Latvia Gambling License

What is a Latvia gambling license?

A Latvia gambling license authorizes a company to organize gambling, and it is separate from a venue license, which covers one specific set of premises. The State Revenue Service issues both. Interactive gambling needs no premises, but it does need its own interactive gambling license on top of the organizer license.

Latvia licenses two different objects, and the distinction decides what an operator applies for. The organizer license attaches to the company and proves the company may organize gambling at all. The venue license attaches to an address, and a casino, gaming hall or bingo hall needs one for each location it opens.

An online operator therefore holds two licenses and no venue license. First comes the general organizer license under the Gambling and Lotteries Law. Second comes the interactive gambling license, which permits the company to organize games and accept stakes through electronic communications services.

Order matters here. A company cannot apply for the interactive license as a shortcut around organizer status, and it meets the capital and ownership tests once, at the organizer stage, for both licenses.

Who regulates gambling in Latvia?

The State Revenue Service (Valsts ieņēmumu dienests, VID) regulates gambling in Latvia and issues every license under the Gambling and Lotteries Law. The Lotteries and Gambling Supervisory Inspection (IAUI) held that role until 31 March 2026 and no longer exists. Those functions moved into the State Revenue Service on 1 April 2026.

Under Section 10 of the Gambling and Lotteries Law, the State Revenue Service now issues the gambling organizer license. The amending law of 3 December 2025 replaced the former regulator throughout the statute and took effect on 1 April 2026.

Two units inside the State Revenue Service split the work. The Gambling and Lotteries Supervision Division handles licensing, compliance and legal questions. The Gambling and Lotteries Control Division runs on-site, remote, technical and financial inspections.

The Cabinet of Ministers ordered the merger on 3 October 2025, then moved it up from 1 July 2026 to 1 April 2026. Gambling supervision and tax administration now sit in one authority, so a Latvian operator reports to a single counterparty instead of two.

Licenses issued before 31 March 2026 remain valid until their existing re-registration date, and applications still open on that date passed to the State Revenue Service for decision.

What types of gambling licenses does Latvia issue?

Latvia licenses eight categories of game under Section 5 of the Gambling and Lotteries Law: gaming machine games, roulette, card games, dice games, betting, totalizator, bingo, and games of chance by telephone. Each may be run in a venue, online, or both. National lotteries sit outside this list as a state monopoly.

Interactive gambling is not a separate category of game. Interactive gambling is a channel, and it covers the same games delivered through electronic communications services. An operator picks the games it wants and then licenses the channel it will deliver them through.

Lotteries are the one closed door. National-scale lotteries are reserved to the state under Section 60, and the operator is the state joint-stock company Latvijas Loto. A private operator cannot obtain a national lottery license in Latvia, and cannot acquire one as an add-on to a casino license. Goods and services lotteries, the promotional kind, run under the separate Law on Lotteries of Goods and Services.

What are the requirements for a Latvia gambling license?

Section 8 of the Gambling and Lotteries Law sets two hard tests. The license holder must be a capital company registered in the Republic of Latvia. Paid-up share capital must be no less than EUR 1,400,000. Section 9 adds a residence test for the board. Reputation and source-of-funds checks apply to owners and officers.

EUR 1,400,000 is paid-up share capital, which means real equity inside the company. No bond, guarantee or insurance policy substitutes for it, so it cannot be negotiated down the way a financial guarantee sometimes can. That threshold filters this market more than any fee does.

A company from another EU member state does not qualify. The license holder has to be a Latvian SIA or AS, so company formation in Latvia is where the project starts.

Foreign ownership has a cap with a wide exception. The cap is in Section 8, which limits foreign members or shareholders to 49% of share capital. The same section then exempts investors resident in European Union member states, European Economic Area countries, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states. A holding company in any of those states faces no ownership ceiling at all. A beneficial owner outside all three groups is capped at 49% and needs restructuring before filing.

At least half of the supervisory council members, where a council exists, and of the board members must be tax residents of an EU, EEA or OECD state under Section 9. Officers need clean records, with no conviction for an intentional criminal offence, full legal capacity, and documented source of funds.

A certification body tests gaming software and equipment before use, and its opinion on the gambling system goes into the interactive application. Player money moves only through an account at a credit institution registered in Latvia, and a certificate for that account belongs in the application file.

