Austria Gaming License

What is the Austria gaming license?

There is no single Austria gaming license. The Glücksspielgesetz (GSpG) splits the market into four separate instruments, and competitors routinely merge them. One lottery concession covers online games of chance today. Land-based casinos hold their own concessions. Gaming machines run on Länder permits. Sports betting sits outside the federal monopoly entirely.

The distinction decides whether a foreign operator has anything to apply for. Games of chance are a federal monopoly under the GSpG. Betting is not a game of chance in Austrian law, so it never entered that monopoly. The nine Länder license it instead, each under its own betting law (Landeswettgesetz). An operator whose product is sports betting can be licensed in Austria today. An operator whose product is online casino cannot, until the reform takes effect.

Electronic lotteries under section 12a of the Glücksspielgesetz are the mechanism that makes today's online casino lawful for one company only. Österreichische Lotterien GmbH holds the single lottery concession, and win2day is the consumer brand it runs on. Every other online casino accepting Austrian players is offering prohibited games under Austrian law, whatever licence it holds elsewhere.

Who regulates gambling in Austria?

Finanzamt Österreich regulates games of chance in Austria. Since 1 January 2021 it grants the lottery and casino concessions and runs operational and tax supervision. Section 60(56) of Regierungsvorlage 594 d.B. would provide that Finanzamt Österreich is the Glücksspielaufsichtsbehörde, which renames the supervisory role rather than creating a new authority. The Federal Ministry of Finance legislates and holds the State's ownership stake, but it is not the licensing authority.

That correction matters, because published guides get it wrong. Write to the wrong body and you lose weeks. The Ministry sets policy and speaks for Austria internationally. It also adapts the anti-money-laundering rules that reach gambling through the FM-GwG. Finanzamt Österreich grants the concessions and can withdraw them.

Three further bodies hold real power. The nine Länder governments license sports betting under their own betting laws, and five of them also license gaming machines as Landesausspielungen. District administrative authorities handle penalties. The Amt für Betrugsbekämpfung (Anti-Fraud Office) gains the enforcement role the reform adds: blacklisting, payment blocking and network blocking.

A Stelle für Glücksspiel und Spielerschutz also appears in the bill. Section 1(4) funds it with a financing contribution of one per mille, charged on the bases in sections 17(3)(7), 28 and 57(4) and collected together with those taxes. Read the text before treating it as a new regulator. Its remit is scientific support for player protection and market observation. It does not grant, supervise or withdraw a concession. An independent gambling authority remains a stated policy goal rather than a body that exists.

Can a foreign operator get an online casino license in Austria right now?

No. Online games of chance in Austria sit inside one lottery concession. Österreichische Lotterien GmbH holds it and trades as win2day, and it runs to 30 September 2027. No second online casino concession exists to apply for. Applications for the new online concessions open on 1 January 2027.

The honest position is worth stating plainly, because it is the one thing an operator cannot work around. Electronic lotteries under section 12a of the Glücksspielgesetz are inside that one concession. Austria issues no second instrument covering the same activity, and no foreign licence substitutes for it.

What an operator can do now is prepare. Regierungsvorlage 594 d.B. sets a rolling procedure with an unlimited number of online concessions. The regulator assesses each applicant on its own merits rather than running a one-off tender. Concessions may be granted from 1 January 2027 and become valid on 1 October 2027. The bill also extends the existing lottery concession to at most 31 December 2028, so win2day continues while the new market opens alongside it.

Between now and January 2027 the work is corporate and financial, not procedural. Ten million euros of paid-up capital has to exist. An EU or EEA company with a supervisory board has to be in place. Any operator with Austrian history has to quantify the settlement described below. None of that compresses into the weeks after applications open.

What is changing under the 2026 gambling reform?

Regierungsvorlage 594 d.B. replaces the online monopoly with an unlimited number of concessions. Minimum paid-up capital is EUR 10,000,000, against EUR 100,000,000 for the retained lottery monopoly. Fees are EUR 70,000 on application, EUR 300,000 on first grant and EUR 600,000 on each renewal. Terms run five years, then ten.

