How do you get a liquor licence in Punjab? For a restaurant, you apply to the state excise department for a hard bar licence in Forms L-4 and L-5. A hard bar can serve spirits as well as beer.
In 2026-27 that costs ₹7 lakh a year in six named cities and ₹4 lakh a year everywhere else.
What moves you up from there is where you are and how late you stay open. A 5-star hotel pays ₹25 lakh, and serving until 3 AM adds another ₹25 lakh. A liquor shop is different: Punjab sells shops in large groups, with renewal first and an online tender for the rest.
This post covers how to apply on each route, what every licence costs this year, the rules after you open, and what a breach costs.
Key Takeaways
- A restaurant hard bar in Punjab costs ₹4 lakh to ₹7 lakh a year in 2026-27. Your city decides which.
- For a restaurant, the 3 AM option costs more than the licence: ₹25 lakh a year extra.
- You cannot buy a single liquor shop. Shops go out as whole groups worth crores, not one at a time.
How to Get a Liquor Licence in Punjab
There are two routes, and they do not look alike. A restaurant or hotel bar is a licence you apply for. A liquor shop is a group of shops you bid for. This section takes the bar route first.
The restaurant and hotel bar route
The excise department lists a separate category for each kind of bar on its licences page. Pick the one that matches your business before you fill in anything.
- Choose your licence type. A hard bar in a restaurant uses Forms L-4 and L-5. A hotel hard bar adds Form L-3. A bar serving only beer and ready-to-drink drinks uses L-4A and L-5A instead.
- Check the town your premises sits in. The fee depends on it. Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda and Mohali pay the higher city rate.
- Apply to the Excise and Taxation Department. The 2026-27 policy and rules do not list the documents a bar file needs, so ask the excise office before you prepare it.
- Pay the licence fee and the security. A standard hotel or restaurant hard bar also pays a ₹10,000 security.
- Set up your liquor supply. Under the 2026-27 policy, hotels, clubs and restaurants with a bar must buy their liquor from a licensed shop (L-2) in their own excise district.
Bar licences run for the excise year, from April to March. Renewal fees for 2026-27 were due by 31 March 2026, and the policy charges interest after that.
If you are setting up from scratch, our guide to opening a bar in India covers the fit-out and the other licences.
What I would set up first. I would load the bar menu into the billing system with each drink as its own item, before the first bottle arrives. Punjab charges a fee on every litre you buy, so I would want sales and purchases in the same system from day one.
The liquor shop route
Punjab does not license one shop at a time. It sells retail licences in 207 groups, and each group covers many shops across an area. The Excise Policy 2026-27 says the groups may cover about 6,378 shops in all.
Last year’s holders were offered renewal first. Groups they did not renew went to an e-tender on the state’s e-procurement portal. To bid, the policy asks for:
- Income tax returns for the last three assessment years, 2023-24 to 2025-26
- A CIBIL score of 600 or more, certified by your bank
- A net worth of at least ₹60 lakh, certified by a chartered accountant
- A participation fee of ₹5,00,000 per e-tender, which is not refunded
- Earnest money of 3% of the group’s reserve price
The reserve price, the lowest bid the state will accept for a group, is the catch. Across all 207 groups it adds up to ₹10,520 crore for 2026-27, so a single group runs into crores.
For most food businesses, the shop route is out of reach. The bar route is the one that fits a restaurant.
What are the Liquor Licence Types in Punjab?
Punjab names each licence by a form number: a restaurant hard bar holds L-4 and L-5, and a beer bar holds L-4A and L-5A. These are the types a food business meets.
| Punjab Licence Form | What It Allows |
|---|---|
| L-3, L-4 and L-5 | Hard bar in a hotel (all three) or a restaurant (L-4 and L-5) |
| L-3A, L-4A and L-5A | Beer bar, for beer and ready-to-drink drinks |
| L-5B | Pub, serving draught beer, wine and ready-to-drink drinks |
| L-10C | Microbrewery or brewpub |
| L-12C | Bar at a club |
| L-5D and L-50A | Serving at a wedding or other function |
| L-2 and L-14A | Liquor shops, sold as groups |
If you are still working out which one fits, the guide to bar licence types explains what each category lets you serve.
Liquor Licence Fees in Punjab for Bars and Restaurants
A star-rated hotel bar in Punjab pays ₹15 lakh to ₹25 lakh a year, far more than a restaurant. This section gives the full table for 2026-27, then the add-ons that change the total.
