How do you get a liquor licence in Goa? You apply in Form E-28 through the Excise Inspector of your taluka. The Commissioner of Excise grants it once your documents and premises pass inspection.
The yearly fee in the official schedule is small. Its printed rate starts at ₹6,000 for a bar in an inland village. The bigger costs are the one-time processing fee of ₹60,000 and the charge for staying open late.
There is also a change to watch. Goa’s 2026-27 budget proposed ₹20 lakh for new shop and restaurant licences, and that is not yet in the published schedule.
This post covers how to apply, the licence types, what each one costs, who is eligible, and what a breach costs.
Key Takeaways
- You apply on Form E-28 at your taluka’s excise office. The Commissioner of Excise then decides.
- A bar needs a running restaurant licence first, plus a Public Works Department (PWD) distance report, clearances from the local body and health centre, and a police report.
- You pay ₹60,000 to process the file when you apply, and the first half of the licence fee when you collect it within 30 days.
How to Apply for a Liquor Licence in Goa
There are two routes, one for a bar and one for a shop selling sealed bottles. Both start at the same office and use the same form. This section takes the bar route first.
The bar and restaurant route
Goa calls a bar licence a licence to sell “for consumption” on the premises. A firm, a company or a single owner aged 21 or over can apply.
- Get the PWD distance report. It must show the premises is far enough from the centre of any state or national highway. The gap is 220 metres in a village and 100 metres in a municipal area.
- Collect the local clearances. You need a no objection certificate from the village panchayat or municipality. You also need one from the health centre, plus a police antecedent report.
- Have your restaurant licence ready. In Goa, a bar licence sits on top of a running restaurant.
- Pay the processing fee of ₹60,000 by challan, and keep the challan copy for the file.
- Submit Form E-28 with the site plan, internal plan, birth certificate, affidavit, house tax receipt and medical fitness certificate. It goes to the Excise Inspector of your taluka, or through the department’s online portal.
- Wait for the inspection. The inspector checks your papers and visits the premises. The file then goes to the head office, and the Commissioner decides.
- Collect the licence within 30 days of the letter saying it is granted. You pay the first half of the yearly licence fee at this point, and the second half later in the year.
The checklist comes from the excise department’s bar licence page. The guide to opening a bar in India covers the rest of the setup.
You cannot serve liquor until the last box, when the licence is in your hands.
What I would do first. I would get the PWD distance report before spending on anything else. It decides whether the site can hold a licence at all.
The shop route
A shop selling sealed bottles uses the same Form E-28 and the same Excise Inspector. Two extra conditions apply.
- You need 25 years of residence in Goa. The applicant, or their parents, must have lived in the state continuously for 25 years. For a firm, that applies to every partner or director.
- Nobody else can live in the building. The local body certificate must say only you or your family reside there.
A supermarket can sell sealed bottles too, with its own trade licence and a separate enclosure for liquor. Several states now take these applications through an online portal, and Goa is one of them.
What are the Liquor Licence Types in Goa?
Goa names its licences by what you sell and where people drink it. Three types cover almost every food business.
- Retail sale for consumption is the bar and restaurant licence. It covers Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) and country liquor served on the premises.
- Retail sale of foreign liquor for consumption is a second bar licence, for imported liquor.
- Retail sale in packed bottles is the shop licence, for sealed bottles taken away.
Bars dominate the state. The excise department counted 16,107 liquor licences in Goa on 31 January 2026. Of those, 8,330 were bar licences for IMFL and country liquor. Bardez taluka alone held 5,753 licences of all kinds, as the department’s licence list shows.
If you are still working out which one fits, the types of bar licence guide explains what each category lets you serve.
Liquor Licence Fees in Goa for Bars and Restaurants
At its printed 2022-23 rates, the official schedule charges a bar ₹6,000 to ₹30,000 a year for the first 50 square metres. Every 10 square metres after that adds a little more. This section covers how the town class sets it, then the two fee tables.
How Goa sorts towns for liquor licence fees
Every bar falls into one of three groups, and the group decides the fee.
- The top group is an ‘A’ class town, the City of Panaji, or a coastal village. ‘A’ class means Margao, Mormugao and Mapusa, plus any town the state adds. A coastal village is the part of a village within 1 km of the high tide line.
- The middle group is a ‘B’ or ‘C’ class town.
- The bottom group is any village that is not coastal.