How much does a Latvia gambling license cost?

State fees for a Latvia gambling license start at EUR 200,000 where gambling is organized only through electronic communications services. The fee reaches EUR 427,000 where the license also covers land-based delivery. Re-registration costs EUR 45,000 a year. Venue licenses are charged separately, per location.

The two issue fees are alternatives, not a sum. EUR 200,000 applies where the license scope is online only. EUR 427,000 applies where the scope also covers physical venues. An online-only operator pays one of them, and it is the lower one.

The annual charge is what changes a business case. The license has an indefinite term and is re-registered every year for EUR 45,000. There is no expiry date to plan around, and there is also no year without the fee. A five-year model therefore includes EUR 200,000 once and EUR 45,000 five times.

Figures published at EUR 37,000 for re-registration are out of date and describe a superseded fee schedule.

State fees are only part of the entry cost. Company formation, the EUR 1,400,000 of paid-up capital, certification, banking and document drafting all sit on top, and the capital is committed equity that stays inside the company.

How is gambling taxed in Latvia?

Gambling tax rates rose on 1 January 2026. Interactive gambling is taxed at 15% of gaming revenue, up from 12%. Betting and totalizator moved to 18%, games of chance by telephone to 18%, and bingo to 12%. Land-based machines and tables are taxed by unit, per year, not on revenue.

Two tax bases operate side by side, and confusing them distorts any comparison. Online verticals are taxed as a percentage of gaming revenue, which is stakes less winnings paid. Land-based machines and tables are taxed as a fixed annual amount per device, whatever they earn, so a quiet machine and a busy one carry the same charge.

Interactive gambling tax is declared and paid monthly on that month's gaming revenue. Gambling turnover is exempt from VAT.

Since 1 April 2026 one authority administers both the tax and the supervision of Latvian gambling, because the State Revenue Service absorbed the former regulator. Those two functions used to sit in separate bodies, and a Latvian operator now files to one address.

Any figure showing interactive gambling at 12% or betting at 15% describes the position before 1 January 2026.

What technical requirements apply to interactive gambling in Latvia?

Section 53 of the Gambling and Lotteries Law sets the technical regime for interactive gambling in Latvia. The operator registers and identifies every player before play begins, opens a dedicated game account on its own server, and keeps an interactive players' register. Player money moves only through a Latvian bank account.

Settlement is the rule operators most often miss. An interactive gambling operator may use only an account opened at a credit institution registered in the Republic of Latvia for settlements with players. Withdrawals go back to the same account the stake money came from, and paying a win to any other account is prohibited.

Certification comes from a certification body, which gives an opinion on testing of the gambling system, including the security measures preventing anyone from influencing an outcome and the personal data protection measures. The Cabinet of Ministers sets the components of the system, the systems used to sell tickets and accept stakes, and the information retained in the system. The statute names no specific laboratory, so a requirement for one particular certificate, such as eCOGRA, does not come from Latvian law.

Every interactive site has to display the operator's name and legal address, the interactive gambling license number, the games the license permits, the game rules or where to read them, the prohibition on players under 18, and a warning that gambling can become addictive.

Operators give the State Revenue Service unimpeded access to the game program and the related accounting records, and report the location of the gaming equipment by country and address, together with the security measures around it.

There is no requirement to use a .lv domain. What Latvian law does with .lv runs the other way: Cabinet Regulation No. 114 of 10 March 2026 sets the procedure by which the State Revenue Service instructs the .lv registry and electronic communications providers to block the domains and IP addresses of unlicensed operators.

Land-based gaming machines may be operated only while connected to the unified gaming machine control and monitoring system.

What are the advertising rules for gambling in Latvia?

Latvia has one of the strictest advertising regimes in the European Union. Section 41 of the Gambling and Lotteries Law prohibits advertising gambling and interactive gambling sites outside the gambling venue. Inside a venue, only the venue name and the operator's registered trademark may be shown. The Advertising Law adds its own restriction in Section 13.

One narrow exception exists, and it does not help an online casino. A licensed betting or totalizator operator may show its registered trademark at adult sports competitions, in competition, club and league names, on kit and equipment, and in sponsorship notices tied to an event, provided the placement carries the age restriction and self-exclusion information. Casino games have no equivalent carve-out.

