614/2011 art. 13.1 as rewritten by RD 520/2026), and fully paid capital of at least EUR 60,000, the minimum that the bases of the last call required (Orden HFP/1227/2017 base 5.2(c)).
• An operator not resident in Spain must appoint a permanent representative in Spain empowered to receive notifications and represent it before the DGOJ.
• Economic-financial solvency is assessed from accounts and financing; technical solvency from the platform, suppliers and operating plans; legal solvency from corporate, ownership and fit-and-proper documentation.
• Applicants must submit responsible-gambling, AML and fraud-prevention policies and their supplier and platform contracts as part of the file.

Before a licence can be used, the operator's gaming system must be built to the DGOJ technical requirements (developed by RD 1613/2011 and DGOJ technical resolutions) and certified by an entity designated by the DGOJ. The system logs every operation and is subject to continuous DGOJ oversight.

• Licensed online operators must offer play under a ".es" domain.
• The gaming system, including random-number generation and game fairness, must be certified by one of the entities the DGOJ designates (26 entries, 25 entities, for game software; 29 for information security) and homologated; the homologation is valid ten years and the system is audited every two years (RD 1613/2011 arts. 10, 12).
• The operator must run internal control and record-keeping systems that register all gaming operations, players and transactions, and give the DGOJ monitoring access to that data.
• The central gaming unit and its replica may be hosted anywhere but must be monitorable from Spain (RD 1613/2011 art. 14); the data store (almacén) that the DGOJ reads must be in the EU since 22 March 2025 (DGOJ technical specifications of 6 October 2014, 5.1.14 as amended in 2024; the definition in 1.2(8) still says Spain), and its data, records and logs are kept at least four years, identity documents for the life of the account plus four years (5.1.13, 6.1, 2.1.2).
• Player identity and age must be verified against official data before an account can operate, and the player must be checked against the RGIAJ self-exclusion register.

Licensed operators pay the Impuesto sobre actividades de juego (IAJ) under Ley 13/2011. For state-level online gambling the headline rate is 20% of gross gaming revenue, with a reduced rate for operators based in Ceuta and Melilla. The tax is self-assessed and paid quarterly.

• The standard state-level online rate is 20% of GGR (the net gaming margin: amounts wagered plus income directly derived from operating the game, less prizes paid to players).
• Every online licence product, fixed-odds, mutual or exchange betting, casino, poker, bingo and contests, is taxed at 20%; only the State sports pools of SELAE pay 22% (Ley 13/2011 art. 48.7, as amended by Ley 6/2018 from 1 July 2018; the rate was 25% before). Autonomous Communities may raise the rates for operators resident in their territory by up to 20% of the State rates, so a 20% rate can rise to at most 24%.
• Operators with tax residence and physical location in Ceuta or Melilla pay a reduced rate (10%).
• The IAJ is self-assessed and remitted quarterly (within one month of each quarter-end) to the Tax Agency (Agencia Tributaria).

Separate from the IAJ, operators pay the administrative fee for gambling management (tasa por la gestión administrativa del juego, Ley 13/2011 art. 49). It bundles fixed fees for licence applications, registrations and technical assessments with a small recurring annual charge on gaming revenue.

• The recurring fee (tasa) is 0.75 per thousand of gross operating revenue, defined as total stakes (not GGR), per year, on top of the 20% IAJ; 25% of it is earmarked for anti-fraud, safer-gambling and research measures.
• Fixed fees apply per licence, so an operator running several singular licences pays the application and registration fees multiple times.
• The tasa is managed and collected by the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria on the DGOJ's behalf.

Player protection is built around the national self-exclusion register (RGIAJ) and the safer-gambling framework of RD 176/2023, and is being extended by RD 520/2026, which adds a centralised per-player deposit-limit system spanning all operators from March 2027.

• The RGIAJ (Registro General de Interdicciones de Acceso al Juego) is the national register of self-excluded and judicially prohibited persons; operators must check every player against it and block access by a registered person (Ley 13/2011 art. 22). Registration at the player's request is indefinite and can be cancelled only after six months (RD 1614/2011 art. 60).
• Every operator caps deposits at EUR 600 a day, EUR 1,500 a week and EUR 3,000 a month unless the player passes the regulator's test and shows no risk behaviour for three months (RD 1614/2011 art. 36). RD 176/2023 adds a safer-gambling officer and plan, risk-behaviour detection, a time and loss limit set before every session of a game under the Otros juegos licence (tournament poker excepted), a message every 60 minutes, and no promotions for at-risk players. The common detection mechanism the DGOJ is to set for every operator is still a draft, in a second public consultation from 14 to 22 October 2026.
• RD 520/2026 introduces a centralised joint deposit-limit system managed by the DGOJ across the accounts a person holds with all operators: a default limit of EUR 700 per day, EUR 1,750 per week and EUR 3,300 per four consecutive weeks.
• Under the joint system players can lower their limits immediately; increases (or removal) take effect only after three business days and after the player receives risk information. The system enters into force on 25 March 2027.

Gambling advertising is governed by Real Decreto 958/2020. It imposed one of Europe's strictest advertising regimes, but in April 2024 the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) annulled several of its most restrictive provisions for lacking sufficient legal basis, so the current position is materially narrower than the decree as first written.

