FSSAI Schedule 4: The Hygiene Checklist Behind Your Licence

FSSAI Schedule 4 is the hygiene standard tied to your food licence. It is not advice you can take or leave. It sits inside the licensing rules, so holding a licence means running your kitchen the way it says.

Many owners meet it for the first time during an inspection, when an officer goes through it point by point. Reading it before that day is what keeps a routine check from turning into a notice.

This post covers which Part applies to you, what each Part asks for, and which records you need to show.

Key Takeaways

• Schedule 4 is part of the licensing regulations, so it binds every licensed food business
• A licensed restaurant follows Part II plus Part V for catering
• Part II covers 12 areas, from the premises to staff training
• Six records matter most; medical checks are yearly
• Enforcement usually opens with an improvement notice giving you at least 14 days

What Is FSSAI Schedule 4?

FSSAI Schedule 4 is the list of hygiene rules a food business must follow to keep its licence. It sits inside the FSSAI licensing regulations of 2011. That is why it has the force of law.

The link to your licence is spelled out. Regulation 2.1.2(5) says you must meet the licence conditions and “the safety, sanitary and hygienic requirements provided in the Schedule 4”.

The schedule also names who is on the hook. The opening lines of Part II make adherence “the responsibility of the food business operator”, in its own words.

The same opening asks for three things beyond the list. Work out which steps in your kitchen matter most for safety. Write down how you handle each one. Then look at those notes again at set intervals.

That is what makes Schedule 4 a system and not just a list. An officer can find a clean kitchen and still mark a gap, if nothing is written down about how you keep it clean.

Schedule 4 and FSMS are Not the Same Thing

You will see Schedule 4 called an FSMS rule. That is close, but not quite right. Schedule 4 is the hygiene baseline, and it calls itself “the GMP / GHP system”, short for good manufacturing and good hygiene practice.

An FSMS plan is a different document. FSMS stands for Food Safety Management System, and the licensing regulations list the plan among the papers filed with a licence form. It is asked for again at renewal.

So the two live in different places. The written procedures Schedule 4 asks for stay in your kitchen, while the FSMS plan goes to the licensing authority.

Schedule 4 also sets a direction. It calls itself the basic rules, and says you should keep improving towards “attaining India HACCP standards”. HACCP is the hazard-check system used around the world.

Which Part of FSSAI Schedule 4 Applies to Your Restaurant?

A licensed restaurant follows Part II and Part V together. The schedule is split by the kind of business you run. Three of its parts do not apply to you at all, so reading the wrong one wastes your time.

Part II is the general set. Its heading names it as the rules “to be followed by all Food Business Operators applying for License”. If you hold a licence and not a registration, it applies to you whatever you cook.

Part V is the catering layer on top. It says it applies “in addition to Part-II”, so it adds to Part II rather than replacing it. It names eating houses, restaurants and hotels among the places it covers.

Part I is the lighter set, written for petty food businesses that register instead of taking a licence.

There is a quick way to tell which side of that line you sit on. A petty business registers on Form A, while a licence is applied for on Form B. If you filed Form B, you are in Part II.

Our FSSAI licence fees guide sets out the categories behind that split.

What Does FSSAI Schedule 4 Part II Require?

Part II has 12 numbered areas. The table below names each one and what it asks of a restaurant. Between them they cover the building, the kit, the cooking, the staff and the paperwork.

Part II area	What it asks for
1. Location and surroundings	Premises clear of pollution and industrial fumes, and sited so that solid and liquid waste can actually be removed
2. Layout and design	Flow that avoids cross-contamination, sloped drainage, screened openings, doors on closing springs
3. Equipment and containers	Corrosion-free food-contact surfaces, no chipped enamel, separate marked containers for waste
4. Facilities	Potable water, tanks cleaned and logged, covered refuse bins washed daily, staff toilets and washing points
5. Food operations and controls	Receiving checks, storage temperatures, time and temperature control through cooking and service
6. Management and supervision	A written SOP for the operation, and supervisors who understand food hygiene
7. Food testing	An in-house lab, or regular testing through an accredited lab notified by FSSAI
8. Audit, documentation and records	A periodic audit against the SOP, and records retained for a year or the product’s shelf life, whichever is longer
9. Sanitation and maintenance	A written cleaning schedule, and a pest control system
10. Personal hygiene	Health status of handlers, yearly medical checks, protective clothing, handwashing
11. Product information and consumer awareness	Labelling on packaged products so a batch can be traced and recalled
12. Training	Food handlers trained in hygiene, with periodic assessment of how they are doing

