Vanuatu

Published market-size data for Vanuatu's interactive gaming sector sits outside the instruments reviewed, so this narrative is confined to the structural features of the licensing regime that bear on commercial attractiveness. The Regulator's two-month statutory decision clock for an interactive gaming licence application is short relative to many offshore licensing regimes, and a resulting licence can run for up to fifteen years, giving an entrant a comparatively fast route to market and a long runway once licensed.

The licensing framework rests on three statutes administered by one regulator. The Vanuatu Interactive Gaming Act [Cap 261] designates the Director of Customs and Inland Revenue as the Regulator under section 34(1), prohibits conduct of an interactive game in or from Vanuatu unless licensed and the specific game is approved under section 19, and requires the applicant to be a company locally incorporated under the Companies Act No.25 of 2012. The Regulator must grant or refuse an application within two months of receiving it and any requested information; a resulting licence can run for up to fifteen years and is non-transferable except through enforcement of a mortgage or charge, and operators already conducting an interactive game at commencement are taken to be licensees. The Casino Control Act [Cap 223] layers a further gate on top of this administrative process: an application is made to the DCIR Director, forwarded to the Council of Ministers for approval, and the Director grants the licence only once that approval is obtained and the prescribed fee is paid. DCIR's own legislations page confirms all three Acts — Cap 205, Cap 223 and Cap 261 — sit under its licensing remit.

The interactive gaming pathway is the best-evidenced route into the Vanuatu market. Applications are submitted directly to the Director of Customs and Inland Revenue using the official application form, and the applicant must be a company locally incorporated under the Companies Act No.25 of 2012 — there is no statutory route to licensure for a foreign-incorporated entity acting alone.

The clearest enforcement power identified sits in the Vanuatu Interactive Gaming Act [Cap 261]: the Regulator may suspend, revoke, or decline to renew an interactive gaming licence, but only after giving the licensee 14 days' written notice to make submissions. On the evidence reviewed, this procedural notice-and-submissions window is also the principal identified revocation risk driver — the statute does not separately enumerate substantive grounds for suspension or revocation beyond this notice mechanism, so a licensee's failure to use the 14-day window to answer a compliance concern raised by the Regulator is the operative trigger under the current record.

Headline rates are well evidenced in the casino and club silos. Casino tax is set at 15% of gross profit, with monthly returns required and a 20% per annum penalty applying to late returns; the casino licence itself carries a fee of VT 1,000,000, payable on grant and again annually on renewal. Club gaming under the Gaming (Control) Act [Cap 172] applies a 30% gross-profit duty to Public Clubs and a 7.5% gross-profit duty to Private Clubs, the latter attracting a 10% per month penalty for late payment, with monthly returns required across both club categories.