Applying for a Finnish gambling licence costs €29,000 per application, and the fee is not refunded if the application is refused. This guide sets out what the authority charges, what it expects, and how long it takes.
The fees
Gambling licence application: €29,000. Payable per application on submission. An operator applying for more than one licence pays the fee for each; LeoVegas has confirmed two.
International cooperation licence, and amendments to an existing licence: €1,120.
Annual supervision fee. Tiered by realised gross gaming revenue once operating, reported from €4,000 at the lowest tier to €434,000 at the highest. That top figure is reported inconsistently across sources and should be taken from the regulation itself. Software licence holders pay at a lower level.
Processing time
The National Police Board states a target processing time of six to eight months. Some published summaries have described the target as around six months or as three to six months; where secondary sources differ from the authority, we follow the authority.
Applications are accepted continuously. There is no cutoff date. Earlier industry reporting suggesting a deadline in August 2026 was incorrect and was subsequently clarified by the Board.
The practical consequence is a queue rather than a deadline. An application filed in late 2026 is unlikely to be decided before mid-2027, which leaves little room for the audits and the regulator integration that must be completed before an operator can trade.
What the application has to establish
The authority assesses the applicant's corporate structure and ownership, financial standing, the reliability of the persons responsible, the technical arrangements for the gambling systems, and the applicant's ability to meet player protection and anti-money laundering obligations. Incomplete applications take longer, and the Board has asked applicants to stop requesting status updates so that staff time goes to assessment rather than correspondence.
After the licence
A granted licence is not permission to launch. Gambling systems must be independently verified, and the operator must complete an integration project connecting its systems to the regulator's supervision system. Our analysis of those three conditions explains why the integration is the step most likely to be underestimated, and our piece on signed data reporting covers what it involves technically.
Only when all three are done, and no earlier than 1 July 2027, can services begin.
Status of this guide
Fee figures and the processing target come from the National Police Board. Supervision fee tiers come from published summaries of a regulation that completed EU notification; confirm them against the gazetted text before relying on them in a financial model.
