Elizabeth Varley, solicitor at licensing law firm Poppleston Allen, shares a handy refresher on the UK’s statutory levy, including the who, how much, why and how to pay

Invoices are now available for payment on eServices

Invoices for the Statutory Levy are now available on the Gambling Commission’s eServices. Payment must be made by 30 September 2025.

Licensees should have been contacted to make payment via the ‘Invoices and Payments’ tab of their eServices account. For anyone who has not received any correspondence, primary contact details on your eServices account should be checked to ensure these are up to date.

As a reminder, we have outlined the basics of the levy below.

What is the levy?

Following a public consultation led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which ran from 17 October to 14 December 2023 the Government introduced a statutory levy to be charged to all licensed gambling operators, with rates set per sector/activity provided

The levy replaces the previous requirement for licensees to make annual financial contributions to a list of research, prevention and treatment organisations.

Where the total billable statutory levy value for a licensee is £10 or less for a relevant period, the licensee will not be required to pay.

The levy period

The first statutory levy period is defined in the Gambling Levy Regulations. For lottery operating (society) licences the first statutory levy period began on 1 April 2024, for all other operating licenses the first statutory levy period began on 1 July 2024. For all licensees, except society lottery operating licences, the calculation of the statutory levy will be based on Regulatory Returns data from July 2024 to March 2025 multiplied by one and one-third. For society lottery operating licences the calculation will be based on data reported to the Gambling Commission relating to 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

The statutory levy will then be invoiced on an annual basis, on 1 September, and will be based on the activity from the previous financial year. For example an invoice issued on 1 September 2026, would be the levy payable for 2026 to 2027, but would be based on regulatory return data relating to 2025 to 2026 (April 2025 to March 2026).

Payment

Invoices for the statutory levy this financial year (2024 to 2025) are now available online through eServices with full payment required before 1 October 2025, meaning payment must be made by midnight on 30 September 2025.

Payment of the statutory levy is a licence requirement, and therefore non-payment, or late payment of the statutory levy could result in operating licence revocation, unless the Gambling Commission is satisfied that this is due to administrative error.

How is the levy calculated?

The rate of the levy varies depending on the licensed activity provided, ranging from 0.1 percent to 1.1 percent: