Liquor is a State subject, so there is no national licence and no national fee. This guide prices three states to the rupee from their own gazettes, Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka, and sets out the permissions that have to be in hand before an excise office will accept your file. Updated August 2026.
Entries 8, 51 and 54 of the State List, and Article 366(12A). The constitutional reason a Mumbai FL-III and a Delhi L-17 are different licences, and why Gujarat has an FL-III that means something else again.
FL-III restaurant slabs from ₹95,500 to ₹11,40,500, the star hotel add-on, plus Form E, FL-IV, FL-IV-A and FL/BR-II. All from the gazette notification dated 18 February 2026 for FY 2026-27.
L-17 fees at 50, 100, 200 and 200-plus covers with Rule 51's 100 metre exclusion zone, then Karnataka's CL-9 slabs from ₹11,25,000 in Bengaluru down to ₹6,00,000 in a town panchayat.
Maharashtra's craft beer capacity slabs against a brewery's ₹11,22,000 floor payable at nil production, and Karnataka's 3,65,000 litre ceiling with its 6,500 square foot minimum.
Liquor sits outside GST and food sits inside it, on the same table bill. What the specified premises test does to your rate, and why last year's room tariff decides this year's food GST.
Eating house licence, health trade licence, FSSAI, fire NOC, Legal Metrology, music rights and pollution consent. Which of them gate the excise file, and the order that avoids doing the work twice.
Petpooja POSS keeps the liquor line and the food line separate on one bill, holds excise-driven prices against every SKU, and tracks pours down to the peg so the stock in the system matches the bottle behind the counter.
Explore Petpooja POSSYou have the site, the concept and the money. Then someone asks what the liquor licence costs, and you find five different answers, none of which names a state, a year or a notification.
That is not sloppy writing on somebody's part, it is the structure of the law. Liquor sits with the states under Entry 8 of the State List, so there is no national licence and no national fee. Every state writes its own Act, its own licence codes and its own annual fee schedule.
The practical result is that a figure you read for Bengaluru is worth nothing in Mumbai, and a figure from 2023 is worth nothing in 2026. Maharashtra renotifies its rates every February. Delhi's own published table shows a 10% escalation year on year. A fee without a financial year attached is not information.
The costs that catch people out are usually not in the fee tables at all. Maharashtra asks for a bank guarantee of 50% of the licence fee alongside the fee itself, and it will not accept an FL-III application without a valid eating house licence already in hand. That is a sequencing problem rather than a budgeting one, and it is the part of opening a bar in India that most often costs a quarter.
The fee itself is not one number either. In Maharashtra it is a function of the population where your premises sits, running from ₹95,500 in a town under fifty thousand people to ₹11,40,500 in a city above twenty lakh, for exactly the same licence.
In Delhi it is a function of seat covers, so a restaurant planning 105 seats pays the 200-cover slab for five seats. Both are knowable on day one and neither is fixable once the lease is signed. Treat the licence as a fixed cost that lands before the first pour, and put it into your profit margin model rather than a contingency line.
This guide does two things the search results do not. It quotes only what the departments themselves publish, with the notification and its date attached, and where a reliable figure does not exist it says so and tells you which document to open instead. If you are still at the planning stage, the restaurant legal compliance checklist and the restaurant startup cost calculator cover the ground either side of this one.
Here's a preview of what you'll get inside:
The spread on a single Maharashtra FL-III restaurant licence, from ₹95,500 in a location under 50,000 people to ₹11,40,500 above 20,00,000. Same licence, same conditions, same paperwork. Only the address changes.
Source: Maharashtra Government Gazette, Home Department Notification No. BPA-0126/C.R.14/Exc-2 dated 18-Feb-2026, rates for FY 2026-27The minimum annual fee for a beer brewery in Maharashtra, payable even for nil production. A microbrewery up to 2,00,000 bulk litres pays ₹3,20,100 on capacity instead. Which category you apply under is usually the whole argument.
Source: Same notification, Sr. B-1 and B-3, Form BRL under Rule 3(2) of the Maharashtra Manufacture of Beer and Wine Rules, 1966The exclusion distance around major educational institutions, religious places and hospitals for a Delhi liquor licence. It is measured against the actual premises, so a site that fails cannot be rescued with paperwork.
Source: Rule 51, Delhi Excise Rules 2010, as published by the Department of Excise, Entertainment & Luxury Tax, GNCTDIn Maharashtra the population of the location moves the same licence fee by a factor of twelve. Two sites either side of a municipal boundary can differ by more in licence fee than they do in rent, which is worth knowing before you commit to a format like a sports bar that needs a large floor plate.
Maharashtra's Form E covers beer, craft beer, fermented liquor and wine on the premises and starts at ₹55,000. FL-III starts at ₹95,500 and runs to ₹11,40,500. Pay for what you will actually pour.
Maharashtra requires a bank guarantee of 50% of the licence fee alongside the fee. It is working capital, it is not refundable on demand, and it never appears in the fee tables people quote.
The eating house and FSSAI permissions are not a parallel workstream. In Maharashtra the eating house licence gates the excise application entirely, so running them together means discovering the dependency at the counter.
Telangana notifies a fixed number of 2B bar licences and opens an application window. In 2025 it notified 28 across the state. Being ready is irrelevant if nothing is notified for your area.
Karnataka defines a microbrewery as capacity up to 3,65,000 litres a year in premises of at least 6,500 square feet built-up with a dining hall and parking. An equipment budget does not fix an ineligible floor plate.
They are taxed by different governments under different laws. If the split happens in a spreadsheet at month end rather than in the system at the table, your returns will not reconcile and the operating cost picture stays guesswork.
| Question | The usual answer online | What the department actually publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Delhi L-17 fee basis | Floor area: ₹5 lakh, ₹15 lakh, ₹25 lakh by square feet | Seat covers, split between Indian and foreign liquor, in a published table |
| Maharashtra FL-III fee | "₹5 lakh to ₹50 lakh", no year, no slab | Seven population slabs, ₹95,500 to ₹11,40,500, gazetted for FY 2026-27 |
| Karnataka CL-9 fee | Quoted from news reports of a capped hike | ₹11,25,000 in a corporation above 20 lakh, gazetted 23 June 2025, in force 1 July 2025 |
| Which year the fee applies to | Rarely stated | Notified annually. Maharashtra publishes each February for the coming year |
| Microbrewery licence | A single national process | State-specific, with capacity slabs in Maharashtra and a floor area minimum in Karnataka |
| Minimum drinking age | Quoted as one number for India | Set by state. Maharashtra's own permit page says above 25 years, with proof of age mandatory |
| Deposits and guarantees | Usually omitted | Maharashtra requires a bank guarantee of 50% of the licence fee |
| Time to get licensed | "45 days", "60 days" | No processing service level published by any state read for this guide |
Swipe the table sideways to see the full comparison.
Download the free guide and work from what the excise departments actually publish.
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Petpooja POSS separates liquor and food on the same bill, tracks pours to the peg so stock matches the bottle, and gives you the day's split across excise, VAT and GST without anyone rebuilding it in a spreadsheet.
