A restaurant licence application costs A$518.10 in Victoria, A$754.00 in South Australia and A$965.00 in New South Wales, read from the government fee schedules on 8 October 2026, so the same venue pays 86% more to apply in one state than another.
Skai Solutions answers the phones for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we read state fee schedules on behalf of operators rather than repeating what other pages say. This page puts the three states that publish a dollar figure side by side, shows what the application fee leaves out, works a 60 seat example, and says plainly which states we will not quote a figure for.
There is no national liquor licence and no national fee, because liquor licensing is a state responsibility. The same small restaurant, with the same menu and the same thirty seats, pays a different application fee depending only on which side of a state border it sits.
These are the three states that publish a plain dollar figure for a restaurant style licence, read from the government source on 8 October 2026.
| State | Licence | Application fee | Source read 8 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| VIC | Restaurant and cafe, 0 to 200 customers | A$518.10 | vic.gov.au, page updated 15 Sep 2026 |
| VIC | Restaurant and cafe, 201 to 400 customers | A$759.90 | same |
| VIC | Restaurant and cafe, 401 or more customers | A$1,036.20 | same |
| SA | On premises, new licence | A$754.00 | sa.gov.au, page updated 26 Feb 2025 |
| SA | Community impact assessment, if required | A$165.00 | same |
| NSW | On premises, licensing A$376 plus processing A$589 | A$965.00 | nsw.gov.au, effective 15 Mar 2026, excludes GST |
So a thirty seat restaurant pays A$518.10 to apply in Victoria and A$965.00 to apply in New South Wales. That is 86% more for the identical business, and it is the single most useful number on this page because it tells you the fee is not a market price for anything. It is a state's cost recovery decision.
Because Victoria is the only one of the three that tiers the application fee by patron capacity, and it is worth understanding before you fill in a capacity number you have not thought about.
The fee doubles, from A$518.10 to A$1,036.20, purely on the number of customers the premises can hold. Nothing else changes. Not the menu, not the trading hours, not the risk. A venue that writes down a hopeful capacity because it might one day knock through to the courtyard pays for that hope at application time.
The other two states in the table do not work this way at all. South Australia charges a flat A$754 for a new on premises licence and adds A$165 if a community impact assessment is required. New South Wales splits its A$965 into a A$376 licensing fee and a A$589 processing fee, and the processing half is non refundable if the application is withdrawn or refused. That split is the one operators should read twice: a failed NSW application still costs A$589.
Most of what the licence will actually cost you, which is why a page that quotes only the application fee is close to useless. Here is the full inputs list, and we have marked honestly which lines we can source a figure for and which we cannot.
| Input | Can we quote a figure? | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | Yes, see the table above | A$518.10 to A$1,036.20 depending on state and capacity |
| Annual or periodic fee | No, and nobody can | Calculated per venue on trading hours, capacity and compliance history |
| Community impact assessment | SA only, A$165 | Required in some applications, not all |
| Responsible service training | Separate, per person | Covered on our RSA page |
| Planning or council approval | No, council sets it | Often the larger cost, and a separate process |
| Professional help with the application | No | Optional; many operators lodge it themselves |
| The wait | Yes, Victoria publishes it | About 9 to 11 weeks for a decision in VIC |
The annual fee is the line to be most careful about, and we are going to be blunt about the limit of what is knowable. Every state charges an ongoing fee, and every state calculates it per venue on factors including trading hours, patron capacity and compliance history. None of the three states above publishes a single annual figure for a restaurant that anyone could honestly quote. Victoria's own renewal page notes only that renewal is much higher if you trade after 1am. If you read a confident "liquor licence annual fee" figure anywhere, check whether it is attached to a government link, because ours is not and we are telling you so rather than inventing one.
Inputs, all shown so you can follow the arithmetic and change it.
Capacity 60 customers, so the Victorian restaurant and cafe application fee tier is 0 to 200 at A$518.10. No community impact assessment applies in Victoria. The venue lodges the application itself. Decision time is the published 9 to 11 weeks, and the operator applies 12 weeks before the planned opening because Liquor Control Victoria advises applying at least 11 weeks out.
Day one licensing cost to get the application in: A$518.10.
Now the comparison that makes the point. Pick up the identical venue and put it in Sydney. The application becomes A$965.00, of which A$589.00 is non refundable whatever the outcome. Put it in Adelaide and it is A$754.00, plus A$165.00 if a community impact assessment is required, so A$754.00 to A$919.00. Same restaurant, same 60 seats, A$518.10 to A$965.00 depending on nothing but geography.
