How does a gambling supplier obtain a B2B license in Romania? Identify the exact regulated activity, confirm that the applicant entity qualifies, prepare the corporate and activity-specific dossier, file it with the National Gambling Office (ONJN) and meet the conditions for issuance. The license is the ONJN Class 2 license under OUG 77/2009 and HG 111/2016. For one category it costs €45,500 in year one (€10,500 issuance fee, €20,000 license fee and €15,000 responsible-gambling contribution) and €35,000 a year after, runs for 10 years and takes about two to three months on a prepared file.
The difference between the two Romanian classes is who deals with the player. Class 1 is for operators that organize gambling; Class 2 is for the suppliers behind them. A Class 2 license is not permission to run a casino or sportsbook. For the full fee table and document checklist, see our Romania Class 2 (B2B) license page; for both classes side by side, the Romania gambling license overview. For how both classes are verified in ONJN’s registers, see what is the ONJN license.
Romania Class 2 license: 2026 at a glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Oficiul Național pentru Jocuri de Noroc (ONJN) |
| Legal basis | OUG 77/2009, as amended; HG 111/2016 |
| Duration | 10 years, subject to continuing compliance |
| Issuance fee (taxa de eliberare a licenței) | €10,500, one-off |
| Annual license fee | €20,000 per category |
| Responsible-gambling contribution | €15,000 a year |
| Year one, statutory | €45,500 |
| Each later year, statutory | €35,000 |
| GGR tax or financial guarantee | None for Class 2 |
| Permission to offer gambling to players | No (that is Class 1) |
| Typical timeline | 2–3 months; ONJN decides within 30 days of a complete file |
Statutory amounts for one licensed category, not an all-in quote. Additional categories, professional fees, translations, laboratory testing, staff and tax add to the cost. Check payment instructions with ONJN on the filing date.
Why the license matters
Romania is a fully regulated market. A Class 1 operator may contract only with Class 2 holders, so without the license you cannot sell to any Romanian-licensed casino or sportsbook. The ONJN register showed 413 Class 2 license rows held by about 355 companies on 5 October 2026, against 28 Class 1 rows: most of the market’s suppliers already hold one.
The license also carries weight outside Romania. It is issued by an EU member-state regulator at a fixed cost, with no tax on revenue, and payment providers and tier-one platforms read it as evidence that the supplier has passed fit-and-proper checks and is supervised. Two cautions from earlier versions of this guide still stand: the license does not exempt a foreign company from tax, and it does not by itself open bank, payment-institution or crypto accounts; each institution runs its own due diligence.
1. Who needs a Romanian B2B gambling license?
ONJN licenses activity categories, not products. The Class 2 categories include:
- production and distribution of gambling software, including transmission of live-casino images;
- management of platforms and hosting, including remote-gambling integration platforms and data centers;
- production, distribution, repair and maintenance of gaming equipment, including import, export and intra-EU trade;
- payment processing;
- affiliate activity (see Class 2 for affiliates and affiliate opportunities with Romanian licensed operators);
- certification, audit and conformity assessment.
Not every company that invoices a gambling operator needs a Class 2 license. An office supplier, a general consultancy or a software business outside the statutory descriptions is assessed on what it actually does, not on who its clients are. Equally, a label such as “gaming tech” is no substitute for mapping each revenue stream to a legal category.
2. Map the exact regulated activity
Document what the company supplies, who uses it, whether it provides player-facing functionality, whether it processes gambling payments, and which legal entities contract with each other. List game content, platform integrations, hosting, geo-controls and subcontracted services separately.
Each category is a separate license with its own fees. An aggregator that also hosts and processes payments may need three, and adding a category later means a new application. Conversely, an affiliate should not assume it carries the same technical duties as a platform host.
3. Choose the entity that will hold the license
You can apply through a Romanian company or, if your existing company is established in the EU, the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, through that company. OUG 82/2023 requires Class 1 operators to be Romanian companies or EU/EEA/Swiss entities with a Romanian permanent establishment; for Class 2, an EU, EEA or Swiss supplier may hold the license in its own name with no permanent establishment. It must have local representation: an authorized representative in Romania, a Romanian address and a power of attorney before ONJN. It also registers with ANAF for a Romanian tax identification code, using form 015 under art. 82 of the Fiscal Procedure Code, so that it can pay fees to the state budget.
Suppliers from outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland (UK, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Curaçao and similar) apply through a Romanian company or an EU, EEA or Swiss entity; see our Class 2 company formation guide. The trade-offs are covered in Class 2 for resident and non-resident companies: a Romanian company costs more to run but makes local banking, hiring and audits simpler, while a direct EU, EEA or Swiss holder is faster to set up but must manage permanent-establishment risk.
Licensing does not decide tax. Romanian taxable presence, VAT, withholding tax and cross-border services need their own analysis, done before the structure is fixed.
4. Build a dossier ONJN can check
Documents depend on the activity and the applicant. A starting checklist:
- Current company registration and constitutional documents, including legal representatives.
- Shareholders with 5% or more, ultimate beneficial owners and directors, with identity documents.
- Criminal-record certificates from each country of residence, proof of good reputation and relevant expertise.
- A detailed description of the products, services and contracting structure.
- Financial, technical and supplier documentation.
- Category-specific certification or testing: software and content suppliers need certificates from an accredited laboratory recognized by ONJN, registration of the games or systems supplied, and evidence of IP ownership (we usually register proprietary software with ORDA, the Romanian Copyright Office).
