FSSAI Licence Fees Guide: Cost Breakdown by Licence Type

An FSSAI licence costs between ₹100 and ₹7,500 a year. Which figure applies depends on your licence type and the kind of food business you run, not on the size of your kitchen.

A Basic Registration is ₹100 a year, a State Licence ₹2,000 to ₹5,000, and a Central Licence ₹7,500. FSSAI’s own fee schedule prints every one of those figures per annum.

That last word matters more than it used to. Licences stopped expiring in 2026, and much of the advice online now says the fee became a one-time payment. It did not.

The fee itself is rarely what catches an owner out, in our experience. Assuming it was paid once is, and this guide sets out what you actually pay by licence type and over time.

Key Takeaways

• Registration ₹100, State Licence ₹2,000 to ₹5,000, Central Licence ₹7,500. All per year.
• Perpetual validity removed the renewal form, not the annual fee.
• The fee attaches to a premises, so every outlet pays its own.
• You may pay for any number of years at once, at any point in the year.

What are FSSAI Licence Fees in 2026?

Three licence types exist, and the fee follows the type rather than the size of your kitchen.

The spread inside the State Licence band is the part most fee tables skip. It is not a negotiation or a slab based on revenue. FSSAI fixes the figure against your kind of business. A restaurant sits at a different rate from a dairy plant of the same turnover.

All of the amounts above come from FSSAI’s published fee schedule. It lists the criteria and the fee side by side for every category FSSAI recognises.

FSSAI Licence Fees by Kind of Business

Here is where the ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 band resolves into actual numbers for the businesses most readers of this blog run.

Two details in that table repay a second look. The hotel rate steps with the star rating rather than with turnover. A three star property pays ₹5,000 while an unrated hotel next door pays ₹2,000 for the same food service management activity.

The other is ₹3,000, a rate that appears nowhere except manufacturing and milling. If a consultant quotes you ₹3,000 for a restaurant, they are quoting the wrong row.

Food trucks are licensed as transporters rather than as restaurants, though the fee lands at the same ₹2,000. The food truck licence guide covers the other permits that go with it.

A handful of categories sit outside this logic entirely. Canteens run for central government agencies and food outlets on railway premises take a Central Licence at ₹2,000 rather than ₹7,500. It is the one place where the bigger licence costs less.

Which FSSAI Licence Type Applies to Your Restaurant?

Turnover decides it for most businesses, and the thresholds changed on 1 April 2026.

Those bands are far wider than the ones they replaced. A good number of outlets that sat on a State Licence now qualify for a ₹100 registration instead.

Treat them as the general test rather than the last word. Some kinds of business carry their own criteria in FSSAI’s schedule, so check your category against that document if you sit near a boundary. It is worth checking your own position rather than assuming last year’s answer still holds.

Turnover is not the only route to a Central Licence, though. These four need one whatever they earn:

• Importers and exporters, including 100% export oriented units
• E-commerce food sellers
• Any food business operating at an airport or seaport
• The head office of a business trading in two or more states

At the other end of the scale, some operators pay nothing at all. Street food vendors and hawkers are exempt from the registration fee. Vendors covered by the Street Vendors Act, 2014 also get deemed registration, so licensing never stands between them and trading.

Low-risk categories have also had access to Tatkal issuance since 28 June 2024. It shortens the wait for the licence without changing which one you need.

What a Growing Chain Pays in FSSAI Licence Fees

Because the fee attaches to a premises, the bill scales with outlets rather than with revenue. Take a QSR brand running three outlets in Tamil Nadu that opens a fourth in Bengaluru (an example).

The fourth outlet looks like a ₹2,000 decision. It is really a ₹9,500 one. Crossing a state line is what pulls the head office Central Licence into the picture for the first time.

One misreading of that rule is expensive. A head office Central Licence does not upgrade the outlets beneath it, and each site stays licensed on its own turnover.

Chains that get this wrong pay ₹7,500 per outlet where ₹2,000 was correct. On a ten-site group that is ₹55,000 a year of nothing. Keeping the numbers straight per site is part of ordinary multi-outlet management.

