Mexico Online Betting Permit: No Standalone License

Cost boundary

The permit application itself is free. A USD 30,000 to USD 50,000 government filing fee has no statutory basis, and there is no fixed all-in launch budget. The applicant must still fund a prize-payment bond, audited financial information, ownership and source-of-funds work, a ten-year feasibility study, the establishment, local approvals, personnel, controls, and the technical betting system. Federal participation payments are product-specific and written into the permit. SEGOB's 2026 schedule charges 1 percent of the amount wagered on national or foreign sporting events through off-track books. Other products use different bases and rates, including 1 percent, 2 percent, or 4 percent. These charges are not a universal 1 to 2 percent of NGR. Private acquisition, platform, advisory, or legacy operator commercial terms are not government fees and have no fixed benchmark.

Process timing

The maximum resolution period is three months, the authority has one month to request missing information, and no decision means negative administrative silence. The Federal Administrative Procedure Law also uses three months as the default maximum unless another general rule provides a different period. SEGOB may examine the file and request clarification before deciding. No practical median is established. The three-month period is the legal response window for a complete filing, not a guaranteed approval date. Commercial 3-to-8-month and 12-to-18-month estimates are not regulatory service levels.

Tax / revenue model

The federal IEPS rate for games with bets and draws is 50 percent from January 1, 2026. For the ordinary Mexican route, the statutory base starts with amounts received or total wagers and allows properly recorded prizes actually paid and qualifying refunds to reduce the base. For Internet or electronic games supplied by a foreign resident without a permanent establishment in Mexico, the new rule expressly uses all amounts received from participants with no deduction. That foreign-provider tax rule does not create permission to offer gambling without SEGOB authorization. Qualifying taxpayers may reduce IEPS by federal participation payments already paid and by state gaming taxes, but the state-tax reduction cannot exceed one fifth of federal IEPS. State gaming and prize taxes vary. A Mexican company also pays 30 percent corporate income tax on taxable profit. Federal income tax on prizes from games with bets is generally 1 percent of the total amount distributed among winning tickets and is withheld by the payer. IEPS, corporate tax, player withholding, federal participation, and state taxes are separate obligations.

Applicant / local requirements

The permit applicant must be a commercial company incorporated under Mexican law, registered for federal tax, and represented through a properly documented legal representative. The regulation requires full shareholder and ultimate-beneficiary disclosure, source-of-funds and asset evidence, audited financial statements, governance information, a ten-year financial study, the exact establishment location, a favorable opinion from the relevant state and municipal authority, an operating plan, an investment plan, staffing projections, and technical and security controls. The legal representative does not have to be a Mexican resident. The Foreign Investment Law generally permits foreign investment in any proportion unless an activity is specifically restricted, and gambling is not a reserved or capped sector. No general Mexican-shareholder quota applies, but that does not bypass permit review, ownership reporting, low-tax-jurisdiction restrictions, or change-of-control review. Internet betting requires internal transaction controls and prior SEGOB approval of the capture mechanics.

Term / continuation

Current Article 33 gives remote betting center and number-draw permits an initial term of one to fifteen years. It expressly allows later extensions of up to fifteen years when the permit holder is current on all obligations. The 2023 transition created narrower exceptions. Legacy activities outside the reformed framework can be capped at fifteen nonextendable years, and a legacy operator's rights continue only until the original permit expires, without including an extension. That transition is not a rule that every post-2023 permit is nonrenewable. Permits remain nontransferable and cannot be pledged, assigned, sold, or commercialized.

The Federal Gaming and Raffles Law enacted on December 31, 1947 remains the current statute and has not been amended. The regulation was last reformed on November 16, 2023. That reform moved new permits to one establishment, reduced the maximum initial term to fifteen years, repealed the separate operator provision, removed slot-machine draw provisions, and created legacy transition rules. In August 2024, binding regional jurisprudence held that already authorized operators may obtain suspension in an indirect amparo against specified parts of the reform. That is interim, claimant-specific relief, not a general annulment. A July 2025 AML reform set gambling identification and notice thresholds at 325 and 645 daily UMA. The November 2025 IEPS reform raised the gambling rate to 50 percent from January 1, 2026 and expressly reached foreign Internet providers. On July 3, 2026, the federal records contained 39 numbered permit-holder entries and 136 websites with individual statuses, including operating, suspended, temporarily down, and no operations.