- Data-protection, security, business-continuity and risk-management records, and an AML framework that matches the entity’s actual status under Law 129/2019.
- Apostilles, certified translations into Romanian and representation documents.
Not every supplier needs the same certificates, source-code submissions or player-level AML controls: a laboratory, an affiliate and a payment processor do different things and are regulated accordingly. Name a person responsible for compliance and for the Class 2 obligations, with authority to stop a client integration. For a small studio this is often a director; for a platform or payment provider, a dedicated officer. ONJN will ask who it is during review and at every inspection.
5. The application, step by step
On a prepared file the project takes about two to three months:
- Week 1: scope and eligibility. Activity categories, holding entity, fit-and-proper pre-screening and a gap list. Anyone with a past sanction or an unclear source of funds is raised now, not discovered by ONJN.
- Weeks 2–6: dossier. Corporate, ownership and personal files; policies; technical documentation; translations and apostilles. Check that the applicant’s name is identical across contracts and certificates.
- Weeks 6–7: filing. Submission to ONJN through the representative.
- Weeks 7–11: review. ONJN examines the file and asks questions. It must decide within 30 days of a complete file, and silence is not approval.
- Around week 12: issuance. Fees are paid using ONJN’s official instructions and the company appears on the Class 2 register, which operators check before integrating. A filed dossier is not a license: do not supply regulated services before issuance.
Delays almost always come from the applicant’s side: a laboratory certificate that is not ready, a criminal-record certificate that has expired, or a translation that does not match the original. Start the laboratory work first. No adviser can guarantee approval or a decision date.
6. The full cost, not just the headline
| Charge | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Issuance fee (taxa de eliberare a licenței) | €10,500 | Once |
| License fee | €20,000 | Every year |
| Responsible-gambling contribution | €15,000 | Every year |
| Year 1 total | €45,500 | |
| Year 2 onward | €35,000 a year | |
| Other costs | Company, translations, testing, staff, advisers, banking, tax | As incurred |
There is no file-analysis fee (the €3,500 fee applies only to Class 1), no GGR-based tax and no financial guarantee for Class 2. A pure Class 2 supplier does not pay the Class 1 authorization fee on gambling revenue just because it earns service fees from operators. The €10,500 is the issuance fee and should not be quoted as the whole price of the license. Each additional category carries its own fees.
7. What changed in 2024–2026
- Law 107/2024 (in force 28 April 2024) prohibits Class 2 holders from serving operators that accept Romanian players without a Class 1 license. Breaches are fined RON 150,000–200,000, the proceeds are confiscated and the license is revoked. See the Class 2 supplier ban.
- Law 141/2025 (in force 28 July 2025) added duties for licensees in three categories: specialized gambling software, platform management and hosting, and payment processing. They must detect player location independently, block participants who reach them through an operator without a Class 1 license, and report to ONJN. Since 18 December 2025 (Law 239/2025) the blocking trigger refers to access from Romanian territory.
- Two separate reports. An on-request report lists the countries players reach the supplier’s system from and the operators giving access to Romanian players. A monthly report, due by the 10th for the previous month, lists the participants blocked and the domains, platforms and apps involved. Neither applies automatically to affiliates, equipment suppliers or laboratories. Details in our Class 2 reporting guide.
- Class 2 fees did not change. The Class 1 authorization fee rose to 30% of GGR.
- Enforcement is routine. ONJN reported about 3,500 inspections of online operators and about 500 inspections of other associated entities between April 2025 and April 2026.
8. Staying compliant after approval
The license is not a certificate to frame and forget. Track the annual payments, product and contract changes, beneficial ownership and management changes, certifications and, where they apply, the technical reports. Significant changes must be notified to ONJN under art. 12(2) of OUG 77/2009 within 48 hours or five working days depending on the change, a duty separate from the monthly report, with fines of RON 20,000–40,000 under art. 22(1).
Keep a compliance calendar with each obligation, its legal basis, the person responsible, the evidence kept and the escalation route, and keep records of client checks, permitted domains, location-detection events, blocks and reports. Review new customers and business-model changes before signing. Representation matters too: the license runs for 10 years, and a gap in representation is one of the easiest ways to miss a deadline. More in keeping a Class 2 license compliant and commercially viable; the dates themselves are in the Romania gambling compliance calendar.
9. Common mistakes
- Misclassifying the activity, or licensing one category when the business needs two.
- Incorporating a new company before checking whether the existing EU, EEA or Swiss entity could apply directly.
- Quoting €10,500 as the price of the license.
- Assuming every supplier needs the same controls, or that none of the 2025 duties apply.
- Supplying operators without checking their Class 1 status.
- Treating a foreign gambling license as permission for the Romanian market.
A reliable application starts with legal classification and ends with an auditable file, not with a promise of guaranteed approval.
Work with Szilaghi Consulting
Founded by Alex Szilaghi, licensing gambling businesses since 2004, Szilaghi Consulting has helped 38+ B2B clients get licensed in Romania. We map your activities to Class 2 categories, choose the holding entity, prepare and file the dossier and represent suppliers before ONJN for the life of the license. See our gambling consulting and licensing services, or book a free fit call for a Class 2 feasibility review.
Regulatory review: 25 October 2026. Category, documents, amounts and obligations must be checked against the law and ONJN requirements for each applicant. This is general information, not a legal opinion for a particular business.
