Skai Solutions priced it three ways and the answer turns on your council, not your state: Yarra City Council charges A$90 for a licensed chair, City of Port Phillip charges by the square metre, and New South Wales made footpath dining exempt development.
A 24 seat footpath area at Yarra's published rates works out at about A$3,430 in the first year, or roughly A$143 a seat. Every figure below is read off a council schedule on 25 September 2026, with the arithmetic shown so you can swap in your own counts.
There is no national fee and no state fee. Footpath dining is licensed by the council that owns the footpath, and the three big Melbourne hospitality councils do not even charge on the same unit. Yarra City Council prices every object you put outside. City of Port Phillip prices the floor area. New South Wales made the planning approval disappear altogether and left only the council permit behind.
That means the honest answer to "what does a permit cost" is a range that depends on which side of a council boundary your front door sits on, and the only way to price it is to read the schedule that applies to you. Below are the two schedules that are published as hard numbers, both read on 25 September 2026.
| Council | What the fee is charged on | Published rate | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yarra City Council (Fitzroy, Collingwood, Richmond) | Each item on the footpath | A$90 a licensed chair, A$110 a table over 800mm, A$68 application | Current until 30 June 2027, GST free |
| City of Port Phillip (St Kilda, South Melbourne) | Square metre of footpath occupied | A standard rate and a discounted rate, set in the 2026/27 footpath trading schedule | Permits run 1 July to 30 June |
| New South Wales councils | Council permit only, no development application | Set council by council under the Local Government Act or Roads Act | Exempt development under the Codes SEPP |
Sources, read 25 September 2026: Yarra City Council footpath trading, City of Port Phillip outdoor dining, NSW Department of Planning, outdoor dining.
Yarra publishes a per item schedule, which is the most transparent of the three and the easiest to check your own bill against. These are the rates current until 30 June 2027, and the council states they are GST free.
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Application and inspection, new applications | A$68, non-refundable |
| Chair, licensed premises | A$90 each |
| Chair, unlicensed premises | A$28 each |
| Table under 800mm | A$97 each |
| Table 800mm or over | A$110 each |
| Heater | A$133 |
| Planter box or tub | A$69 |
| Awning | A$261 |
| Advertising sign, licensed premises | A$215 |
| Advertising sign, unlicensed premises | A$149 |
| Goods display | A$499 |
| Screens and barriers | Free |
| Umbrellas | Free |
| Other items | A$69 each |
Read that table again and one line jumps out. A chair costs A$90 if you hold a liquor licence and A$28 if you do not. That is the same chair, on the same footpath, at 3.2 times the price, and the trigger is a licence held inside the building. Nobody writing about outdoor dining puts that number next to the chair.
Here is the arithmetic, using the published Yarra rates above and a footprint most bistros would recognise. Every input is shown so you can swap in your own counts.
| Line | Count | Rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chairs, licensed premises | 24 | A$90 | A$2,160 |
| Tables 800mm or over | 6 | A$110 | A$660 |
| Heaters | 2 | A$133 | A$266 |
| Planter boxes | 4 | A$69 | A$276 |
| Application and inspection, first year only | 1 | A$68 | A$68 |
| First year total | A$3,430 | ||
| Renewal year | A$3,362 |
That is our arithmetic on Yarra's published rates, not a Yarra figure, and it works out at about A$143 a seat for the first year. Two things fall out of it. First, the licensed chair premium alone is A$62 a chair, so the same 24 seats cost A$1,488 a year more because the venue is licensed. Second, the weather protection is free and the seating is not: screens, barriers and umbrellas carry no fee at all, so a venue that spends on shelter and keeps the chair count tight pays less than one that fills the space.
Against a build, this is small money. A footpath area is a rounding error next to what the room behind it costs, and our cafe fit out cost guide prices that side. Against a quiet Tuesday it is not small: A$3,430 is roughly what 24 extra covers a week at a A$45 average spend brings in over about three weeks of trade.
It does not charge nothing, but it removed a whole layer. Under the NSW outdoor dining provisions, footpath dining for food and drink premises is exempt development, so there is no separate development application to lodge and no DA fee to pay. What remains is the council permit, issued under the Local Government Act or the Roads Act, and each council sets that fee itself.
