The Anjouan forex licence — what the evidence actually shows
Anjouan is marketed as one of the cheapest and fastest forex licences available. Before treating it as a licence at all, three things are worth establishing: which authority issues it, under which law, and where the register of licensees is published. For Anjouan financial services, none of the three could be answered. What does exist, and functions with visible apparatus, is an internet gaming regime — which is a different thing entirely.
What could be established, and what could not
Every other jurisdiction page on this site lists capital, fees and timelines from the regulator's own rules. This one cannot, and the reason is the finding.
Supervisory authority
Claimed: Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority (AOFA). No enabling statute, no published register of financial services licensees, and no fee schedule could be located. The Central Bank of the Comoros supervises banking at Union level.
Legal basis
None identified. No act, ordinance or regulation is cited on any Anjouan licensing site for financial services activity.
- Issuing authority
- Named as AOFA, but not evidencedThe AOFA presence consists of promotional text describing itself as trustworthy and respected. No constituting instrument, no board, no supervisory rules and no contact with a government domain were found.
- Enabling law
- Not publishedEvery credible licensing regime names its statute. Seychelles cites the Securities Act 2007; Mauritius the Securities Act 2005; Labuan the LFSSA 2010. Anjouan cites nothing.
- Register of licensees
- None for financial servicesA gaming register exists on the gaming authority's site. There is no equivalent for forex or financial services, so a counterparty cannot verify that a claimed licence exists.
- Minimum capital
- Not published
- Application and annual fees
- Not publishedThe agent site states only that fees are 'competitive and reasonable'.
- Processing time
- 4–6 weeks claimed for gamingClaimed by a private agent, for gaming licences, without reference to any authority's service standard.
- Local substance
- Not stated
- Central bank position
- April 2014: no offshore financial licences issuedThe Central Bank of the Comoros stated that to that date no licence had been delivered for offshore financial activities on any island of the Union.
- Regime history
- Cancelled in 2005, ceased after 2008Over 300 offshore banking licences were issued in the early 2000s; all pre-2005 licences were cancelled and the regime effectively stopped operating after summer 2008.
- What does exist
- An internet gaming regime with visible apparatusPublic register, enforcement policy, certificate verification and licensing due diligence pages, with stated regulatory scope 'Internet Gaming'.
This snapshot is the result of a search for primary sources, not a summary of one. If you hold or are offered documentation that answers these questions, it would be worth reviewing — that is a genuine invitation, not a rhetorical one.
How to test whether a licence is a licence
Anjouan is a useful worked example of a check that applies to any jurisdiction being offered to you cheaply. Four questions, all answerable in minutes for a real regime.
- Which authority issues it? A real regime names a body with a constituting instrument, a board and a government contact point — not a brand with an About page.
- Under which law? Name the act or ordinance and its year. Every regime on this site can be cited: Securities Act 2007 (Seychelles), Securities Act 2005 (Mauritius), LFSSA 2010 (Labuan), Financial Dealers Licensing Act (Vanuatu), Law 165(I)/2021 (Cyprus).
- Where is the register? If a counterparty cannot look your licence up, it cannot function as a licence in the eyes of a bank, an acquirer or a liquidity provider.
- What are the published fees and capital? A regime that will not state its own price list has not published its rules.
- Applied to Anjouan financial services, all four questions come back empty. Applied to Anjouan gaming, the first, third and fourth have answers.
The absence of answers is not proof that nothing exists. It does mean the burden of proof sits with whoever is selling the licence, and that no bank or payment provider is likely to accept it without those answers either.
The specific risk of describing this as regulation
The practical exposure here is not that the licence is weak. It is that presenting it to clients as regulatory authorisation may be a misstatement, and that the people who check are increasingly the ones who control your revenue.
- Payment providers and acquirers ask for the regulator, the statute and the register entry as standard onboarding questions. An arrangement that cannot answer them fails due diligence regardless of price.
- Liquidity providers apply the same test, and a broker without liquidity has no product.
- Telling retail clients they are dealing with a regulated firm, where the regulation cannot be evidenced, is the kind of statement consumer regulators pursue — in the client's jurisdiction, not in Anjouan.
- The Comoros licensing history is a matter of public record: mass cancellation in 2005, the regime lapsing after 2008, and the central bank stating in 2014 that no offshore financial licences had been issued. That record is what a counterparty finds when it looks.
- None of this applies to the gaming regime, which has a register and published enforcement. Do not carry a conclusion about one across to the other in either direction.
What an Anjouan arrangement does and does not give you
Assessed against what a licence is normally expected to do for a brokerage.
