FSSAI licence for a Kochi restaurant or food stall

The number that decides everything changed in April

The Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Amendment Regulations, 2026 were notified on 10 March 2026, followed by an implementation order dated 13 March 2026 directing licensing authorities to apply the revised thresholds from 1 April 2026.

What moved:

• Basic registration: was up to Rs 12 lakh, now up to Rs 1.5 crore
• State licence: was Rs 12 lakh to Rs 20 crore, now Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 50 crore
• Central licence: was above Rs 20 crore, now above Rs 50 crore

For most of Kochi's food trade this is a genuine demotion in paperwork. A busy standalone restaurant, or a bakery with three outlets, that was firmly a State licence case last year may now sit inside registration.

One warning matters more than the change itself. When we checked in August 2026, the Kind of Business Eligibility document published on FoSCoS still set out the old Rs 12 lakh and Rs 20 crore figures throughout — restaurants, retailers, caterers, canteens, every row. It remains useful for the criteria that are not about turnover, which have not moved. Do not read your threshold off it.

We should also be straight about sourcing. We could not retrieve the 2026 gazette notification from fssai.gov.in. The thresholds above are consistent across the legal analyses we could open, but we have not read the instrument itself.

Registration and a licence are different legal creatures

They are not two grades of one thing. Section 31(1) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 says no person shall commence or carry on any food business except under a licence. Section 31(2) removes a class from that requirement altogether: a petty manufacturer who himself manufactures or sells any article of food, a petty retailer, hawker, itinerant vendor or temporary stall holder, small scale or cottage industries relating to food business, or a tiny food business operator. Those people do not get a licence. They register, under Regulation 2.1.1, in Form A under Schedule 2.

That distinction has teeth. Section 63, which punishes carrying on a food business without a licence, expressly excludes persons exempted from licensing under Section 31(2).

Above that line, the split between State and Central is not only about money. Regulation 2.1.2(3) sends businesses falling under Schedule 1 to the Central Licensing Authority, and 2.1.2(4) sends everything else to the State. Schedule 1 as notified names 100 per cent export oriented units, all importers, foods using ingredients or technologies whose safety has not been established, operators in two or more states, and catering at Central government establishments including railways, air and airport, seaport and defence.

FoSCoS's current eligibility table goes further, listing e-commerce, exporters generally, proprietary food and the head or registered office as Central with no limit on turnover.

So which one is yours

Work through it in this order.

Are you in a category that is Central regardless of size? Importer, exporter, e-commerce, food business at airport or seaport premises, five star hotel, or the declared head office of an operator working in two or more states. If yes, Central licence, Rs 7,500 a year, and stop.

Are you a petty operator under Section 31(2), or below the turnover line? A chaya kada, a thattukada, a fruit cart on Marine Drive, a single-vehicle food truck. Registration, Rs 100 a year.

Everything in between is a State licence from the Kerala Commissionerate of Food Safety.

Hotels break the turnover logic. FoSCoS grades them by star rating: five star and above is Central, three and four star is a State licence at Rs 5,000, and one star, two star or unrated by the Ministry of Tourism is a State licence at Rs 2,000. A registration row still sits underneath for the smallest, so the rating is not the only test.

One question we could not answer cleanly, and it comes up constantly in Kochi. FoSCoS lists E-Commerce as Central with no limit on capacity or turnover, but does not say whether a single restaurant that merely lists itself on a delivery aggregator falls inside that category. The natural reading is that the aggregator is the e-commerce operator and the kitchen is a restaurant. We could not find that stated anywhere published, so ask the Designated Officer before you file. Correcting a category afterwards costs a fee equivalent to one year's licence fee under Regulation 2.1.9.

What it costs

These are the rates in Schedule 3 to the Licensing and Registration Regulations, 2011, which is headed registration or licence fee per annum in rupees and keyed to Regulation 2.1.3. The 2026 amendment did not touch them.

• Registration: Rs 100
• Licence issued by the Central Licensing Authority: Rs 7,500
• Hotels, three star and above: Rs 5,000
• All food service providers including restaurants and boarding houses, clubs serving food, canteens in schools, colleges, offices and institutions, caterers, banquet halls with food catering arrangements, and food vendors like dabba wallas: Rs 2,000
• Manufacturer or miller above 1 MT per day of production: Rs 5,000; below 1 MT: Rs 3,000
• Any other food business operator: Rs 2,000

Schedule 3 adds two lines people discover late. The fees paid by any applicant for a licence shall not be refundable under any circumstances. And a duplicate copy of a registration certificate or licence that is lost, destroyed, torn, defaced or mutilated costs 10 per cent of the applicable licence fee, applied for during the validity period.

On moving between categories after the April change, the published guidance is that migrating on FoSCoS because of the revised thresholds carries no fee and does not change your licence number. It gets you no refund either: an operator who paid for a State licence and now qualifies for registration cannot claim the difference back or set it off.

Perpetual validity, and what it does not mean

Regulation 2.1.7 used to read that a registration or licence is valid for one to five years as chosen by the operator, that renewal must be applied for not later than thirty days before the expiry date indicated in the licence, that a late renewal filed before expiry carries Rs 100 per day of delay, and that a registration or licence for which renewal was not applied for expires and the operator shall stop all business activity at the premises.