Two of these catch people out. Area 7 asks for food testing even if you have no lab of your own. Clause 7.3 says you then test regularly through an accredited lab notified by FSSAI. It is a standing arrangement, not a one-off.

Area 6 is the other one. A written SOP, or standard operating procedure, is not optional under Part II. Clause 8.1 is the one that asks you to audit against that SOP at set intervals, and the same clause is where the phrase “GMP / GHP system” comes from.

Area 10 is worth a word too, because it is the one you are already doing. It covers what your team does on the floor. The daily side of it sits in our guide to kitchen hygiene rules, which goes into handwashing, uniforms and grooming.

What Does FSSAI Schedule 4 Part V Add for Restaurants?

Part V adds temperatures, chilling and storage rules, transport rules and one fitting. Part II describes a food business in general, while Part V describes service.

Its sections use Roman numerals. Inside a section the topics are numbered, and the points under a topic carry either a letter or a number, depending on the section. The cooking rules, for instance, sit at Part V, section II.3, and each rule there has its own letter.

Cooling and Reheating Temperatures

Section II.3 is headed Cooking, and two of its lettered points set the temperatures that matter after service. Clause (f) says how cooked food must be cooled if you mean to reheat it later. Clause (g) sets the reheating floor.

Clause (f) is worth reading in the regulation’s own words: “Food hot held at 60°c and cooled at 21°c within 2 hrs or cooled to 5°c in 4 hours and thereafter refrigerated might be reheated.” Clause (g) then requires reheated food to reach 74°C in the middle.

Clause (i) of the same section names the kit you may not reheat in. It rules out a steam table, a bain-marie, a bun drawer and a heat lamp, because none of them can bring food up to that 74°C quickly enough.

Chilling and Storage Rules

Chilled food goes into the fridge fast, and dry goods go off the floor in sealed boxes. Chilling is section II.4, which covers everyday cooling rather than the reheating case in clause (f) above. Storage is section V, written as a plain list rather than numbered points.

Under chilling, cooked food you plan to keep must be cooled quickly and put in the fridge, not left standing at room temperature. Section II.4 says the fridge should be set at 5°C.

Under storage, dried foods such as grains and pulses go off the floor in sealable boxes. Raw meat is kept apart from other foods, and veg food sits above non-veg on separate fridge racks.

Carrying Food Off the Premises

Transport sets two carrying temperatures and a time limit, and it covers deliveries to customers as well as runs between your own sites. The rules are in Part V, section IV, which is not the same thing as Part IV.

Point (3) says hot food is carried at 60°C or above. Point (4) says cold food is carried below 5°C. Point (2) asks that the journey takes the least time it can, to stop bacteria growing on the way.

The Chimney Rule

A chimney is the one piece of equipment Part V names outright. Section I says that wherever you cook or fry, a chimney with suction capacity matched to the size of the kitchen must be installed before the business starts trading.

Which FSSAI Schedule 4 Records Matter Most?

Six records carry the most weight on an inspection. The list below names each one and the clause it comes from. Records are the usual gap. The work on the floor is often fine, and the paperwork behind it is what is missing.

