Why Malta's MGA is still the B2B licensing hub — and what threatens it

For much of the online gambling industry, the question is not whether to hold a Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) licence but how central Malta is to the rest of the operation. The island’s role as a B2B licensing hub — the place where a large share of the world’s game studios and platform suppliers hold their core authorisation — is one of the defining structural facts of the modern iGaming supply chain.

The licence that anchors the supply chain

The MGA issues two principal licence types, each spanning four game categories (casino and RNG games, fixed-odds betting, peer-to-peer poker and bingo, and skill games): a B2C Gaming Service Licence for operators and a B2B Critical Gaming Supply Licence for suppliers. Both run for ten years. It is the B2B licence that gives Malta its outsized gravitational pull. A supplier holding a Critical Gaming Supply licence can service licensed operators across multiple markets from a single, EU-based authorisation with a recognised compliance and certification track record behind it.

That combination — EU jurisdiction, ten-year term, four game types under one roof, and a regulator that other authorities recognise — is why so much of the supply chain routes through Malta even when the end player sits in Germany, Sweden or Ontario. The MGA licence functions less as a market-access permit than as a credential the rest of the industry underwrites.

Tax and the cost of the credential

Malta’s fiscal model is deliberately light for the international business it hosts. Gaming tax is 5% of GGR generated from Maltese players only — a narrow base, since most MGA licensees serve players elsewhere. On top sit a compliance contribution, tiered by GGR and licence type, and an annual fixed licence fee, typically around €25,000 for a B2C licence. The precise compliance-contribution tiers are not the point; the structure is. Malta prices for volume and residence rather than for a slice of every euro wagered, which is exactly what makes it attractive as a hub rather than a destination market.

The Bill 55 shadow

The central risk to Malta’s position is not fiscal but legal. In June 2025 the European Commission opened an infringement procedure — a Letter of Formal Notice — against Malta over Bill 55 and Article 56A of the Gaming Act, provisions that shield MGA licensees from the enforcement of certain foreign judgments. Several EU member states have long objected that these provisions let Malta-based operators sidestep rulings handed down by other national courts. The case could ultimately reach the Court of Justice of the EU.

For a jurisdiction whose entire value proposition rests on being a trusted EU base, an open infringement file over the enforceability of other members’ judgments is a material reputational and strategic exposure. It does not stop licences being issued, but it introduces uncertainty into the one thing Malta sells: legal reliability inside the EU.

Tightening the prudential rules

Alongside the EU pressure, the MGA has been reinforcing its own supervision. In July 2025 it introduced a Capital Requirements Policy obliging licensees to demonstrate sustained positive equity, with a transitional period to comply. Through 2025 and into 2026 the authority has been moving toward a more explicitly risk-based supervisory model and consulting on stricter financial-reporting obligations under its compliance directive. The direction of travel is a Malta that leans harder on prudential soundness — a response, in part, to the scrutiny its hub status attracts.

Why it matters

Malta’s importance to the industry is structural: a large share of the games and platforms running in regulated markets worldwide are supplied by companies whose core licence sits with the MGA. That makes the health of the Maltese framework a systemic question for the sector, not a local one. If the Bill 55 dispute erodes confidence in the enforceability and standing of Maltese authorisations, the effects ripple through every downstream market the island’s licensees serve.

For suppliers, the practical implications are twofold: the Critical Gaming Supply licence remains the most efficient way to service multiple markets from one EU base, but the prudential bar is rising and the political risk is real. Teams weighing Malta against alternative supply-chain bases can track the infringement case and the MGA’s prudential reforms in the iGaming regulatory tracker, and set them against the wider European context in the State of European iGaming 2026 report.

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