Malta licenses fewer gaming companies than it did a year ago, yet it employs more people in the sector than ever. The Malta Gaming Authority’s 2025 annual report, published on 7 July 2026, counted 302 licensed companies holding 311 gaming licences at the end of 2025, down from 315 companies and 323 licences in 2024. Over the same period, employment with MGA-licensed operators rose 4.8% to 15,039 people, according to Malta Invest’s summary of the report. Consolidation at the licence level and growth in headcount point in one direction: the island is turning into a B2B technology hub rather than a flag-of-convenience for consumer brands.
The numbers behind Malta’s iGaming economy
The sector generated an estimated €1.422 billion in gross value added in 2025, roughly 6.3% of Malta’s economic output (Malta Invest, 7 August 2026). Industry body Gaming Malta puts the wider contribution, including multiplier effects, at about 8.2%. The two figures are often mixed up in marketing decks, so it helps to keep them apart: 6.3% is direct GVA, 8.2% is the knock-on estimate.
Employment splits in an interesting way. Of the 15,039 staff, around 10,115 work on activities covered by MGA licences for online operators, about 3,974 support business licensed elsewhere or related services, and roughly 950 work in land-based gaming. Counting indirect jobs, the gaming-related workforce reaches an estimated 19,150 people, about 6.5% of everyone employed in the country.
| Metric (Malta, 2025) | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed gaming companies | 302 (2024: 315) | MGA Annual Report 2025 |
| Gaming licences | 311 (2024: 323) | MGA Annual Report 2025 |
| B2B licences | 171 | Malta Invest, Aug 2026 |
| Direct employment | 15,039 (+4.8%) | Malta Invest, Aug 2026 |
| Gross value added | €1.422bn (≈6.3% of output) | Malta Invest, Aug 2026 |
Why the B2B shift matters
B2B licences reached 171 in 2025, and new licence applications rose by around 36% between 2024 and 2025, Malta Invest reported ahead of SBC Summit 2026. Platform providers, game studios, payment gateways and data companies need fewer licences per euro of revenue than consumer brands do, which explains how employment can climb while the licence count falls.
For engineers, that changes the job market. Roles are less about running a single casino brand and more about building shared infrastructure: identity verification, payments, risk scoring, content delivery and compliance reporting for dozens of operators at once. Our comparison of iGaming KYC vendors shows how much of that stack is now outsourced to specialists, many of them with Malta offices.
The technology Malta actually exports
Three layers dominate the local B2B scene. The first is aggregation: remote game servers that plug thousands of titles from different studios into an operator’s platform through a single integration. The second is risk and compliance tooling, where fraud models, sanctions screening and responsible-gaming triggers run in real time. Attackers keep testing that layer, which is why credential-stuffing defence has become a standard line item in platform contracts. The third is payments, including open-banking rails and, increasingly, crypto.
Ontario offers a useful comparison. Its regulated market handled CAD $98.3 billion in wagers in 2025, and technology suppliers followed the regulatory certainty, as we covered in why Ontario is emerging as an iGaming technology leader. Malta started that process two decades earlier, with its first remote gaming regulations in 2004, and now competes less on licensing speed and more on the depth of its supplier ecosystem.
Crypto: from the VFA Act to MiCA
Malta branded itself the “Blockchain Island” in 2018 with the Virtual Financial Assets Act, one of the first national crypto frameworks in the EU. Crypto-asset services are now governed by the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which applies directly in Malta alongside the remaining national rules. The Malta Financial Services Authority supervises crypto-asset service providers under MiCA, and the transitional period that let VFA licence holders keep operating while they sought MiCA authorisation ran until July 2026. Any operator or payment partner still quoting a VFA licence in late 2026 should be checked against the MFSA register. Stablecoin access changed along the way too: our report on USDT leaving EU exchanges explains why some gaming payment flows had to be rebuilt around MiCA-compliant tokens.
Working in Malta: permits and salaries
For developers, data engineers and compliance specialists from outside the EU, the permit route shapes the move as much as the salary does. Identità, Malta’s residence authority, runs several tracks:
- Key Employee Initiative (KEI): for roles paying at least €45,000 a year, with processing of around five working days and a €600 fee.
- Specialist Employee Initiative: a middle route for salaries from €30,000.
- Single Permit: the standard combined work and residence permit, €600 for a first application. Since 1 March 2026, first-time applicants also need a €250 pre-departure course certificate.
- Nomad Residence Permit: for remote workers employed abroad, with a gross income threshold of €42,000 a year.
Pay should be read in local context. The National Statistics Office put average basic salary at €2,282 a month in Q2 2026, and many specialist iGaming engineering roles advertise salaries well above that level. Highly qualified professionals in the sector may also qualify for Malta’s 15% flat-rate tax scheme, subject to its income threshold and eligibility rules, which change annually and should be confirmed with a tax adviser.
Non-EU candidates often need guidance in their own language. Turkish-speaking readers, for example, can find a step-by-step walkthrough of work permits, salaries and the job search in Malta Oturum’s guide to working in Malta, which also covers the country’s residence options for families.
Events and the talent pipeline
The industry’s calendar still runs through Malta. The 2025 SiGMA Europe edition drew more than 30,000 delegates from 150 countries and over 700 exhibitors and sponsors, according to Malta Invest. The conference remains the main hiring and partnership venue for B2B suppliers, and recruiters use it to fill platform, data and compliance roles before the new year.
What to watch in 2027
Three questions will decide whether the headcount keeps rising while licences fall. First, whether MiCA-authorised crypto payments grow fast enough to matter for regulated operators. Second, whether the permit system, with its new pre-departure requirement, keeps pace with demand for non-EU engineers. Third, whether B2B licence growth continues now that application volumes have jumped. The MGA’s 2026 interim figures, usually published in the second half of the year, will show which way the numbers are moving.