How Tenure Works Now That Licences Never Expire

This is the section most fee guides now get wrong, so it is worth being precise.

What Perpetual Validity Changed

The Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Amendment Regulations, 2026 were gazetted on 10 March 2026 under the Food Safety and Standards Act. Since then a licence stays valid until it is suspended, cancelled or surrendered.

The one to five year tenure you used to pick when applying no longer exists. Neither does the renewal application.

What You Still Pay Each Year

What survives is the annual fee. FSSAI’s schedule still states every amount per annum, and a licence whose fee goes unpaid is treated as suspended. A suspended business may not trade until the outstanding fee and the penalty are cleared.

So tenure has not disappeared, it has changed shape. Instead of buying a licence for three years, you buy three years of fee. FSSAI allows the fee to be paid for any number of years at once, at any point in the year. That is the nearest thing left to the old multi-year option.

The chart below shows what five years costs at each rate, on the assumption the fee is paid every year (an example).

That creates a new habit to build. Under the old system the expiry date did the reminding for you. Now nothing does, so the annual fee needs its own date alongside the rest of your FSSAI compliance checklist.

The simplest guard is to pay several years at once when cash allows. It turns a recurring task you can forget into an occasional one you cannot.

Closing a Site and Surrendering a Licence

Two rules matter when a site closes. You must tell the licensing authority in writing within 30 days of closing and surrender the licence or registration. No refund of the fee already paid is admissible when you do.

That second rule is what makes prepaying ten years on a site you might exit a decision worth weighing carefully.

Late Fees and Older Dated Licences

Licences issued before the change still carry their original expiry date. The old timing rules apply to them until they run out.

They run on a timeline, and the cost climbs at each stage.

1. The renewal window opens 180 days before expiry. Filing inside that window costs nothing extra.
2. File later than 30 days before expiry and a ₹100 per day late fee applies. The window caps it at ₹3,000. It is never charged on a Basic Registration.
3. A lapsed licence can still be renewed for 180 days after expiry. Days 1 to 90 cost three times the annual fee. Days 91 to 180 cost five times.
4. After day 180 a fresh application is the only route. At that point you are starting over, not renewing.

One condition sits outside that timeline. Pending annual return penalties must be cleared before a renewal is accepted at any stage.

Those multiples turn a small bill into a real one. A restaurant on the ₹2,000 rate that files on day 100 after expiry pays ₹10,000 for a single year (an example). That is five times what filing on time would have cost.

Everything above runs through FoSCoS, the portal that replaced FLRS. Our FoSCoS application guide walks through the screens if you are filing for the first time.

What FSSAI Licence Fees Do Not Cover

The government fee is the only statutory charge, and it is usually the smallest line in the total.

Consultants who file on your behalf charge separately, and FSSAI does not set those charges. They vary widely between agents and between cities. Ask for the government fee and the service fee as two figures before you agree to anything.

These sit outside the FSSAI fee entirely:

• Water and product testing at an accredited laboratory
• Medical fitness certificates for the people handling food
• The state trade licence and any municipal health licence
• Fire and building clearances, which vary by state and by the size of the premises

Our restaurant legal compliance checklist lists what else a new outlet needs alongside the food licence.

If you are still costing out a first site, the restaurant startup cost calculator puts the licence line next to rent, equipment and deposits. Against those, it usually turns out to be a rounding error. For a smaller format, the cafe licence guide covers the same ground for cafes.

Once you are trading, the licence number belongs on every bill you raise. Petpooja carries the FSSAI number in the bill format for each outlet. A chain is then not relying on someone remembering which number belongs to which kitchen.

Conclusion

Budget the FSSAI fee as a recurring yearly cost, not a one-off at opening. For most restaurants that is ₹2,000 a year per outlet, and for a business crossing into multi-state operations it is ₹7,500 more for the head office.

The bigger change is that nothing now tells you the payment is due. There is no expiry date and no renewal reminder, so the annual fee has to sit in your own compliance calendar.

A licence that slips quietly into suspension stops you trading just as firmly as one that expired under the old system. Petpooja keeps the outlet-level records you will need when you go back to FoSCoS to sort it out.

Frequently Asked Questions