The structural move is to uncouple online casino from the lottery concession. A new section 13 GSpG defines Online-Glücksspiel as a category of its own. Under section 14(1) second sentence, the regulator grants an unlimited number of concessions for it. Lotteries stay a single concession under the first sentence. If a client's product is online casino or online slots, Austria moves from closed to genuinely open. If the product is online lottery, the answer stays no permanently.

The procedure changes shape as well. Instead of a competitive tender with a closing date, the bill runs a rolling process. The regulator weighs each applicant on its own merits, so there is no queue position to lose and no fixed award round to miss.

Every figure here comes from the bill as introduced on 5 August 2026 and assigned to the Finance Committee on 6 August 2026. It has not been passed by the Nationalrat. The European Commission standstill triggered by the notification of 4 August 2026 runs into November 2026. Capital, fees and dates can still move before the vote.

What is the 31 December 2026 deadline for unlicensed operators?

An operator that served Austrian players without an Austrian licence is not excluded automatically. Section 14(2a) of Regierungsvorlage 594 d.B. sets three conditions. Pay every non-time-barred Austrian gambling tax liability, or disclose and pay it under section 29 FinStrG. Satisfy every final Austrian civil judgment won by players. Stop the unlicensed offering from 1 January 2027.

Read the third condition against the licensing dates. The cooling-off runs from 1 January 2027 until a concession is granted, and no concession is valid before 1 October 2027. An operator that wants an Austrian licence therefore accepts at least nine months with no Austrian revenue. Ceasing later is worse. Stopping after 31 December 2026 triggers an 18-month exclusion from the date of cessation, and 24 months where cessation falls after 31 December 2029.

The conditions apply at group and brand level, which is what makes them hard to restructure around. Entities affiliated with the applicant up to the beneficial owner under section 2 WiEReG are treated as the applicant itself.

A brand used in the prohibited offering stays the same brand even if it is slightly altered or given additions. Combining it with other elements does not help either, where the combination leaves a risk of confusion.

A partial payment under an insolvency, restructuring or debt-settlement procedure, at home or abroad, does not count as satisfaction. Whether a newly formed entity with no Austrian history escapes this reach is not settled on the bill's wording, and is a question for Austrian counsel.

Compliance is proved by a sworn declaration, the Konformitätserklärung. It is filed with the expression of interest and lists every relevant entity, brand and sign. If it turns out to be untrue before the decision, the concession is refused. If it comes out afterwards, the concession is withdrawn. Only a trivial breach is forgiven.

The section 29 FinStrG route closes at the same moment: disclosure and payment must be complete before the expression of interest, together with records of stakes, paid-out winnings and bonuses in a form the authority can check electronically.

That makes an exposure audit the first piece of work, not the last. Talk to us about mapping your group structure, brands and Austrian tax and judgment position before the January 2027 window opens.

How is online sports betting licensed in Austria?

Sports betting is licensed by the nine Länder under nine separate Landeswettgesetze, not by the federal government. Betting is not a game of chance under the Glücksspielgesetz, so it never entered the federal monopoly. The number of bookmaker permits is not capped, the market is open, and a foreign operator can be licensed in Austria for betting today.

Five of the nine Länder regulate online betting explicitly. Those five tie the licensing duty to a physical presence in the province, which in practice means where the server sits. The remaining four have no direct online betting regime.

The Oberster Gerichtshof (OGH) confirmed a related point in 1 Ob 176/22x of 27 January 2023: offering sports betting over the internet needs no provincial licence where the operator has no place of business in that province. The court treated the place where the data is made available, in practice the server, as that place of business.

The practical conclusion is that hosting architecture decides the licensing load. A server placed inside a regulating province pulls that province's permit regime onto the operation. A server placed outside it, with no establishment there, generally does not. Map the nine provinces against the intended technical footprint before choosing a location, because the choice is difficult to reverse once a permit is issued.

One tax point is routinely misread. Austrian betting duty is 5% of the stake under section 33 TP 17(1)(1) of the Gebührengesetz 1957, raised from 2% on 1 April 2025. It is charged on turnover, not on gross gaming revenue, so the effective load depends entirely on margin.

A book running a 7% margin pays roughly 71% of its gross gaming revenue in betting duty. The same 5% on a 12% margin costs about 42%. Model it on your own hold before treating Austrian betting as the easy route.

