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Licence activities

Non-remote society lottery operating licence

Society lotteries can only be run for good causes and cannot be run for private or commercial gain. Local authorities can promote a lottery to raise funds to spend on anything where they have power to incur expenditure.

Depending on the category of licence you apply for, this lets you run a lottery with proceeds of up to £5 million for a single draw and aggregate proceeds of £50 million in a year.

Current application fees

Fee category Annual proceeds Application Fee
A1 Up to £100,000 £235
B1 £100,000 or greater, up to but excluding £500,000 £352
C1 £500,000 or greater, up to but excluding £10 million £469
D1 £10 million or greater, up to but excluding £20 million £1,340
E1 £20 million or greater, up to but excluding £30 million £2,233
E2 £30 million or greater £3,572

Current annual fees

Your first annual fee is due 30 days after your licence is issued and is reduced by 25 percent (ancillary and linked licence annual fees are not subject to this reduction).

After this, fees are due every year before the anniversary of the day your licence was issued.

Fee category Annual proceeds Application Fee
A1 Up to £100,000 £400
B1 £100,000 or greater, up to but excluding £500,000 £796
C1 £500,000 or greater, up to but excluding £10 million £1,677
D1 £10 million or greater, up to but excluding £20 million £3,350
E1 £20 million or greater, up to but excluding £30 million £5,025
E2 £30 million or greater £8,350

Ancillary activities

If you are applying for or already hold a non-remote society lottery operating licence, but want to accept payments for participation in a lottery online (or by other remote means) up to a maximum of £250,000 proceeds per annum, you can apply for an ancillary remote licence to your main licence.

If you only wish to conduct lotteries by remote means, a full remote society lottery operating licence will be required.

Ancillary remote application fee: £100
Ancillary remote annual fee: £50

Related activities


Last updated: 9 February 2023

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