Hard bar fees for 2026-27
| Where the Bar Is | Yearly Fee 2026-27 | Security |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel with a 5-star or 5-star deluxe certificate | ₹25,00,000 | ₹10,000 |
| Hotel with a 4-star certificate | ₹15,00,000 | ₹10,000 |
| Hotel or restaurant in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda or Mohali | ₹7,00,000 | ₹10,000 |
| Hotel or restaurant in any other area | ₹4,00,000 | ₹10,000 |
| Open-space bar and restaurant, urban | ₹12,00,000 | Not listed |
| Open-space bar and restaurant, rural | ₹7,00,000 | Not listed |
All fees in this section come from the fee schedule attached to the state’s Excise Policy 2026-27, published on the excise department’s notices page. The amended Punjab Liquor License Rules, notified on 29 March 2026 and listed on the same department page, print the same figures.
5-star hotel ₹25 lakh 4-star hotel ₹15 lakh Open-space bar, urban ₹12 lakh Hotel or restaurant, six cities ₹7 lakh Open-space bar, rural ₹7 lakh Hotel or restaurant, elsewhere ₹4 lakh Yearly hard bar licence fees in Punjab for 2026-27, before any late-hours fee.The two green bars are the rates most restaurants pay, and hotels without a star rating pay them too. The other rows are star hotels and open-space bars.
Beer bar, pub, club and microbrewery fees
| Punjab Licence | Yearly Fee 2026-27 |
|---|---|
| Beer bar (L-3A, L-4A, L-5A), town of 1 lakh people or more | ₹2,14,500 |
| Beer bar, other towns | ₹1,92,500 |
| Pub (L-5B) | ₹71,500 |
| Microbrewery (L-10C) | ₹6,05,000 |
| Club (L-12C), up to 1,000 members | ₹1,48,500 |
| Club, up to 2,000 members | ₹5,50,000 |
| Club, above 2,000 members | ₹16,50,000 |
A small beer bar or pub costs a fraction of a hard bar, which is why some restaurants start there.
The late-hours fee and the fee on every litre
Serving until 3 AM costs ₹25 lakh a year. The notified rules let hard bars in Municipal Corporation areas stay open until 3 AM for this extra fee. The same applies in Municipal Councils the government names.
From 2026-27, the same option reaches hard bars within 5 km of a Municipal Corporation and 2 km of a Municipal Council.
The ₹25 lakh is paid in equal parts each quarter. The rules say the total stays ₹25 lakh whatever date your licence was granted.
On top of the yearly fee, a bar pays an assessed fee on the liquor it buys. For 2026-27 that is ₹93.50 per proof litre on Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) and ₹24.20 per bulk litre on beer. A proof litre measures the alcohol in the liquor, while a bulk litre is the liquid itself.
Those litres add up over a year. Bar inventory reports show how much you bought against how much you poured.
Here is a hard bar in a Ludhiana restaurant that pays to stay open until 3 AM (an example).
₹7,00,000 licence fee to 3 AM: + ₹25,00,000 ₹32,00,000 a year Before the fee on every litre bought. The 3 AM fee is more than three times the licence fee in a big city (an example).So for a city restaurant, the decision to stay open late matters more than the licence itself. The same bar closing at 1 AM pays ₹7 lakh. Whichever you choose, the fee has to come back through your drink prices.
What Changed in Punjab Liquor Licence Fees for 2026-27?
Most bar fees rose for 2026-27, and hotels took the biggest jump. This section compares the main rows with 2025-26.
| Punjab Bar Licence | Fee 2025-26 | Fee 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|
| 5-star hotel | ₹17,50,000 | ₹25,00,000 |
| 4-star hotel | ₹12,00,000 | ₹15,00,000 |
| Hotel or restaurant, six named cities | ₹6,00,000 | ₹7,00,000 |
| Hotel or restaurant, other areas | ₹3,60,000 | ₹4,00,000 |
| Open-space bar, urban | ₹10,00,000 | ₹12,00,000 |
Punjab sets bar fees by city and hotel rating. Telangana works differently, as our Telangana liquor licence post shows, with fees set by population.
Most smaller licences, such as the beer bar, pub, club and microbrewery fees, rose by about 10%. The assessed fee per litre rose by the same share, from ₹85 per proof litre on IMFL in 2025-26.
What Liquor Licence Rules Apply in Punjab After You Open?
Once the licence is live, the Punjab rules cover who you serve, when, and where your liquor comes from. These come from the Excise Policy 2026-27 and the rules notified with it.
- Age 25. No liquor may be sold to anyone under 25. Staff who sell or serve liquor in a bar must also be 25 or older.
- Hours. Hard bars in Municipal Corporation areas may serve until 1 AM, or 3 AM with the ₹25 lakh fee. Under the notified rules, 5-star hotels may serve round the clock. Shops sell from 9 AM to midnight.
- Supply. Bars buy only from a licensed shop in their own excise district.
- Alcometer. A bar must offer guests an alcometer, with a sign saying “Be Safe-Don’t Drink and Drive”.
- No advertising. You cannot advertise liquor in print, on standees or on social media.
- Dry days. The government can declare any day a dry day. The policy prints no list, so watch for each notice.