What are the requirements for an Austrian gaming license?

Every Austrian concession requires a capital company with a supervisory board, seated in the EU or the EEA. Owners and directors must be fit and proper, and paid-up capital must be lawfully sourced. Capital is the dividing line today: EUR 109,000,000 for the lottery concession, EUR 22,000,000 for a casino, EUR 10,000,000 online.

Fit and proper testing reaches the directors and every person who holds a participation carrying controlling influence. The group structure behind any qualifying holding must not obstruct effective supervision of the concessionaire. Two further conditions apply across all three concessions and decide most structuring questions.

The first is the security deposit. Sections 14(4)(2) and 21(7)(2) GSpG set it at no less than 10% of share capital, so an online concessionaire posts at least EUR 1,000,000. The concession decision fixes the amount and the form. It is calculated against the concessionaire's obligations to the State and to players, so it scales with the licence rather than sitting as a flat bond.

The second is Austrian presence. You need an EU or EEA seat simply to bid. Where the successful applicant is seated outside Austria, the concession is granted on condition that an Austrian-seated capital company is established. Proof of establishment is due within a set period.

Under section 14(3) of the Glücksspielgesetz as amended, a branch alone is enough only where three conditions all hold. The foreign company holds a comparable concession at home. It sits under comparable state gambling supervision that shares control information and performs on-site checks for the Austrian authority. Final Austrian civil judgments against it are enforceable in that home state. Where no Austrian company is set up, all records relevant to tax collection must be available at the Austrian branch at any time.

That enforceability condition is not a technicality. It is the settlement gate applied to the future rather than the past. Austria will not license a company its own courts cannot reach.

How much does an Austria gaming license cost?

Published state fees for an Austrian online concession are EUR 70,000 on application and EUR 300,000 on first grant. Each further grant costs EUR 600,000. That is a floor of EUR 370,000 in year one, before capital. The same EUR 70,000 application fee applies to the lottery and casino concessions under section 59a(1) GSpG.

The floor is the smaller half of the number. Five costs sit outside the fee schedule and none of them are optional.

Paid-up capital of EUR 10,000,000 is a demonstrated equity requirement, not a payment to the regulator, and its lawful origin has to be evidenced. The security deposit of at least 10% of that capital, so at least EUR 1,000,000, is fixed separately in the concession decision.

The Safe-Server under section 31i is built and run at the concessionaire's own expense. It must capture every game transaction digitally in unalterable form, with direct regulator access at any time.

Connection to the Sperrregister and to the Online-Glücksspiel-Aufsichtssystem is compulsory. The costs of building and running both are charged to concessionaires annually by decision of the regulator.

The fourth cost reorders the whole business case. Any operator that took Austrian revenue without a licence must settle non-time-barred gambling tax, plus every final player judgment. Model the historic years at the rates of those years rather than at today's: section 57(2) GSpG charged 40% of annual gross gaming revenue up to 30 June 2025 and 45% from 1 July 2025, and section 57(1) charged 16% of stakes up to 30 June 2025 against 17.5% after it. That is an admission condition rather than a cost of trading, and it is assessed across the group and every brand. For an operator with years of Austrian history, this line will exceed the licence fee, the capital and the technology together.

How is gambling taxed in Austria?

Austrian gambling tax is charged on different bases by product. Online games of chance are taxed at 45% of gross gaming revenue under section 57(2) GSpG, one of the highest rates in the European Union, and that rate has applied only since 1 July 2025; the same provision charged 40% before then. Sports betting is taxed at 5% of the stake, not of margin. Land-based casinos pay 30% of gross gaming revenue.

Three points decide how the table applies.

Tax follows the player, not the licence. Section 57(1) GSpG charges Glücksspielabgabe on games in which participation takes place from within Austria. An operator with no Austrian licence is liable in exactly the same way as one with a concession. That is what creates the historic exposure the reform then uses as an admission condition. A licensed concessionaire pays the 45% as Konzessionsabgabe under section 17(3)(7) instead, and section 57(2) exempts it from the parallel charge.

Non-professional players pay no income tax on gambling winnings in Austria.