The 2026 amendment replaced that scheme with perpetual validity. On the analyses we read, a licence or registration issued on or after 1 April 2026 does not expire and needs no periodic renewal; it remains in force unless suspended, cancelled or surrendered. Applications already in process on that date continue under the pre-amendment rules, but a certificate issued on or after 1 April 2026 carries perpetual validity whenever it was applied for.

Here is where we stop short. The commentary is consistent that annual fees remain payable, described as a pay-as-you-operate model with suspension as the consequence of not paying. It is not consistent on the mechanics, and we could not retrieve the gazette notification from the FSSAI website to check. So do not read perpetual validity as never paying again, and do not stop watching your FoSCoS account.

Applying on FoSCoS, and the clocks that run in your favour

Registration is Form A, a licence is Form B, both under Schedule 2, both accompanied by a self-attested declaration in Annexure 1 and the documents in Annexure 2. Fees go through the portal.

For registration, Regulation 2.1.1(3) gives the Registering Authority seven days from receipt to grant it, reject it with reasons recorded in writing, or issue notice for inspection. Where an inspection is ordered, registration follows within thirty days once the authority is satisfied about the safety, hygiene and sanitary conditions in Part II of Schedule 4. If nothing is granted, denied or ordered within seven days, or no decision is communicated within thirty, the operator may start trading, subject to complying with any improvement suggested later.

For a licence, Regulation 2.1.4(1) sets a sixty-day outer limit from the date the application ID number is issued. Scrutiny happens within fifteen days of receipt, and if the authority asks for more information you have thirty days to supply it, failing which the application stands rejected. That thirty-day trap is the commonest way a Kochi application dies quietly.

Running underneath all of it is the proviso to Section 31(4) of the Act: if a licence is not issued within two months of the application and the application is not rejected, you may start your food business, and the Designated Officer shall not then refuse to issue the licence, though an improvement notice may follow.

The two things Kerala adds

First, health cards. Since 1 February 2023, every employee handling food in a hotel, restaurant or other food establishment in Kerala must hold one. It is a medical fitness certificate in the format prescribed by FSSAI, issued by a registered medical practitioner, valid for one year. Reported coverage is a blood test to rule out contagious disease, a physical examination for skin disease, wounds and running sores, an eye examination and confirmation of vaccination status. Establishments employing staff without cards were told they would not be allowed to function from that date.

Second, hygiene rating. The same announcement required food businesses to obtain a hygiene rating, with registration for it reported as due within a month of reopening after inspection and food safety training within two weeks. We could not locate the current government order setting out who must register, by when and at what cost, so treat this as a live requirement to ask about rather than a settled specification.

The licensing authority itself is the Designated Officer, appointed under Section 36 of the Act by the Commissioner of Food Safety, with one for each district. The Commissionerate sits at Thycaud P.O., Thiruvananthapuram 695014, on 0471-2322833 and 2322844, at foodsafetykerala@gmail.com. Its own site at foodsafety.kerala.gov.in returned a 403 to our requests in August 2026, which is worth knowing before you plan an afternoon around it.

Display, inspection, and the cost of not bothering

Both instruments have to be visible. Regulation 2.1.1(5) requires the Registering Authority to issue a registration certificate and a photo identity card, displayed at a prominent place at all times within the premises, vehicle or cart. Regulation 2.1.4(6) requires a true copy of the licence to be displayed at a prominent place at all times within the premises. A framed certificate near the billing counter is not decoration; it is the regulation.

Registered establishments are to be inspected at least once a year under Regulation 2.1.1(6). Licensed ones are subject to periodical food safety audit and inspection by the licensing authority or an agency authorised by FSSAI, under the proviso to Regulation 2.1.2(5).

If things go wrong, Regulation 2.1.8 tracks Section 32 of the Act: suspension after a reasonable opportunity of being heard where an improvement notice has not been complied with, an inspection not less than fourteen days after the suspension order, and cancellation if the defects persist. Suspension or cancellation entitles you to no compensation or refund, and after cancellation you wait three months before applying afresh.

The headline penalty is Section 63. Carrying on a food business without a licence, where one is required, is punishable with imprisonment up to six months and a fine up to five lakh rupees. Against a Rs 100 registration fee, that is a poor trade.

The Corporation licence is a separate licence

The FSSAI instrument is about food safety. It says nothing about whether you may use that building for that purpose, and the Kochi Corporation officer who turns up to ask about your waste arrangements is enforcing an entirely different Act.

Under Section 447 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 and the rules made under it, entry 136 of Schedule II covers running a hotel, restaurant, canteen, tea shop and the like. Entry 295 covers the sale of food from vehicles and online food trading. That licence comes from the Corporation Secretary, is applied for on K-SMART, and is priced by capital investment rather than turnover: Rs 500 a year for a micro enterprise, and Rs 5,000 once a service business passes Rs 25 lakh of investment, which a restaurant fit-out does easily.

The order to do them in is worth a moment. The municipal licence is tied to a specific premises, and Section 447(2) puts the duty on the owner or occupier of that place. The FSSAI application asks for premises details too. Neither authority accepts the other's certificate as a substitute, and an inspection will generally ask to see both. Budget for two licences, two renewal cycles, and, if you employ anyone, a stack of health cards renewed every year.