1. Cleaning. Clause 9.1.1 asks for a written plan naming what is cleaned, how often, and with what. It also asks for the record showing it was done.
2. Pest control. Under clause 9.2.3, keep a record of the pesticides and insecticides used, with the dates and how often. What the rest of clause 9.2 asks for is covered in our guide to pest control requirements.
3. Medical checks. Clause 10.1.2 asks that every food handler is examined once a year. A registered medical practitioner must sign the record.
4. Vaccinations. Under clause 10.1.3, staff are vaccinated against the enteric group, which covers typhoid and similar illnesses. Keep the record.
5. Water tanks. Clause 4.1.3 asks that you clean storage tanks at set intervals, and write each cleaning in a register.
6. Where food came from. Clause 5.1.3 asks for a register of raw goods and additives, naming the supplier for each.

The problem is rarely that these are missing. It is that they live in six different places. A bar in Aundh that has logged every pest visit and every medical check can still lose an afternoon finding which register is where (an example).

Clause 8.2 sets how long you keep them. The list is long: preparation, cooking, storage, delivery, service, food quality, lab results, cleaning, pest control and recall. Keep all of it for a year, or for the shelf life of the food if that is longer.

Our FSSAI compliance checklist is built around this list, and the pest control audit checklist covers what a treatment visit should leave behind.

Where Restaurants Fall Short on FSSAI Schedule 4

Three gaps come up more than the rest, and none is about a dirty kitchen. They are the SOP, the medical records and the sourcing register.

While talking to restaurant owners using Petpooja, the same three keep coming up. None of this is survey data. It is what people tell us when the talk turns to why an inspection went badly.

No Written SOP

The most common gap is a kitchen that runs on habit and the head chef’s memory. It may run well, but clause 6.1 asks for the document and clause 8.1 asks you to audit against it.

A café in Vastrapur can serve safely for four years and still have nothing to hand an officer (an example).

Medical Checks That Lapsed

The second gap is a check done once and never repeated. It covers the staff on the books at the time, then drifts as people come and go.

Someone who joined in February 2026 needs the check and the signed record too. A cloud kitchen in Madhapur that took on eight new staff in March 2026 and checked none of them is the usual shape of this (an example).

No Sourcing Register

Raw goods arrive, get used, and leave no trail back to the supplier. The paperwork usually exists, sitting in supplier bills and the E-way bill that came with the load. Nothing pulls it into one register.

That register is what creates the trail. It also lets you spot a supplier whose deliveries keep arriving damaged or short. Logging each delivery against its supplier in your restaurant POS inventory builds most of the register as you go, so there is no second book to keep by hand.

What Happens If You Fail to Meet FSSAI Schedule 4?

You usually get a notice before a fine. This section walks through the order it happens in. The action comes from the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, rather than from the schedule itself.

The Licence Track

Section 32 of the Act sets the first step. A Designated Officer who thinks you have fallen short sends you an improvement notice. It gives the grounds, the steps you must take, and at least fourteen days to take them.

Miss that deadline and the same section lets your licence be suspended. Fail again and it can be cancelled, once you have had a chance to explain. You can appeal either step to the Commissioner of Food Safety, within fifteen days.

The Fines

Fines run alongside the licence track rather than instead of it. Cooking in unhygienic or unsanitary conditions costs up to ₹1 lakh under Section 56. Ignoring what a Food Safety Officer tells you costs up to ₹2 lakh under Section 55.

Repeat hygiene problems are one of the reasons behind a restaurant licence suspension. Walking your own kitchen first is cheaper. Our pre-inspection checklist covers the same ground an officer does.

Conclusion

Treat Schedule 4 as part of your licence, not as advice next to it. Read Part II for the building and the paperwork. Read Part V for what happens to the food itself, from the delivery door through to the plate or the delivery bag.

In most kitchens the gap is paper, not dirt. Write the SOP. Then keep six records: cleaning, pest control, medical checks, vaccinations, water tanks, and where your food came from. Hold them for a year, or for the shelf life of the food if that runs longer.

A clean kitchen is only half the job. Schedule 4 also asks you to show it was clean. A lot of that proof already runs through the restaurant POS you bill on, from what you took in at the door to which supplier sent it.

Frequently Asked Questions