Requirements and costs of general licences

General conditions

1. Those interested in carrying on non-occasional gambling activities must obtain a general licence for each form of gambling they intend to market prior to carrying out any type of gambling.

2. Likewise, the operation of each type of gambling under the scope of each general licence will require a specific operation licence to be granted.

Requirements and costs to obtain a general licence

3. Obtaining any general licence is done through the procedure to grant general licences set out through a Ministerial Order. Thus, the current terms of reference for the call were approved by Order HFP/1227/2017, of 5 December, and published in the Official Gazette of the Spanish State on 16 December 2017.

4. These terms of reference specified the requirements with which licence applicants must comply in terms of legal personality, share capital, corporate purpose, etc.

5. Licence applicants must be public limited companies in Spain or the equivalent from a European Economic Area country, with minimum share capital of sixty thousand euros and with its single corporate purpose being the organisation, marketing and operation of gambling.

6. It also specifies the documentation to be submitted by the interested parties with their requests for general licences, as well as the content of the Operational Plan to be submitted by the applicants and the content of the requesting operator’s technical plan.

7. The technical systems for applications must be adapted to the provisions of Royal Decree 1613/2011 of 14 November, implementing the technical requirements of gambling activities under Law 13/2011, of 27 May, on Gambling Regulation and its implementing regulations, especially the Resolution of 6 October 2014, from the Directorate-General for the Regulation of Gambling, approving the regulation which elaborates on the technical specifications for gambling, traceability and security that must be met by the non-reserved technical gambling systems licensed under Law 13/2011, of 27 May, on Gambling Regulation.

8. Applications for general licences and their supporting documentation must be submitted electronically through the procedure set out in the Electronic Office of the Directorate-General for the Regulation of Gambling. The deadline for submitting applications, as per the terms of reference, will be 17 December 2018 at 1:00 p.m.

Once the deadline for submitting applications has passed, it will not be possible to submit a request for a general licence until a new call is made.

9. Interested operators must submit the document demonstrating proof of provision of the guarantee associated with each general licence applied for and the time of submitting their application. The amount of the guarantee to be provided is two million euros for the submission of an application for a general licence except in the case of a general licence for contests where the amount is five hundred thousand euros.

10. In terms of the Fees for gambling administration to be paid when submitting an application for a general licence, these are as follows:

  • Fee for registration in the Applicants’ Registry: two thousand five hundred euros for the general licence application.
  • Fee for the licence application: ten thousand euros for the general licence application.
  • Fee for issuing technical opinions: thirty-eight thousand euros for the total of general licences submitted.
  • Fee for registration in the Licences Registry: two thousand five hundred euros for a general licence application which is finally granted.

11. The time limit for resolving submitted applications is six months from the day following their submission. Administrative silence shall constitute approval of the application.

12. Four months from the date of granting the general licence, operators must submit a final certification report on the operator’s technical systems in the manner and under the conditions established in Royal Decree 1613/2011 of 14 November and in the Directorate-General for the Regulation of Gambling Resolution of 6 October 2014 approving the provision establishing the model and content of the final certification report on gambling operators’ technical systems and implementing the change management procedure.

More information on Gambling licences