Mozambique has no specific confirmed tax rate on sports betting winnings in 2026. The country’s 10% liberatory IRPS withholding tax applies only to payouts from lotteries, raffles, bingo and pooled betting — not to fixed-odds sports betting or casino wins, which fall outside that rate under current IRPS Code provisions.
Mozambique’s casino tax receipts fell for a second straight year in 2025, and the government has now responded with the country’s first Mozambique online gambling law 2026 reform: a dedicated regulatory framework that treats digital games of chance as their own licensing category, separate from land-based casino concessions. For operators and bettors alike, this changes who regulates what, which licences apply, and — crucially — what gets taxed where.
The Trigger: Mozambique’s Casino Tax Revenue Keeps Falling
The reform didn’t come out of nowhere. Mozambique’s Ministry of Finance collected only 54% of its projected 2025 casino gaming tax — around $4.8 million against a budgeted $8.8 million — and that figure was itself about 21% lower than the roughly $6.08 million (MZN387.7 million) collected in 2024, according to Yogonet. Officials have been explicit about the cause: players are migrating from physical casino floors to online platforms that, until now, had no clear licensing lane of their own under the country’s gambling law.
Mozambique’s Online Gambling Law 2026: What the New Regulatory Framework Actually Does
In mid-July 2026, Mozambique’s Council of Ministers approved the Regulation for the Operation and Practice of Games of Chance or Fortune Using Electronic or Computerized Means. The core change: online games of chance are now recognised as an autonomous licensing modality, distinct from the concessions granted to land-based casinos. Before this, Mozambique’s gambling law — built on Law No. 1/2010 and its implementing Decree No. 64/2010, later amended by Decree No. 4/2017 and Decree No. 65/2022 — gave online sports betting a licensing pathway, but left online casino games and other digital games of chance in a regulatory grey zone. The 2026 framework closes that gap.
Who Regulates Gambling in Mozambique? The IGJ and a Split Oversight Model
Day-to-day licensing and inspection sit with the Inspecção-Geral de Jogos (IGJ) — the General Gaming Inspection — which operates under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The IGJ handles licensing and compliance for sports betting and social/amusement games, and will be the frontline regulator for the new online games-of-chance category too. Land-based casino concessions, however, are still awarded through public tender overseen by the Minister of Tourism in coordination with the National Gaming Commission. A broader enforcement circle — INAE (the National Economic Activity Inspectorate) and the central bank — gets involved on compliance and financial-flow questions, particularly around payment rails for mobile and card-based deposits.
Licensing Requirements for Online Gambling Operators
Under the new structure, operators now face two distinct online pathways:
- Online sports betting licence — already established and functioning; there are 17 licensed sports betting operators in Mozambique, including Betway under licence No. 371/IGJ/2019.
- Online games-of-chance concession — the brand-new category created by the 2026 regulation, for online casino-style products that previously had no dedicated route to legality.
One honest caveat worth flagging: as of this reform’s rollout, the government had not yet published the minimum capital requirements, concession fees, or technical standards that will apply specifically to the new online games-of-chance licence — only the existence of the category itself has been confirmed. Operators awaiting clarity should also note that all gambling advertising in Mozambique still requires prior authorisation from the IGJ, and the regulator does not maintain a public online register of licensees, so verifying a platform’s status means cross-checking licence numbers rather than trusting a badge on a homepage.
How Mozambique Taxes Online Gambling Operators
For land-based casino concessions, the existing Special Tax on Gambling is tiered to the length of the concession: 20% of gross gaming revenue (GGR) for concessions up to 14 years, 25% up to 19 years, 30% for 20–24 years, and 35% for concessions running 25–30 years, per CMS’s expert guide to gambling law in Mozambique. Casino concessionaires additionally pay stamp duty equal to 50% of the price of admission tickets, though they’re exempt from most other taxes on gambling profits.
The new framework confirms that online operators will also pay a Special Tax on Gambling calculated on GGR — but the exact rate specific to the online category hadn’t been publicly finalised at the time of the regulation’s approval. Industry reporting treats the existing 20–35% tiered scale as the likely template, not a confirmed figure, so operators budgeting for Mozambique should treat that range as indicative rather than final. It’s a pattern playing out across the region: neighbouring South Africa is also moving to formalise online gambling taxation, as covered in our South Africa betting tax 2026 guide. Elsewhere in the region, Zambia has already codified a layered levy, excise and withholding structure for betting operators, detailed in our Zambia betting tax 2026 breakdown, while Tanzania’s regulator enforces its own GGR-based tax and licensing regime, covered in our Tanzania betting tax and gambling laws guide.
What Mozambican Players Actually Pay on Winnings
This is where a lot of confusion creeps in, and the law is more specific than it first appears. A 10% liberatory IRPS withholding tax applies to cash winnings from “jogos de diversão social” — lotteries, raffles, mutual/pooled betting, bingo, draws and contests — under articles 15(a) and 67(3)(c) of the IRPS Code, according to PwC Tax Summaries. Casino winnings and fixed-odds sports betting payouts are not on that list, so bettors shouldn’t assume every payout from a licensed sportsbook or casino carries the same 10% deduction — the liberatory rate targets a specific, narrower category of games. There’s also no separate stamp duty burden on player winnings; stamp duty attaches only to casino admission tickets, not to payouts.
What Comes Next for Mozambique’s 2026 Reform
Economy Minister Basílio Muhate has framed implementation priorities around tackling illegal, unlicensed gambling operators, strengthening IGJ inspection capacity, improving transparency, and pushing operators toward responsible-gambling commitments, particularly for younger players. None of the operational detail — online concession fees, minimum capital, technical certification standards — has a confirmed timeline yet, which means the practical rollout for online games-of-chance operators will likely stretch well into the rest of 2026. For a wider view of how other major African markets are handling similar reforms, our Nigeria vs Kenya vs Ghana betting laws comparison breaks down how three very different regulatory approaches are playing out across the continent. Readers tracking similar developments across the continent can browse our full betting law and tax coverage for more country-specific breakdowns as they’re published.
Kwame Mensah is an experienced gambling analyst focused on the African betting industry. He shares insights on sports betting, casino platforms, market trends, and responsible gaming across multiple African countries.