Betting and games of chance are exempt from the 20% VAT. Gaming machines and video lottery terminals are the exception, which is why their rates are expressed on gross gaming revenue net of statutory VAT.

The reform rewrites the economics of bonusing, and this is the change most likely to break an existing marketing model. Under the new section 57a GSpG, bonuses of any kind count as stakes and enter the tax base. That covers promotional tickets, free spins, credits and rebates. Free spins with no nominal value are valued at the game's minimum stake.

Winnings from bonus play count as paid-out winnings only where they result from a random outcome and are actually paid out. Later refunds of stakes and credits of any kind do not reduce the base, including refunds ordered because the gaming contract was void under civil law. A licensed online concessionaire may deduct actual bonuses only up to 5% of annual gross gaming revenue. Everything above that threshold is taxed as revenue the operator never kept.

How to apply for an Austria gaming license?

Two routes exist and they run on different clocks. Track A is an Austrian online betting permit from one of the nine Länder, available now, with no federal concession involved. Track B is the online concession under section 14(1) second sentence, applied for from 1 January 2027 and valid from 1 October 2027. Most operators will run both.

Track A: online sports betting through the Länder

Step 1. Choose the province

Compare the nine provincial betting laws against your product and your intended technical footprint. Five regulate online betting explicitly, four do not.

Step 2. Fix the presence and server model

The licensing duty attaches to physical presence in the province, in practice the server location. Decide this before applying, because it determines which regimes apply to you.

Step 3. File the provincial application

Requirements, fees and processing sit with the provincial government, not with Finanzamt Österreich.

Step 4. Launch and account for duty

Betting duty of 5% of the stake is remitted by the bookmaker itself.

Track B: online concession, from 1 January 2027

Step 1. Audit historic exposure

Quantify non-time-barred Austrian gambling tax and list every final player judgment. Map the group to the beneficial owner under section 2 WiEReG, with every brand and sign used in the Austrian market.

Step 2. Stop the unlicensed offering by 31 December 2026

Cessation after that date costs 18 months of exclusion, or 24 months where it falls after 31 December 2029.

Step 3. Build the entity and the capital

You need an EU or EEA capital company with a supervisory board and EUR 10,000,000 paid up, with lawful origin evidenced. Add the Austrian company or the qualifying branch under section 14(3).

Step 4. Prepare the technology

That means the Safe-Server under section 31i, connection to the central exclusion register (zentrales Sperrregister) under section 31g, and connection to the Online-Glücksspiel-Aufsichtssystem and its Limitregister under section 31h.

Step 5. File the Konformitätserklärung

The sworn declaration accompanies the expression of interest and discloses every relevant entity, brand and sign. Later changes must be reported immediately, and the regulator publishes the applicant's identity and disclosures on the federal EVI platform.

Step 6. Submit and wait

The bill sets no statutory decision period for the online concession. Anyone quoting a processing time for an Austrian online concession is inventing it.

What are the advantages of an Austrian gaming license?

An Austrian online concession is an uncapped licence in an EU member state. A rolling procedure assesses each applicant individually rather than through a one-off tender. Player winnings are untaxed. Sports betting is licensable today through the Länder, so an Austrian market entry can begin before the casino window opens.

Four points hold up on inspection.

The number of online concessions is not limited, so entry does not depend on beating other bidders to a fixed number of slots. The rolling procedure also means an applicant that is not ready in January 2027 has not lost its chance.

Austria's online gambling market was worth about EUR 632,000,000 in 2024 on iGaming Business figures. Much of that revenue goes to operators holding no Austrian concession. Channelling it into licensed operators is the reform's stated purpose, so the licensed market should be larger than today's licensed share suggests.

Non-professional players pay no income tax on winnings.

Betting is available now. An operator can hold Austrian players lawfully on a betting product through a provincial permit while preparing the casino application.

One claim does not belong on this page in any form. An Austrian licence does not passport. There is no mutual recognition of gambling licences in the European Union, and no Austrian instrument grants access to any other EU market.

What are the disadvantages and limitations?

Austria will be a high-tax, product-restricted market. Online games of chance are taxed at 45% of gross gaming revenue. Paid-up capital is EUR 10,000,000. Deposit caps limit revenue per player by statute and virtual slots carry hard product limits. Historic Austrian exposure is an admission condition, not a debt to be managed.

