Ontario Gaming License

Cost boundary

The AGCO fee is CAD 100,000 per distinct gaming site per year. An applicant may select a one- or two-year registration term and pays the fee matching that term. Registration fees are non-refundable and HST does not apply to them. AGCO may also recover reasonable investigation costs and warns that additional regulatory cost recovery may apply. Annual gaming-related supplier fees are CAD 15,000 for a Manufacturer and CAD 3,000 for Other. AGCO does not publish an all-in operator budget or fixed ITL, legal, integration, or iGO onboarding price.

Process timing

iGaming Ontario says operators should expect a minimum of 90 days to complete AGCO registration and execute the iGO Operating Agreement. The AGCO registration step alone takes at least two months after a complete iAGCO application and fee payment. Several of the seven iGO steps and seven AGCO steps can overlap, but ITL capacity, supplier readiness, control implementation, AML and financial submissions, systems and data testing, technology confirmation, and the final Operating Agreement can extend the schedule. No official three-to-six-month completion range is published.

Tax / revenue model

The principal gaming-economics payment is contractual, not an AGCO tax. iGO's 2024–25 audited statements say operators remit wagers less winnings and eligible deductions to iGO, which pays 80 percent of gaming revenue back to each operator as variable compensation. iGO presents the remaining approximately 20 percent as its share of adjusted gaming revenue before its operating and stakeholder expenses. Separately, CRA publishes a 15 percent federal general corporate income tax rate and an 11.5 percent Ontario higher rate for income taxable in Ontario, but tax nexus, taxable income, deductions, HST, minimum tax, and available rates or credits are entity-specific.

Applicant / local requirements

iGaming Ontario says an operator does not have to establish its business in Canada. The AGCO application still requires entity and personal disclosures, financial and tax records, a corporate schematic covering 5 percent or greater interests, foreign criminal background checks where applicable, a supplier list, a gaming-site diagram, and a Registrar's Standards gap analysis. The reviewed public entry materials do not establish a blanket exemption from server or data-location requirements, so the production architecture must be confirmed with AGCO and iGO.

Term / continuation

AGCO internet gaming registrations may use a one- or two-year term, with CAD 100,000 per gaming site payable for each year. AGCO normally sends a reminder 60 days before expiry. The renewal application and fee must arrive by the expiry date; an expired registration cannot be renewed and the operator cannot continue operating without a valid registration. The iGO Operating Agreement has its own term, continuation, suspension, and exit rules, which are not fully public.

The iGaming Ontario Act came into force on May 12, 2025 and made iGO a standalone Crown agency rather than an AGCO subsidiary. BetGuard, the centralized self-exclusion system for all regulated Ontario online gaming sites, launched on May 14, 2026. Although a majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal found the proposed international-liquidity model lawful in November 2025, current iGO guidance still prohibits liquidity pools involving play outside Ontario and the issue is under active appeal in Supreme Court docket 42141.