Set that against the ongoing costs a venue carries, and it is small. Our restaurant overhead costs page lays out the monthly lines, and the licence application is a rounding error beside rent and wages. The reason to get it right is not the money, it is the 9 to 11 weeks: a licence applied for too late delays an opening, and an empty fitted out dining room costs far more per week than every fee on this page combined.
They charge too, but they do not publish a dollar table we are willing to quote.
Queensland's Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation publishes its liquor and wine licence fees as a downloadable schedule rather than as figures on a page, and the licence categories do not map neatly onto "restaurant": the relevant one is usually a commercial other (subsidiary on premises) licence. Western Australia and the territories similarly publish fee unit schedules. Fee units get re-indexed, usually at the start of a financial year, and a fee unit figure copied into a web page goes stale without anybody noticing.
So the honest instruction for those states is the unglamorous one: go to your own state regulator's current fee schedule and read the number there, today. A quoted fee for your state from a page like this one is a guess dressed as a fact, and a stale fee is a false claim about what you are about to pay.
Possibly not, and this is the question worth settling before paying any of the fees above.
If customers bring their own alcohol and you do not sell it, you are in BYO territory, which is a different and much cheaper question that answers differently in every state. New South Wales requires no liquor licence to run a BYO restaurant at all. Victoria requires a permit unless you already hold one of several licence types. Queensland's liquor regulator does not regulate BYO for restaurants, leaving it to the council. Our BYO licence rules page works through that properly, and for a venue whose alcohol revenue would be small it is usually the better answer.
If you do sell alcohol, the licence is not optional and the fee is the smallest part of the project. Budget the weeks, not the dollars. And if you are standing this up alongside everything else that opens a venue, the rest of the cost base is on our cafe fit out cost page, which is where the real money goes. Skai Solutions takes about five days to set up once a venue is trading and taking calls, which is a long way after this step.
One practical note for the application period itself. Between lodging and getting a decision you will field a steady run of calls asking whether you are open yet and whether you can serve alcohol, and those calls land while the fit out is still going. Our page on AI phone answering for hospitality covers the options for that, including the ones that cost nothing.
How much does a liquor licence cost in Australia?
There is no national fee because licensing is a state matter. Read on 8 October 2026, a restaurant style application cost A$518.10 in Victoria for a venue holding up to 200 customers, A$754.00 in South Australia for a new on premises licence, and A$965.00 in New South Wales. That is 86% more to apply in New South Wales than in Victoria for the identical business.
What is the cheapest state to get a liquor licence in?
Of the three states that publish a plain dollar figure, Victoria is cheapest to apply in at A$518.10 for a venue holding up to 200 customers, read 8 October 2026. That is only the application fee. Every state also charges an ongoing annual or periodic fee calculated per venue, and none publishes a single restaurant figure, so the cheapest application does not necessarily mean the cheapest licence to hold.
How long does a liquor licence take to get?
Victoria is the clearest on this and states that a decision can take about 9 to 11 weeks, advising applicants to apply at least 11 weeks before they need the licence. Objections or requests for more information extend it. The time, rather than the fee, is the part that actually costs money, because it can delay an opening.
Is the liquor licence application fee refundable if I am refused?
In New South Wales, partly not. The A$965.00 application is made up of a A$376 licensing fee and a A$589 processing fee, and the schedule states the processing fee is non refundable if the application is withdrawn or not granted. Victoria states its application fees are non refundable. Check your own state before lodging a marginal application.
Why does Victoria charge more for a bigger restaurant?
Victoria tiers the restaurant and cafe application fee by patron capacity, which no other state in our table does. It is A$518.10 for 0 to 200 customers, A$759.90 for 201 to 400, and A$1,036.20 for 401 or more. The fee doubles on capacity alone, so the capacity figure on the application is worth thinking about rather than guessing high.
Do I need a liquor licence if customers bring their own?
It depends entirely on the state, and often the answer is no. New South Wales requires no liquor licence to operate a BYO restaurant. Victoria requires a BYO permit unless you hold one of several existing licence types. In Queensland the liquor regulator does not regulate BYO for restaurants and the council may. For a venue with small alcohol revenue, BYO is usually the cheaper route.