Entry costs are significant: minimum PLN 2,000,000 share capital for a betting operator (PLN 4,000,000 for casinos), plus PLN 480,000 financial security for an online betting operator (bank/insurance guarantee or deposit) to secure tax and player claims. Application fees are linked to the statutory base amount and number of websites. The capital and guarantee thresholds are a meaningful barrier to entry.
Jurisdictions › Poland › Licence fees
Poland · Question 04 of 11
Poland Gambling — Licence fees: What do the licences cost?
Mixed · Confirmed · Not reviewed · 3 post-review updates · Not reviewed · Back to full Poland report →
Key section parameters
| Jurisdiction | Poland (PL) |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Recorded in register |
| Favourability | Mixed |
| Confidence | Confirmed |
| Review status | Not reviewed · 3 post-review updates · Not reviewed |
| Last collected | 25 Oct 2026 |
Summary answer
Entry costs are significant: minimum PLN 2,000,000 share capital for a betting operator (PLN 4,000,000 for casinos), plus PLN 480,000 financial security for an online betting operator (bank/insurance guarantee or deposit) to secure tax and player claims. Application fees are linked to the statutory …
Not reviewed Information added after the 2 Sep 2026 expert review — published for currency and labelled not reviewed.
Not reviewed Read update
The dominant cost-to-operate signal this cycle is the proposed increase to the withholding tax on gambling winnings under draft project UD289, amending the Excise Duty Act and the Personal Income Tax Act. Current law sets a 10 percent withholding tax on single winnings exceeding PLN 2,280; the draft would raise this to 15 percent from 2026, the first change to the rate since 2001, and would extend its scope to winnings earned abroad in other EU and EEA states. This is a player-facing tax rather than a direct operator levy, but it bears on net player value and the relative attractiveness of the Polish market against jurisdictions with lighter withholding treatment. Separately, the draft loot-box licence category proposed by the Ministry of Finance would be exempt from standard gambling tax obligations, though the concrete fee or levy structure that would replace that exemption has not been made public this cycle. Neither instrument has been enacted.
Not reviewed Read update
The dominant cost-to-operate signal this cycle is a draft Act, project UD289, amending the Excise Duty Act and the Personal Income Tax Act to raise the flat-rate tax on gambling winnings from 10 percent to 15 percent, targeted for implementation in 2026. This is a probable-confidence, mixed-durability signal: it is a draft before government rather than enacted legislation, but a 50 percent relative increase to a headline winnings-tax rate is material regardless of its current legislative stage. Operators should model the effect of this potential rate change on player-facing returns and retention now, while tracking the bill's progress toward enactment, since no primary mf.gov.pl or Sejm legislative-tracker source has yet been directly retrieved to upgrade this claim from probable to confirmed.
Not reviewed Read update
The dominant cost signal this cycle is the increase in the flat-rate tax on gambling winnings from 10 percent to 15 percent under Personal Income Tax Act Article 30(1)(2), per Draft Act UD289, effective January 2026 and newly extended to EU/EEA-sourced winnings. This is a fifty percent relative increase in the player-facing tax burden. While the tax falls on winnings rather than operator revenue directly, it materially changes the economics of play and, per the Interpreter's key judgment, may push demand toward unlicensed offshore platforms sitting outside this tax net, a risk that would undercut the measure's fiscal intent while expanding the grey-market competitive backdrop against which licensed operators compete. The claim carries durable-instrument status as an amendment to primary tax legislation, sourced from two independent Tier-3 sources this cycle; no Tier-1 confirmation was reached. No material change in AML/CFT or responsible-gambling compliance lift was evidenced this cycle.