Nepal’s House of Representatives is debating the Tourism Bill clause by clause, and the bill has drawn 263 amendments, with the biggest concentration on casino provisions. The headline proposal is to create an independent Casino Regulatory Unit under the Department of Tourism, instead of leaving oversight with the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.
According to Asia Gaming Brief, lawmakers say the change is meant to improve oversight and tax collection on roughly six main casino operators and 17 mini-casino operations. The same package would also require ownership disclosure for any individual holding 10% or more in a licensed casino operator and would require approval for ownership transfers.
The amendments go further. Lawmakers want mandatory know-your-customer checks, real-time monitoring by the Financial Intelligence Unit, suspicious transaction reporting and a dedicated anti-money-laundering compliance officer at each casino.
Foreign ownership is also part of the dispute. The proposals under discussion range from a 49% cap on foreign ownership to a separate idea of limiting local ownership of the overall property where a casino operates to 25% to 30%. Until the bill passes, the current 90% foreign ownership rules remain in place.
The wider debate sits inside a broader tightening of Nepal’s casino rules. Authorities have recently focused on raising the capital required of operators, reinstating a 5-kilometre border requirement with allowances for businesses already established if they meet new criteria, and maintaining a foreigners-only entry rule while banning online gaming.
FIU-Nepal’s own guidance shows how far the anti-money-laundering framework has already been pushed. Its STR/SAR Guidelines were updated in July 2025, after earlier issues in 2014, 2020 and 2021, and the latest version added sector-specific red-flag indicators across casinos. The document says it is general guidance for reporting entities under Section 7(S) of ALPA, 2008, and that the list of indicators is not exhaustive.
FIU-Nepal’s annual report says the unit was established on 21 April 2008 as the focal point of Nepal’s AML regime. It receives and analyses suspicious transaction reports and other relevant information, then passes intelligence to law enforcement, but it does not have investigative or prosecutorial powers and cannot order freezes, seizures or confiscations.
The annual report also shows the scale of the reporting system in 2024/25. Entities integrated into goAML rose 113.36% to 3,497, all STRs and SARs were filed digitally, the volume of suspicious transaction and activity reports increased 30% to 9,565, and 945 financial intelligence reports were disseminated to law enforcement agencies. Nepal was placed on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring in February 2025.
A separate report on a new 12-point directive from the Department of Tourism said casinos must comply fully with the AML Act, submit AML and CFT documents regularly, use stringent KYC and biometric identification, keep CCTV footage for at least six months, and stop online or internet-based casino gaming. It also said casinos cannot handle foreign currency transactions without permission from Nepal Rastra Bank.
