A licensing window that never closed
In October 2018, Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) opened a two-week window for news websites to apply for the operating license newly required under Law No. 180 of 2018 on Press, Media and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation. Eight years later, some of the country's best-known independent outlets are still waiting for an answer.
A new report from the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), Unlicensed Websites: Digital Media Under Political Control, published August 16, 2026, tracks five independent Egyptian outlets — Mada Masr, Al-Manassa, Al-Sulta Al-Rabi'a, Fikr Tani and Masr 360 — through two rounds of interviews with their managers, in June 2023 and again in June 2026. The pattern it documents is not bureaucratic backlog. It is selective, multi-year non-decision.
The legal architecture
Law 180/2018 requires anyone operating a news website, or a social media account with more than 5,000 followers, to obtain a license from the SCMR before publishing, backed by a EGP 50,000 application fee, according to a 2019 brief from the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP). Operating without one exposes a site to Article 105 of the law, which AFTE's report notes carries closure, confiscation of equipment, and fines.
That licensing requirement sits awkwardly against Egypt's own 2014 Constitution. Article 70 guarantees that newspapers and digital outlets "may be issued once notification is given as regulated by law" — a notification system, not a permission system. AFTE's report argues Law 180/2018 inverted that guarantee: "establishing websites became dependent on obtaining administrative approval rather than simple notification."
What the data actually shows
The scale of the backlog has been visible since early implementation. An earlier AFTE study found that roughly 150 sites applied between October 2018 and January 2019; by 2021, the SCMR had approved only 40, leaving 110 applications neither accepted nor formally rejected. The 2026 report shows the SCMR has since released approvals in scattered, unexplained batches — 78 at one point, 100 at another, 21 in July 2025, 5 in August 2025, 10 in April 2026 — without ever publishing comprehensive figures on total applications, rejections, or the reasons behind them.
Against that opacity, AFTE's five case studies show three distinct outcomes. Mada Masr was rejected in May 2023, and its editor has since been charged with operating without a license on three separate occasions. Fikr Tani was rejected in September 2024 over vague concerns about "advertising, funding, and security." Al-Manassa's application has been pending since the original 2018 window — more than eight years — despite resubmission, and its editor-in-chief was arrested in June 2020. Al-Sulta Al-Rabi'a and Masr 360 were both blocked in June 2023, with licensing status cited as the justification; Al-Sulta Al-Rabi'a finally obtained a license in January 2026, while Masr 360's status remained unresolved as of that month.
"The licensing system is not administered merely as a neutral regulatory procedure. Rather, its practical application reflects a stark disparity between entities that obtain licenses and independent journalism websites whose applications remain pending or are rejected." — AFTE, August 2026
Steelmanning the regulator's case
Egypt is not wrong that digital news carries real governance problems the pre-2018 environment didn't handle: anonymous sites publishing unverified claims with no editorial accountability, foreign-funded influence operations disguised as local outlets, and a genuine public interest in knowing who owns and funds a news operation with mass reach. A disclosure regime — real ownership, editorial responsibility, a verifiable legal entity behind a masthead — is a legitimate, proportionate response to those problems, and plenty of democracies require something similar for broadcast media.
But Law 180/2018 does not stop at disclosure. It makes publication itself contingent on discretionary government approval, with no statutory deadline forcing a decision, and criminal penalties for publishing while a decision sits unmade. That is a different instrument entirely, and AFTE's evidence — a fee-paying applicant waiting eight years, others rejected on undefined grounds while comparable applicants are quietly approved — is exactly the failure mode critics warned licensing regimes invite: the state gets a standing veto it can leave unexercised for years, chilling investment and editorial planning without ever having to justify a formal denial.
What proportionate reform looks like
AFTE's five recommendations are the right calibration, not a call to abandon oversight: replace prior licensing with the notification system the constitution already promises, repeal Article 105's criminal penalties for unlicensed operation, impose a statutory response deadline with deemed approval on default, publish full application data, and align enforcement with the necessity and non-discrimination standards of Article 19 of the ICCPR. None of that removes Egypt's ability to require disclosure or pursue outlets that genuinely break the law. It just removes the government's ability to silence a competitor by simply declining to answer.