• Still in force (not annulled): betting and casino advertising in audiovisual media and during live sports broadcasts is confined to the 01:00-05:00 time slot (arts. 18-19; mutual betting, lotteries, bingo, contests and raffles follow arts. 20-22), sponsorship on sports shirts and kit and naming rights are prohibited (art. 12), and every ad carries a responsible-play message (art. 10.3) until 5 December 2026. From that day a DGOJ resolution of 18 September 2026 replaces it with one of three messages on the harm of problem gambling, fixes the warning “Solo para mayores de 18 años” and adds a reference to www.juegoseguro.es, in a band at least 15% high across the full width of display ads, banners and emails.
• Annulled by the Supreme Court in rulings (sentencias) of April 2024: the ban on new-customer promotions and welcome bonuses (art. 13.1 and 13.3), the ban on celebrities and public figures in gambling advertising (art. 15), the general prohibition on advertising via information-society services (art. 23.1), and the social-media restrictions (art. 26.2 and 26.3).
• Art. 25.3 (video-sharing platforms) was also annulled; art. 25.1-2 still requires tools against reaching minors and the broadcast time window for ads inserted in user videos.
• Not annulled: no email or equivalent electronic communication to RGIAJ-registered, self-excluded or at-risk players (RD 958/2020 art. 24.2; RD 176/2023 art. 29), no promotion aimed at prohibited or self-excluded persons (RD 958/2020 art. 13.2) and none at all to at-risk players (RD 176/2023 art. 27); the general principles (protection of minors, responsibility, identification) also remain.

Online operators are obliged entities for anti-money-laundering purposes, and the DGOJ actively pursues unlicensed supply. The DGOJ register of licensed operators is the authoritative record of who may legally offer online gambling in Spain.

• Operators are obliged entities (sujetos obligados) under Ley 10/2010; they must perform customer due diligence, monitor transactions and report suspicious activity to SEPBLAC, the Spanish financial-intelligence unit.
• The DGOJ enforces against unlicensed operators, including publishing warnings and pursuing website blocking and payment/advertising disruption of illegal supply.
• The public list of licensed operators is published by the DGOJ; players and partners should verify a licence there before dealing with an operator.
• Market scale (DGOJ data): full-year 2025 online GGR was about EUR 1,700 million, up roughly 17% year on year, split casino about 52%, betting about 41%, poker about 6% and bingo about 1%; 78 operators held licences on 24 September 2026 (DGOJ register). In 2025 the DGOJ closed 11 very serious sanction files for EUR 51.0 million and 36 serious ones for EUR 4.8 million.

A realistic path from decision to go-live for a Spanish online operator. Most of the elapsed time goes on building and certifying the platform and on the tender calendar, not on the DGOJ decision itself.

1. 01

   Incorporate an EEA gambling company

   Structuring

   Establish or confirm a Sociedad Anonima (or equivalent EEA form) in Spain or another EEA state whose exclusive corporate object is organising, marketing and operating gambling. Map ownership and management for the fit-and-proper review.

2. 02

   Appoint a Spanish representative

   Corporate

   If the company is not resident in Spain, appoint a permanent representative in Spain empowered to receive notifications and act before the DGOJ.

3. 03

   Assemble the three solvency dossiers

   Documentation

   Compile the legal (corporate, ownership, fit-and-proper), economic-financial (accounts, financing) and technical (platform, suppliers, operating plans) solvency files that the tender requires.

4. 04

   Draft the statutory policies

   Compliance

   Prepare the responsible-gambling operational plan (RD 176/2023), the AML programme and risk assessment (Ley 10/2010), fraud prevention, and the RGIAJ and deposit-limit procedures.

5. 05

   Build the gaming system on a .es domain

   Technical

   Develop the platform under a .es domain with internal control and record-keeping that logs all operations, plus DGOJ monitoring access from Spain and a data store (almacén) in the EU.

6. 06

   Certify the system with an accredited body

   Technical

   Have the gaming system (RNG, game fairness, data integrity) homologated and certified by an entity the DGOJ has designated, against the DGOJ technical requirements.

7. 07

   Integrate the national registers

   Player protection

   Implement the RGIAJ self-exclusion check and player identity/age verification so prohibited or self-excluded players are blocked, and wire in the per-operator deposit limits and, from 25 March 2027, the DGOJ joint-limit system.

8. 08

   Lodge the financial guarantees

   Financial

   Lodge the guarantee with the application: EUR 2,000,000 per general licence (EUR 500,000 for concursos), rising to EUR 2,600,000 (EUR 650,000) from 1 January 2027.

9. 09

   Apply within an open tender for the general licence

   Filing

   File the general-licence application inside the open convocatoria, paying the application fee (EUR 10,000 per licence, art. 49.5(d)); if no tender is open, request one once 18 months have passed since the last call for that modality.

10. 10

    Apply for the singular licences

    Filing

    On grant of the general licence, apply for each singular licence for the specific games to be run (roulette, blackjack, poker, slots, betting types), each with its own fee, registration and certification.

11. 11

    Pass DGOJ verification and go live

    Launch

    Complete final technical checks and register inscription, then commence licensed operation within the authorised games.

12. 12

    Meet ongoing obligations

    Recurring

    Self-assess and pay the 20% IAJ quarterly plus the recurring administrative fee (tasa), maintain RG, AML and register integrations, advertise within RD 958/2020, prepare for the centralised joint deposit limits from 25 March 2027, and renew licences before term (general 10 years, singular 1-5 years).

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