Bar fees without air-conditioning
| Where the bar is | Fee for the first 50 sq m | Each extra 10 sq m |
|---|---|---|
| ‘A’ class, Panaji or coastal village | ₹15,000 | ₹1,100 |
| ‘B’ or ‘C’ class municipality | ₹9,000 | ₹650 |
| Village other than coastal | ₹6,000 | ₹450 |
Adding air-conditioning roughly doubles the fee, as the next table shows.
Bar fees with air-conditioning
| Where the bar is | Fee for the first 50 sq m | Each extra 10 sq m |
|---|---|---|
| ‘A’ class, Panaji or coastal village | ₹30,000 | ₹2,200 |
| ‘B’ or ‘C’ class municipality | ₹19,000 | ₹1,400 |
| Village other than coastal | ₹11,000 | ₹800 |
The area is your whole serving space. It covers every part of the bar and restaurant where food or liquor is served, including extra counters. Only the kitchen and washrooms are left out, and the Excise Inspector can check your layout plan in person.
All fees in these tables come from the government’s fee notification of 27 October 2023, in force from 10 November 2023.
It prints its fees as the figures up to 2022-23, and says they rise by 5% after that. It does not say whether that is once or every year, and it does not print the newer figures. So the amount on your demand note will be higher than these tables.
Hotel and Shop Liquor Licence Fees in Goa
Most hotels pay more than a standalone bar, and shops pay a flat fee by town. This section covers both, using the same October 2023 fee notification as the bar tables above.
Hotel bar fees
A hotel pays on two ratings. One is the category Goa Tourism gives it. The other is any star rating it holds.
| Hotel category | Yearly fee |
|---|---|
| ‘A’ category and 5 star or above | ₹3,75,000 |
| ‘A’ category and 4 star or below | ₹2,00,000 |
| ‘A’ category with no star rating | ₹1,75,000 |
| ‘B’ category with a star rating | ₹1,00,000 |
| ‘B’ category with no star rating | ₹75,000 |
| ‘C’ category with a swimming pool | ₹60,000 |
| ‘C’ category without a swimming pool | ₹40,000 |
A hotel with a casino licence pays ₹1,50,000 more. To serve imported liquor, a hotel needs one more licence, which costs ₹20,000 to ₹3,50,000 a year.
Shop fees for sealed bottles
| Where the shop is | Yearly fee |
|---|---|
| ‘A’ class, Panaji or coastal village | ₹15,000 |
| ‘B’ or ‘C’ class municipality | ₹9,000 |
| Village other than coastal | ₹6,000 |
A supermarket pays the same fee for the first 20 square metres of liquor display and storage. After that it pays ₹2,500, ₹1,500 or ₹500 for every extra 10 square metres, from the top group down. A shop that stays open one hour past its closing time pays a 50% surcharge on its licence fee.
Other Liquor Licence Charges in Goa
For a small bar, the yearly fee is the smallest cost. This section covers the one-time processing fee, late hours and transfers, then the 2026 proposal.
The same 2023 schedule sets these charges. Only the 2026 proposal at the end comes from elsewhere.
- Processing fee: ₹60,000, paid once with the application for a bar or shop licence.
- Staying open late: this applies to bars in coastal villages, Panaji, Mormugao, Margao, Ponda and Mapusa. Serving from 11 PM to 1 AM carries a ₹1,00,000 surcharge, and serving from 1 AM to 4 AM a separate ₹4,00,000 surcharge.
- Hotels open late: a hotel pays a lump sum to serve past 11 PM. It runs from ₹50,000 for a ‘C’ category hotel without a pool to ₹5,00,000 for a 5 star hotel.
- Transfer or shifting: ₹60,000 for a bar or shop licence, and ₹1,00,000 for a hotel.
Here is an air-conditioned bar of 120 square metres in a coastal village that pays the surcharge to serve until 1 AM (an example).
So at the printed rates, a licence fee of ₹45,400 becomes a first-year bill of ₹2,05,400 once processing and the late-hours surcharge are added.
Check the 2026 proposal before you budget. Goa’s 2026-27 budget, presented in March 2026, proposed fixing the fee for new shop and restaurant licences at ₹20 lakh.
It also proposed ₹25 lakh to transfer a licence to a non-Goan, as The Goan reported. The October 2023 schedule above does not show either figure yet. Ask the excise office whether the ₹20 lakh fee applies to your file.
Who Is Eligible for a Liquor Licence in Goa?