The department is explicit that the exemption does not override anything else. Patron limits in your liquor licence still bind, and so do the building code and fire safety requirements. If you are working through licensing more broadly, the same state by state pattern shows up in BYO licence rules, where New South Wales again asks for nothing and Victoria charges a fee and wants notice.
The permit fee is the part councils publish. Three other costs are attached to it and they are larger.
Port Phillip also publishes discounts worth asking about: 50% off in standard rate precincts and 100% off in the discount rate precincts for new outdoor dining locations, pro rata monthly fees for seasonal trading, and case by case relief for businesses affected by major construction. Discounts that generous are usually time limited, so check the current schedule before you budget on them.
Before you price anything, measure. Yarra will not consider an application at all where the footpath is less than 2.5 metres wide, because the required zones cannot fit without blocking pedestrians. Where trading is allowed, a walkway zone has to be kept clear: a minimum of 1.5 metres from the building line on footpaths under 3.5 metres wide, and 1.8 metres on footpaths of 3.5 metres or more.
That second number is the one that catches people out. A wider footpath does not simply give you more trading space, because the clear walkway you must leave grows with it. On a 3.5 metre footpath you keep 1.8 metres clear and trade on what is left after the kerbside and access zones are set out, which is why two venues on the same street can end up with very different seat counts. Allow for a site measure before you order furniture, and expect the permitted seat count to come back lower than the one you sketched. Setting a permit up properly takes five days of back and forth in our experience, and councils run their own timeframes on top of that.
More than it looks. Footpath seats are the seats you cannot see from the pass and cannot easily call across to, and they are usually the ones that fill on the days the phone is busiest. A permit that adds 24 covers only pays for itself if those covers get booked, and a booking that rings out during a rush is a cover that never arrives. Our guide to table turnover covers the seated side of that, and no-shows covers what happens when the booking exists and the guest does not.
Skai Solutions builds an AI phone agent that answers the restaurant line, takes the booking and puts it in the system while the floor is full, which is the specific failure that makes new seats sit empty. If your phone mostly carries enquiries rather than bookings, a basic message-taking plan is the right buy and it is not us. If it carries bookings during service, the outdoor seats are exactly where the difference shows up. There is a wider explanation of what the category does and does not do on our AI receptionist page.
One caution on everything above. Council fee schedules change every financial year and the rates here are the ones published for 2026/27. Treat them as a way to price the decision, not as a quote, and read your own council's current schedule before you commit. This is general information about published fees, not legal or planning advice.
Before you commit to a courtyard or a footpath area, check the noise side of it. An outdoor live music venue in Victoria is assessed against 45 dB(A) over 15 minutes. Restaurant noise complaints has the time bands and the agent of change rule.
Do you need a permit for outdoor dining in Australia?
Yes, in almost every case, because the footpath belongs to the council rather than to you. In New South Wales footpath dining for food and drink premises is exempt development, so no separate development application is needed, but a council permit under the Local Government Act or Roads Act is still required. In Victoria it is a footpath trading permit issued by the council.
How much is a footpath trading permit in Melbourne?
It depends on the council. Yarra City Council charges per item, including A$90 for a chair at a licensed premises, A$28 for a chair at an unlicensed one, A$110 for a table 800mm or over, and a A$68 application and inspection fee, all GST free and current until 30 June 2027. City of Port Phillip charges per square metre instead.
How wide does a footpath need to be for outdoor dining?
Yarra City Council will not consider footpath trading where the footpath is under 2.5 metres wide. Where it is allowed, a clear walkway of at least 1.5 metres from the building line is required on footpaths under 3.5 metres wide, and at least 1.8 metres on footpaths of 3.5 metres or more.
Is an outdoor dining permit cheaper if you are not licensed?
At Yarra City Council it is, substantially. A chair is A$90 at a licensed premises and A$28 at an unlicensed one, which is 3.2 times the price for the same chair. On a 24 seat footpath that difference alone is A$1,488 a year, on our arithmetic from the published rates.
How long does an outdoor dining permit last?
Permits are usually tied to the financial year. City of Port Phillip states its permits run from 1 July to 30 June, with fees calculated pro rata by month for seasonal operations. Yarra's published fees are current until 30 June 2027.