PAGCOR Domestic e-Games: No Offshore Route

Cost boundary

For a Standard Gaming License, the official application fee is PHP 300,000 for Traditional Bingo, Electronic Bingo, or Electronic Casino Games, with a three-year initial term. It is PHP 200,000 for Sports Betting, Specialty Games, Numeric Games, or Online Poker, with a two-year initial term. The standard renewal fee is PHP 200,000 for a two-year renewal. The operator must also post a Performance Cash Deposit for each standard game offering: PHP 500,000 for Traditional Bingo, PHP 1,000,000 for Electronic Bingo, PHP 500,000 for Electronic Casino Games, PHP 200,000 for Sports Betting, PHP 100,000 for Specialty Games, PHP 200,000 for Numeric Games, and PHP 200,000 for Online Poker. The UGL application fee is PHP 1,200,000 for three years and the renewal fee is PHP 800,000 for two years. Its framework requires one Performance Cash Deposit per venue, but the current UGL fee annex does not publish a separate flat UGL deposit amount and states that other regulatory charges follow the standard-license schedule. Incorporation, the physical venue, local permits, systems, testing, staff, professional advice, and compliance are additional. Do not add GSA requirements to every operator budget: a separate GSA applicant pays PHP 5,000,000 per game offering and has separate capital, bank-certification, and cash-deposit requirements.

Process timing

No standard end-to-end decision time applies. In the standard venue process, a complete site application is evaluated first. After PAGCOR's payment notice, the applicant has seven business days to pay the initial PHP 50,000 portion of the application fee. After a favorable site inspection, the applicant has 30 days to submit the remaining pre-approval documents and fee, unless an extension is requested. The file then goes to the PAGCOR Board, followed by venue build-out, system testing, final inspection, posting of the required deposit, and issuance of a Notice to Commence. Those seven-day and 30-day periods are applicant deadlines, not PAGCOR approval service levels. A three-to-six-month estimate is not a regulatory service level.

Tax / revenue model

The current monetary stack is not a universal 30% tax. PAGCOR's share is 30% of GGR for Electronic Casino Games and RNG-based Specialty or Numeric Games, 25% for Electronic Bingo, 20% for Traditional Bingo from January 2026, 15% for live sports, live-streamed Specialty or Numeric Games, and 15% of the specified collections for Online Poker. Virtual Sports remains at 30%. An additional audit fee equal to 10% of the PAGCOR share applies to online and most other covered operations under the current framework. A qualifying licensed integrated resort may use a separate maximum 22% rate for Electronic Casino and RNG-based games, exclusive of the 5% franchise tax and subject to the framework's investment, system, and GSA conditions; that is not the standard operator rate. Gaming income of PAGCOR licensees and contractees is separately subject to a 5% franchise tax in lieu of other national and local taxes on that gaming income. The franchise tax and PAGCOR license fee are different obligations. Non-gaming and related-service income is subject to the applicable corporate income tax, VAT, and incentive rules, so a blanket 25% non-gaming rate is not defensible.

Applicant / local requirements

The gaming-venue applicant must be a corporation registered with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission. Its articles must include gaming as a primary or secondary business purpose, foreign ownership must comply with the applicable Foreign Investment Negative List, and the standard application framework requires at least PHP 5,000,000 authorized capital and PHP 3,000,000 paid-up capital. It needs a real approved gaming venue, a local business permit, compliant site location and layout, local operating staff with Gaming Employment Licenses where required, player registration controls, surveillance, and a PAGCOR-accredited Gaming System Administrator. Online operations cannot start before the physical venue has commenced operations. The PHP 25,000,000 paid-up capital figure belongs to the separate GSA accreditation, not to every venue operator. A GSA needs PHP 100,000,000 authorized capital, PHP 25,000,000 paid-up capital, a PHP 50,000,000 bank certification, and a Philippine SEC registration. Its EGS servers may be placed in a Tier 1 data center in the Philippines or use cloud computing services; the manual does not support the blanket claim that every operator server must be physically hosted in the Philippines. Live-dealer studios used for the covered game offerings must be located in the Philippines.

Term / continuation

A standard initial license lasts three years for Traditional Bingo, Electronic Bingo, and Electronic Casino Games, and two years for Sports Betting, Specialty Games, Numeric Games, and Online Poker. Standard renewals run for two years. A new UGL lasts three years and renews for two years. The operator must submit the renewal request no later than 30 days before expiration and remain compliant with its business permit, minimum terminal requirements, site inspection, outstanding obligations, and current Performance Cash Deposit. The online channel does not have a separate license term from its underlying venue authorization.

Executive Order No. 74 required complete cessation of POGO, IGL, and other offshore gaming operations by December 31, 2024. The surviving electronic-gaming framework is limited to the local or domestic market. Current PAGCOR share rates took effect in November 2025 and January 2026. BSP Memorandum M-2025-029 required supervised payment institutions to remove in-app links and redirects to gambling sites in August 2025; it did not order a blanket disconnection of e-wallet payment transactions from licensed gambling operators. After two deferrals, the GSA minimum guaranteed fee began on July 1, 2026: PHP 9,000,000 per month for a GSA offering Electronic Casino Games and PHP 3,000,000 without Electronic Casino Games, assessed against the applicable percentage-based amount. From January 1, 2027, those figures rise to PHP 10,500,000 and PHP 4,000,000. The Unified Gaming License took effect on July 2, 2026 exclusively for land-based gaming venue operators, not online gaming operators. From July 13, 2026, cancellation or revocation of a GSA or B2B accreditation triggers prescribed post-operational steps, generally due within 90 days, including system deactivation, notices, document submission, and cash-deposit reconciliation.