Price this into the entry plan before anything else. A Latvian operator acquires players without advertising channels. Growth comes from brand recognition, organic search, retail presence for the land-based segment, and sponsorship where the betting exception genuinely applies.

An operator whose economics depend on paid acquisition does not have a Latvian business model. That one fact turns away more entrants than the capital threshold does, and it is cheaper to test before EUR 1,400,000 is committed.

Advantages of a Latvia gambling license

A Latvia gambling license puts an operator inside an EU and eurozone member state with a regulated market. The license has an indefinite term and is renewed by annual re-registration instead of a fresh application. Since 1 April 2026 one authority handles both supervision and gambling tax.

The indefinite term is worth more than it first appears. There is no license expiry to negotiate and no renewal window in which a business can be interrupted. Annual re-registration is one payment and one decision, and the file stays as filed.

Consolidating supervision and tax administration inside the State Revenue Service removes a counterparty. Licensing questions, inspections and gambling tax now reach the same authority, which shortens the reporting chain for an operator running both online and land-based activity.

The permitted range of games is wide. All eight statutory categories, from gaming machines and roulette through to betting, totalizator and bingo, are available to a private operator, and all of them may be delivered online under the interactive license.

Latvian gambling law is settled. The Gambling and Lotteries Law has been amended repeatedly since 2006, and its Cabinet regulations are published. Several licensed operators already trade in the market, so an entrant reads established practice.

For an EU, EEA or OECD investor, the foreign ownership cap does not apply. The cap and its exception sit in the same section of the law.

Disadvantages of a Latvia gambling license

Latvia sets one of the highest entry thresholds in the region. Paid-up share capital of EUR 1,400,000 is committed equity with no bond substitute, and state fees run to six figures. The advertising prohibition closes the acquisition channels most operators rely on.

The capital requirement cannot be structured around. EUR 1,400,000 sits inside a Latvian company as real equity, and no guarantee or insurance product reduces it.

Incorporation in Latvia is mandatory. An existing company in another EU member state cannot hold the license, unlike Bulgaria, where an EU-established operator can apply. That means a new entity, new governance and a new set of local obligations.

Fees recur for as long as the license does. EUR 45,000 every year is due whatever the operator turns over, and a missed re-registration ends the right to trade with no grace period.

Taxes rose on 1 January 2026 and the direction of travel is upward. Interactive gambling went from 12% to 15%, betting from 15% to 18%, and bingo from 10% to 12%.

Of all the constraints, advertising is the one to design around first. Advertising outside the venue or site is banned, with a narrow exception for betting trademarks at sports events, so paid acquisition is closed to an online casino.

Three further limits belong in any decision. Lotteries are closed to private operators. The license covers the Latvian market only and passports to no other EU country. And the change of regulator on 1 April 2026 means supervisory practice is being rebuilt, so procedural expectations may shift while the new units settle.

A beneficial owner resident outside the EU, EEA and OECD faces the 49% ownership cap and needs to restructure before filing.

Why choose MGL for a Latvia gambling license

MGL has delivered 300+ licenses, and Latvia turns on a short list of local steps that general licensing experience does not cover. We do the Latvian company formation and the EUR 1,400,000 capitalization, test the ownership chain against the Section 8 exemption, and document the source of funds.

Ownership structuring is where most Latvian applications are won or lost. We check where each beneficial owner is tax resident, confirm whether the 49% cap applies at all, and restructure the holding through an EU or OECD entity where it does. We run the same check on the board against the Section 9 residence test before anything is filed.

MGL handles certification and the technical file as one workstream. We prepare the gambling system for a certification body's opinion, register the software and equipment, and build the player registration and identity verification the statute requires.

Banking comes first in our sequence. Player settlement is only lawful through an account at a Latvia-registered credit institution, and the certificate for that account is a required application document. We therefore approach Latvian banks before the filing timetable is set.

MGL stays on the file after approval. That covers the annual re-registration date, the quarterly reporting to the State Revenue Service with its bank statement, and the marketing rebuild that the advertising prohibition forces on any operator arriving from a market where paid acquisition was normal.