Shops have one more rule, Rule 37(9-B) of the Punjab Liquor License Rules, 1956. A shop cannot sit within 100 metres of a school or a place of worship in a village. In a town the gap is 50 metres.
Neighbouring Haryana runs its bar fees on a different cycle, as our Haryana liquor licence post explains.
What Should Punjab Liquor Licence Holders Watch For?
Fake and smuggled liquor is a long-running problem in Punjab, and the state’s rules now carry several checks against it. This section covers the government’s steps since 2025, including recent fraud cases, and what to take care of at your bar.
What the Punjab government has done since 2025
In May 2025, at least 21 people died after drinking fake liquor in the Majitha area of Amritsar. Police said it was made with methanol, an industrial chemical, according to a PTI report on the deaths.
Two weeks later, Punjab’s excise minister ordered zero tolerance on illicit liquor. His directions to the excise department included closer work with the Punjab Police and more checks on smuggling routes, especially from Chandigarh. Officers were also told to match each licensee’s purchases against its sales.
Refilling real brand bottles with cheap liquor is a separate kind of fraud. In August 2025, the excise department broke up a refilling racket in Ludhiana. Empty bottles of premium imported liquor were being refilled with cheaper Indian brands. Officers seized 106 empty bottles and 39 full ones.
The checks have kept going into 2026. In February 2026, the Amritsar excise range reported 716 cases and 604 arrests since 1 April 2025. It also told marriage palaces and banquet halls in its area to destroy empty bottles daily, on video, in front of an Excise Inspector.
The 2026-27 excise policy sets three rules on fake liquor. The rules on health and police checks also protect the licensee, because every check is recorded on video.
- Used bottles. Marriage palaces and banquet halls must lock used liquor bottles away and destroy them every week, in front of the area’s Excise Inspector. The policy says empty bottles can otherwise reach people who refill them with illicit liquor.
- Health checks. If the Health Department takes liquor samples, an excise officer of at least Excise Inspector rank must be present. The whole process is videographed, so there is a record of how each sample was taken.
- Police checks. A police officer of at least Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) rank can check a licensed bar, with an excise official present. The Excise Commissioner must approve the check first, and it is videographed.
What to take care of at your bar
These habits help you show where every bottle behind your bar came from, if an excise officer ever asks.
- Keep the purchase bill for every bottle. It shows which licensed shop each bottle came from, and when.
- Check any bottle that looks wrong. The Punjab excise website has a tool to check whether packaged liquor is genuine, using the sequence number on the bottle.
- Ask your excise office about empty bottles if you run a banquet hall. Weekly and daily schedules both appear above, so confirm which one applies in your area.
- Never accept stock marked for another state. A bottle meant for sale outside Punjab is unaccounted liquor. It brings double duty and the ₹10 lakh penalty in the next section.
- Report what you see. The department runs a helpline for complaints about excise crime, listed on the same website.
What If You Break the Punjab Liquor Licence Rules?
A breach in Punjab can cost you the licence, a large penalty, or both. This section covers the penalties the state policy sets out.
- Unaccounted liquor. If excise officers find liquor that is not meant for sale in Punjab, or on which Punjab duty was not paid, you pay double the duty and fees on it, plus a penalty of ₹10 lakh. The liquor is seized and destroyed.
- Late renewal. Fees not paid by 31 March carry interest of 1.5% a month. After 30 April, a ₹5 lakh penalty is added.
- Breaking licence conditions. The policy warns of strict penal action and immediate closure of the outlet.
Conclusion
To get a liquor licence in Punjab, a restaurant applies to the excise department for a hard bar licence in Forms L-4 and L-5. The yearly fee is ₹4 lakh, or ₹7 lakh in the six named cities.
Decide on your closing time before you budget. Staying open until 3 AM adds ₹25 lakh a year, which is more than the licence.
Once the bar is open, unaccounted liquor carries a ₹10 lakh penalty, so keep clean records for every bottle. Your restaurant billing and inventory system is what ties each bottle to a bill.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I serve liquor at a one-day event in Punjab?
Yes, with an L-50A permit. The 2026-27 policy sets it at ₹2,000 per day per function, issued online. A marriage palace or banquet hall that hosts functions often needs its own yearly L-5D registration as well.
Do I need a separate licence to brew beer in my restaurant?
Yes. A microbrewery or brewpub needs Form L-10C, which costs ₹6,05,000 a year in 2026-27. It also pays ₹110 on every bulk litre of beer it sells.
How does Punjab compare with other states?
Punjab prices a bar by city and hotel rating, while some states use population bands instead. Our state-wise cost guide sets the charges side by side. Rajasthan licence fees show a state where a shop’s fee is a set share of the sales it promises the government.
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Avani Joshi is a Content Writer at Petpooja, where she writes about payroll, billing, and the everyday software that keeps Indian SMEs running. She has a knack for taking complicated topics and explaining them in plain language for business owners who don't have time to decode jargon.