Covered by this licence
- A company incorporated in a real jurisdictionComoros company registration is genuine; the Union recognises non-financial companies
- An internet gaming licence with a verifiable register entryThrough the gaming authority, for gaming activity only
Not covered — separate licence required
- A verifiable forex or financial services licenceNo register, statute or fee schedule for financial services was found
- A supervisory authority that publishes rules you can comply withNone identified for financial services
- Standing with banks, acquirers or liquidity providersCounterparty due diligence asks the same four questions above
- Any market access to the EEA, UK, US, Canada, Japan or AustraliaAs with every offshore route — those markets require their own authorisation
- A defence to a regulator asking who authorised youAn unverifiable licence is not a defence
What to do instead
If Anjouan came onto your shortlist because of price and speed, these are the routes that actually deliver on that brief while being verifiable.
Establish what your model actually is
1 weekWhether you deal as principal or purely as intermediary determines the licence more than any jurisdiction choice does. Get this in writing before comparing prices.
If you need the cheapest genuine licence — Vanuatu
1–3 monthsA Financial Dealers Licence costs VT 50,000 to apply and VT 100,000 for the licence, with no fixed expiry. It has a named statute, a regulator that publishes guidelines, and a supervision department you can contact.
Filing: Financial Dealers Licensing Act
If you need a published capital figure — Seychelles
30 working days plus preparationUS$100,000 paid-up capital, US$3,000 to apply, US$6,000 annually, and a published 30 working day service standard. Counterparties can verify all of it.
Filing: Securities Act 2007
If you need standing with banks — Mauritius
2–4 monthsMUR 1,000,000 for a Full Service Dealer, a treaty network, and a regulator with published rules and fee schedules.
Filing: Securities Act 2005
If your clients are in the EEA — Cyprus
Up to 6 months plus preparationThe only route here that lawfully reaches European retail clients. No offshore licence substitutes for it, whatever it costs.
Filing: Law 165(I)/2021 implementing MiFID II
If you are actually looking at gaming
Separate assessmentAnjouan does have an internet gaming regime with a public register and enforcement apparatus. That is a separate question from forex and is worth assessing on its own terms.
Who this page is for
This is the only page in the cluster that recommends against its own jurisdiction. It exists because the search demand is real and the honest answer is not published anywhere else.
Best for
- Anyone who has been quoted an Anjouan forex licence and wants to know what they would be buying.
- Operators comparing cheap jurisdictions who need the test for distinguishing a licence from a company registration.
- Businesses whose payment provider has queried an Anjouan entity and who need to understand the objection.
- Gaming operators who arrived here by mistake — the gaming regime is a separate and more substantial matter.
Not for
- Anyone looking for a step-by-step Anjouan forex application. There is no evidenced process to describe.
- Operators who have already concluded that unverifiable regulation is acceptable — nothing here will change that, and the page is not written to argue with it.
Verifiable alternatives at the same end of the market
Each of these has a named statute, a published fee schedule and a regulator that can be contacted.
The cheapest genuine licence in this cluster — VT 50,000 to apply, VT 100,000 for the licence, no fixed expiry.
A published US$100,000 capital figure and a 30 working day service standard that counterparties can check.
Better standing with banks and a treaty network, at MUR 1,000,000 capital.
The full comparison, including which jurisdictions are not licences at all.
Anjouan forex licensing — frequently asked questions
No evidence of one could be found. There is no published statute, no register of financial services licensees, no capital requirement and no fee schedule. The authority named by intermediaries, the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority, presents only promotional text with no constituting instrument. What does exist and functions is an internet gaming regime, which is a different regulatory scope entirely.
Because they are separate regimes with separate apparatus. The gaming authority publishes a licensee register, an enforcement policy, certificate verification and due diligence standards, and states its regulatory scope as internet gaming. None of that infrastructure exists for financial services. The existence of a working gaming regime says nothing about forex, and conflating the two is how the confusion starts.
Anjouan licensed more than 300 offshore banks in the early 2000s. In 2005 new laws cancelled all licences issued before that date, and the regime effectively ceased operating after summer 2008. In April 2014 the Central Bank of the Comoros stated that to that date no licence had been delivered for offshore financial activities on any island of the Union. Non-financial companies registered there retain legal recognition.
Four questions: which authority issues it, under which act or ordinance and from which year, where the public register entry can be viewed, and what the published capital and fee schedule are. For Seychelles, Mauritius, Vanuatu, Labuan and Cyprus all four have documented answers. Ask for them in writing before paying anything, and ask your prospective payment provider whether it accepts the answer.
Onboarding due diligence asks for the regulator, the legal basis and the register entry as a matter of routine. An arrangement that cannot supply them typically fails that review, and this is the constraint that ends most such projects — well before any regulator becomes involved.
Because the search demand exists and the honest answer does not appear anywhere in the results. Every page ranking for this query is written by someone selling the licence. If the conclusion turns out to be wrong — if there is a statute and a register we could not locate — we would rather be corrected and update the page than leave a misleading one up.
This page reports the outcome of a documented search for primary sources conducted on 24 July 2026, not a legal opinion on Comorian law. It states what could and could not be located. If primary-source documentation of an Anjouan financial services licensing regime exists, we will review it and revise accordingly.