France Gaming License Gaming License

What Is a France Gaming Licence?

A France gaming licence (agrément) is the ANJ authorisation to offer online sports betting, horse-race betting, or poker to French players. Online casino is not covered: it stays prohibited. The licence runs five years, is renewable, and must be held by an EU/EEA-registered operating company.

At a Glance

What France Licenses

The ANJ licenses three online verticals. The licence is called an agrément, granted for five years and renewable. One dossier per vertical; a single operator may hold one, two, or all three. Around sixteen operators currently hold ANJ licences. Bet365 was licensed in 2026.

What you cannot license.

House-banked casino games fall under the general prohibition in Article L320-1 of the Code de la sécurité intérieure. There is no category to apply for, regardless of budget or willingness to comply. Lottery and retail sports betting are an exclusive FDJ monopoly; retail horse betting belongs to PMU.

Setup Cost and Timeline

Realistic timeline: Bet365 filed January 2026, received its sports-betting agrément on 16 April 2026, and opened bet365.fr on 26 May 2026 — about four to five months end to end. Plan for four to six months from filing to go-live, plus pre-filing build time.

The Application Process

• Establish or confirm an EU/EEA operating company. The licence-holder must have its registered office in an EU member state or qualifying EEA state. An offshore holding company cannot hold the licence directly.

• Appoint a permanent correspondent in France and prepare the AML/CFT, responsible-gaming, and conflict-of-interest programmes.

• Register a dedicated .fr domain for the French-facing site (mandatory under Article 24 of the 2010 law).

• Build the platform and install the "frontal" archiving device physically in metropolitan France.

• Put the player-fund guarantee in place.

• File the dossier with the ANJ. One dossier per vertical. The ANJ must decide within a maximum of four months from a complete dossier.

• Pass software homologation. No gaming software may operate before the ANJ homologates it. Submission requires source code, security audit, dedicated RNG audit, and an implementation-compliance report.

The Tax Regime

Three more layers stack on top: a 15% levy on advertising and marketing spend (new, 1 July 2025); 25% corporate income tax on net taxable profit; and VAT-exempt status (but you cannot recover input VAT on servers, marketing, or professional fees).

Droit au pari.

For sports betting, you must contract with and pay the organiser of each event (the federation or league) for the right to offer bets on it. The fee is negotiated, not statutory.

The France-Specific Technical Burden

• The "frontal" (Support Matériel d'Archivage, SMA). You must archive, in real time, on a physical medium in metropolitan France, the full set of player and transaction data. Only the ANJ can decrypt the archived content.

• The mandatory .fr domain. Your French site must be accessible only via a top-level domain ending in .fr.

• Verified player accounts. Identity, age, and address must be verified before an account is validated. Anonymous play is prohibited.

Banking and Payments

Permitted deposits: bank card, mobile payment, bank transfer, e-wallet, and prepaid card. Own-name, EU/EEA-only rule: a player account may be funded only by the account holder, with an instrument they own, from a bank account in the EU/EEA. Crypto is effectively prohibited — excluded by the own-name EU-bank rule.

Ongoing Compliance

Three plans must be approved each year: promotional strategy, responsible-gaming action plan, and anti-fraud and AML plan (due before 31 January). The ANJ can order changes.

• 85% player-return cap (TRJ). Sports and horse betting are capped at a maximum 85% payout ratio, assessed annually. In October 2024 the ANJ sanctioned nine operators for exceeding it.

• Self-exclusion register. The ANJ manages the national fichier des interdits de jeux, with over 38,500 people registered. You check it at account opening and at each login.

• AML/CFT. Licensed operators are obliged entities. Suspicious transactions reported to Tracfin via ERMES. Records kept five years.

• Enforcement is active. Fines up to 5% of net turnover (10% for repeat breach). Largest fine: €800,000 on the Unibet.fr operator in 2025. In 2024: 232 blocking orders covering 1,337 URLs against unlicensed sites.

How France Compares

Can You Get an Online Casino Licence in France?

France cannot license you today. An attempt to legalise online casinos was withdrawn on 28 October 2024. After two government collapses (Barnier in December 2024, Bayrou in September 2025), the reform consultation is dormant. As of June 2026 the ban stands, and France remains one of only two EU member states — with Cyprus — that still prohibit online casinos. A realistic opening is not expected before 2027–2029.

If casinos are your business, the productive move is to license where online casino is allowed now: Isle of Man, Gibraltar, or Malta for premium credibility; Curaçao or Anjouan for fast, lower-cost entry.