What does the licence
actually cost — and how long?
The application fee is the smallest number. Model the real Total Cost of Licensing — legal, compliance build, substance, and year-1 supervision — plus an indicative timeline, across the EEA jurisdictions we work in. Capital floor is shown separately because it is locked up, not spent. Directional bands only.
● Bank of Lithuania — The EEA volume processor — fastest mainstream route, deep fintech onboarding muscle, mid-cost.
Custody raises controls, technical, and insurance burden. Already included for CASP Class 3 — toggling adds it on top of any other class.
Drives the substance line. The home-state NCA reads minimum local headcount as a core authorisation test.
Dataset version 2026-06-02. No data is sent or stored. Computation runs locally. Bands are indicative, not a quote.
Programme of Operations, governance pack, risk register, application liaison. Scaled by Lithuania cost index 1.00.
AML/CFT framework, transaction-monitoring and screening tooling, DORA ICT-risk uplift, policy suite.
Local management, MLRO, and 6 initial FTE. Substance scales with headcount and Lithuania cost of operating.
Annual supervisory fees, external audit, regulatory reporting, and the year-1 portion of ongoing operating cost.
Own-funds the firm must hold — separate from the year-1 spend above. Not a cost; a balance-sheet lock-up.
- Capital floor (€125,000) is regulatory minimum own-funds — it is locked up, not "spent". It is shown separately and excluded from the year-1 project band above. Model the capital number precisely with the Capital Floor Calculator.
- Timeline is application-to-authorisation only and depends on documentation quality, governance readiness, and Bank of Lithuania responsiveness — not on cost. Real-world readiness slippage is the single biggest driver of the upper band.
- Bands exclude finconduit fees and any third-party costs (translation, regulator-mandated experts, banking-relationship setup, local agent charges).
- Use the EEA Jurisdiction Comparator for a feature-by-feature read and the Substance Calculator to size the substance line against the home-state NCA.
For orientation only — not financial, legal, regulatory, or investment advice. Outputs are directional and based on generalised inputs. Decisions should be taken only after consultation with a qualified adviser on your specific facts — book the full assessment before acting on anything you read here.
Numbers shown exclude finconduit fees and any third-party costs (legal, audit, regulator-mandated experts, banking-relationship fees, document-translation, ongoing supervisory levies, or local agent / service-provider charges). Real-world authorisation budgets typically exceed the headline regulator-side numbers by a meaningful multiple.