Gambling licence in Malta: what operators need to know

Malta is the established choice for operators that want the standing of an EU regulator and expect to be examined closely. The reasons operators give us are consistent:

• Credibility with banks, payment providers, platform partners and affiliates, who all know what an MGA licence involves.
• A single, mature licensing framework that covers business-to-consumer and business-to-business activity under one authority.
• A licence that supports operating across the EU, subject to each member state's own local rules.
• A deep local ecosystem of auditors, testing laboratories, law firms, payment specialists and experienced compliance staff.
• An imputation tax system that can bring the effective tax on distributed profits well below the headline rate (see taxes below).

The price of that standing is a thorough application. The MGA reviews who owns and runs the business, where the money comes from and whether the controls are real, and it supervises actively after the licence is issued.

• A Malta-registered company with genuine substance: local premises and people who actually run the licensed activity.
• A fit-and-proper assessment of the beneficial owners, the directors and the key function holders, including their integrity, competence and source of wealth.
• Appointed key function holders for the roles the MGA specifies, such as the money laundering reporting officer, compliance, and the people responsible for the technical systems.
• Paid-up share capital that matches the licence: €100,000 for types 1 and 2, €40,000 for types 3 and 4.
• AML/CFT and responsible gambling frameworks that match the real business, under the MGA's rules and the FIAU's.
• Player protection measures, including safeguards for player funds, and an independent review of your systems before go-live.

The licence type decides much of this. If you are not yet sure which applies, read B2C or B2B: which gambling licence do you need.

The MGA works from a file, not an interview. These are the pieces we assemble with you:

• Corporate documents for the licensed company and a chart of the group down to the ultimate beneficial owners.
• Personal declarations and identification for every owner, director and key function holder, with evidence of source of wealth.
• Evidence of the source of the funds that will capitalise the business.
• A business plan with three-year financial projections and the details of the capital held in Malta.
• AML/CFT policies and a business risk assessment, plus responsible gambling and player protection policies.
• A description of the platform, game integrity and the systems and controls that protect player funds and data.
• Evidence of the Malta premises and of the people who will work from them.

How each of the ownership documents is judged is covered in UBO, source of funds and source of wealth.

An MGA licence opens doors with banks and payment providers, but opening them still takes time. Maltese and EU banks run their own due diligence on top of the regulator's: they will ask for the same ownership and source-of-funds evidence, and for a clear view of your markets and payment flows. Player funds must be protected, which affects how accounts are set up.

Start the banking and payment conversations at the same time as the application, not after approval. Operators who do are usually ready to launch when the licence arrives.