Goa checks the applicant and the premises separately. This section covers who can apply, then where the premises can be.
Who can apply
You must be 21 or over. The applicant can be a sole proprietor, a partnership firm or a company.
- No criminal record. Rule 90 of the Goa Excise Duty Rules bars a licence, or its renewal, for anyone with a criminal record or a case registered against them.
- 25 years of residence for a shop. Rule 90 names sealed-bottle shops and wholesale for this. The bar checklist does not list it.
Where the premises can be
The same Rule 90 sets the limits on location.
- 100 metres from a school, college or place of worship. The same gap applies around a Harijan basti or a labour colony.
- Away from state and national highways. For a bar or a shop, the PWD report must show the premises is more than 220 metres from the road’s centre in a village, or 100 metres in a municipal area. With government approval, Rule 90 can also allow premises above the ground floor, if nothing is visible from the highway.
- Zoning. Inside a municipality, the premises must be in a commercial zone. The exceptions are a market complex owned by a local body or the government, and a licensed hotel, restaurant or resort.
The government can relax the distance and zoning limits for a hotel or restaurant to promote tourism. Since June 2024, a licence granted that way pays 100% extra on its licence fee. So does every renewal, under the June 2024 amendment.
What If You Break the Goa Liquor Licence Rules?
A breach of the Goa Excise Duty Act, 1964 can lead to a money penalty, a fine, or prison for the serious offences. This section covers each, starting with the 2026 change.
The 2026 money penalties
The Goa Jan Vishwas (Laws Amendment) Act, 2026 rewrote sections 35, 38 and 39 of the Excise Act. It was passed in February 2026 and applies from 2 December 2025. Read the Jan Vishwas Act, 2026 as published in the Goa Gazette.
- Up to ₹1 lakh per breach. Section 35 now sets a penalty of up to ₹1,00,000 for each breach that has no penalty of its own.
- Licence conditions are covered. Under section 38, a penalty can follow a breach of a licence condition or a bond, including one by anyone acting for you.
- Who can impose it. The Commissioner can order the full penalty or confiscation. Other empowered excise officers are capped at ₹1,000 in penalty and ₹10,000 in goods confiscated.
Offences that still carry prison
The 2026 Act did not change sections 30 to 33. So these can still lead to prison.
- Breaking a licence condition on purpose is still a crime under section 31. The fine is up to ₹10,000, the prison term up to six months, or both. The same goes for allowing drunk or rowdy behaviour, or not showing the licence when asked.
- Adding a drug or other ingredient to liquor, or selling country liquor as IMFL, falls under section 32. The fine and prison term are the same.
- Selling or moving liquor against the Act or your licence falls under section 30. The fine is up to ₹10,000, the prison term up to two years, or both.
These terms come from the department’s copy of the Act and Rules, linked in the eligibility section above.
What an inspection looks at
Restaurant owners we work with tell us the hours and the paperwork are easy to follow. The harder part is showing an inspector that the stock behind the bar matches what was sold. Matching what you sold against what you bought is the job Petpooja does. A bar and brewery POS tracks consumption against purchases.
Conclusion
To get a liquor licence in Goa, you apply on Form E-28 at your taluka’s excise office. The inspector checks your papers and your site. Then the Commissioner decides.
Start with the PWD distance report and your restaurant licence. Then plan for the ₹60,000 processing fee and any late hours, not just the yearly fee.
Before you sign a lease, ask the excise office if the ₹20 lakh fee from the 2026 budget applies to you.
Once the licence is live, owners tell us the harder part is the stock. They have to show that what sits behind the bar matches what was sold. Your restaurant billing and inventory system is what ties every bottle to a bill.
Frequently Asked Questions
The 25 year residence rule applies to sealed-bottle shops and wholesale. The excise department’s checklist for a bar licence does not list it. The 2026-27 budget did propose a higher fee to transfer an existing licence to a non-Goan.
No. Rule 90 bars a bar, shop or wholesale licensee from trading under a religious name. The condition is written into the licence itself.
Only with the Commissioner’s written permission under Rule 104. A transfer costs ₹60,000 for a bar or shop under the October 2023 schedule.
Each state works it out differently. Gujarat permit rules work on permits instead, while Telangana licence fees are set by population. Rajasthan licence fees for a shop are a share of its yearly guarantee, and Madhya Pradesh licence fees are published flat by city. Haryana licence fees cover 21 months rather than a year. Our state-wise cost guide sets the charges side by side.