Tax is the headline problem. Austria will sit among the highest-taxed regulated markets in the European Union at 45% of gross gaming revenue. The reform's bonus rules narrow the deductions that would normally soften it.

Deposit caps constrain average revenue per user directly. Section 13(4) requires a maximum of EUR 250 per week for players under 26 and EUR 1,680 per month for players from 26. A different figure may be set from age 23, but only where the operator has verified the player is not at risk and has added monitoring and feedback tools. These are statutory ceilings, not defaults an operator can raise.

Product rules bite hardest on virtual gaming machines. Section 13(2) applies the land-based player-protection rules to online slots, specifically section 5(4)(4) to (6), (10) and (11) and section 5(5)(1) to (6). Those are a maximum stake of EUR 5 per game, a maximum win of EUR 10,000 per game, which the bill raises from EUR 4,000, a minimum game duration of two seconds and no parallel games.

The machine also shuts down after 90 minutes of continuous play, followed by a cooldown of at least 15 minutes with a risk-awareness video. Other online games of chance escape the stake and win caps but keep the self-limitation and transparency duties.

Infrastructure is charged to the operator. The Safe-Server, the Sperrregister connection and the Online-Glücksspiel-Aufsichtssystem are all built and funded by the concessionaire.

Litigation risk is real and already priced into the reform. Austrian civil courts treat contracts with operators that hold no Austrian concession as void under section 879 ABGB. Players then sue for the recovery of their gambling losses (Rückforderung von Spielverlusten), and litigation funders run these claims at scale. The bill's own text makes satisfying those judgments a condition of licensing. That is the clearest possible confirmation that they exist in volume.

Finally, the framework is not final. Regierungsvorlage 594 d.B. has not passed the Nationalrat. Capital, fees, dates and product rules can change before the vote.

Which licenses can operators use while Austria is closed?

No licence covers Austrian players until an Austrian online concession is granted. Operators serving other markets while Austria is closed generally use Malta, Romania or Curaçao, which differ sharply on entry cost, tax and market reach. None of them creates any right to accept Austrian players, and using one for Austria has a specific Austrian cost.

Serving Austrian players on an offshore or other EU licence is not a neutral holding position. Each year of Austrian revenue accrues gambling tax whether or not a licence exists, at 45% of gross gaming revenue from 1 July 2025 and at 40% for the years before that. Each player claim that reaches judgment becomes a debt that must be satisfied in full before an Austrian concession can be granted.

Under sections 14(2a) and 14(2b) these follow the group and the brand. Moving the traffic to an affiliate, or relaunching under a lightly altered name, does not clear them.

The practical routing is to separate the markets rather than the entities. Use a Malta gaming licence or a Romania gambling license for the EU markets they actually cover. Use a Curaçao gambling licence where the target markets suit it. Treat Austria as a market you enter through the 2027 concession, not one you serve in the meantime.

Why choose MGL?

MGL works on the part of an Austrian entry that decides whether an application is viable at all: what the group already owes Austria. We quantify non-time-barred gambling tax exposure and test whether Austrian judgments are enforceable at home. We structure the EU or EEA company and its EUR 10,000,000 capital.

The Austrian file is unusual because the hard work happens before the window opens. By the time applications are accepted on 1 January 2027, the group has to have stopped, settled and restructured. We have delivered 300+ licences across offshore, onshore and EU markets. The Austrian mandate draws on the corporate and tax side of that work more than the licensing side.

What we do on an Austrian project:

• Map the group to the beneficial owner under section 2 WiEReG and list every brand used in the Austrian market, so the Konformitätserklärung is complete before it is sworn.

• Quantify the historic gambling tax position and the outstanding player judgments, and model whether a clean entity with no Austrian history is the better vehicle.

• Test enforceability of Austrian civil judgments in your home jurisdiction against the section 14(3) branch conditions.

• Structure the EU or EEA capital company, the supervisory board and the EUR 10,000,000 paid-up capital.

• Build the provincial betting route where betting is part of the product, so Austrian revenue is not simply switched off.

• Prepare the concession file against sections 14(2) and 14(2a) for filing from 1 January 2027.