Skai Solutions traced the actual rules and most of a restaurant signage pack is not required: allergen details on an unpackaged meal may be given on request, while a licensed venue's liquor signs are prescribed to a 190x350mm sheet.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we read a lot of regulator pages on operators' behalf, and restaurant signage is the topic where the gap between what is sold and what is required is widest. Every rule below is quoted from a regulator's own page, read on 27 October 2026, with the state named so you can check your own.
Fewer than the signage packs suggest, and the ones that are required are not the ones most kitchens buy. There is no single national list, because three different bodies of law each ask for something different and two of the three are state law. The honest summary is this.
Everything else in a typical restaurant signage pack is either a good idea, a condition of your own insurance, or somebody else's jurisdiction. Knowing which is which is worth half an hour, because an inspector asks about the rules, not about the stickers.
No. This is the single most misunderstood point in Australian restaurant signage and it is stated plainly by the regulator. Food Standards Australia New Zealand's own allergen labelling guidance says that where food "is not in packaging or does not need to have a label, the information must be displayed with the food or can be requested from the supplier".
A plate of food is unpackaged food. So the obligation is satisfied either by displaying the information with the food or by being able to answer a customer accurately when they ask. You may put allergens on the menu and many venues should, but it is a service decision rather than a signage requirement, and a sign reading "ask our staff about allergens" is not a legal shield if the staff do not know the answer.
The declared allergens are wheat, fish, crustacean, mollusc, egg, milk, lupin, peanut, soy, sesame, almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pistachio, pine nut and walnut. Barley, oats and rye are declared only where they contain gluten, and sulphites at 10 mg/kg or more. The bold type rule and the bolded "Contains" statement that people quote at each other apply to the ingredient list on a label, not to a menu.
One date worth knowing: plain English allergen labelling took effect on 25 February 2024, and stock packaged and labelled before that could be sold until 25 February 2026. That window has now closed, so anything on your shelf should already be compliant. The practical detail of running this day to day is on our allergen rules for restaurants page.
If you hold a licence, this is where the real obligations are, and Liquor and Gaming NSW publishes them as a pack per licence type rather than as one list. A standalone restaurant or cafe serving alcohol with meals is an on premises licence. The other packs cover casinos, clubs, hotels, limited licences, vessels, airports, packaged liquor, producers and wholesalers, small bars and web based liquor.
The part no checklist carries is the print specification, and it is unusually exact:
Read that list again next to the laminated sign by your till that somebody resized to fit a frame three years ago. Each licence type also has a self audit checklist, numbered, which is the fastest way to confirm your own set. Two things the page does not say, and we will not invent them: it publishes no price for the signs and no penalty for failing to display them. Other states run their own equivalent schemes, so if you are not in New South Wales, treat the structure as the lesson and get your own regulator's pack. Our liquor licence cost page covers the licence itself.
Usually not, and this is the second place where the common assumption is backwards. Queensland Health's factsheet on smoking at outdoor eating and drinking places puts the signage obligations on a venue that provides a smoking area, not on a venue that does not. A place with a smoking area must display a map showing the area and its smoke free buffers, "a sign clearly advising no food or drink can be consumed in the smoking area", and a sign stating that smoking is restricted to the provided area. The area itself must be surrounded by a two metre smoke free buffer, with no food, drink or entertainment in the buffer.
The penalties published in that factsheet are for the smoker rather than the venue: an on the spot fine of two penalty units, and a maximum court penalty of twenty penalty units. The factsheet states that "as of 1 July 2023, the penalty unit amount is $154.80" and that the amount rises each year, so on our arithmetic at that rate two units is about A$309.60 and twenty about A$3,096. Get the current unit value from 13 QGOV rather than from us, because the published figure is three years old. Enforcement is by Queensland Health environmental health officers.
Note what is not there. No general duty to display a plain no smoking sign, no requirement about ashtrays, and no stated duty on staff to ask a smoker to stop. That is one state's law and the others differ, which is exactly why a national signage pack is the wrong thing to buy. Outdoor dining has its own permit layer too, on our outdoor dining permit cost page.
The two that turn up in every pack and that we could not trace to an Australian requirement for an ordinary restaurant are the staff hand washing notice and the generic kitchen hazard set. The hand washing sign is a genuinely useful training prompt and it is a requirement in some other countries, which is how it ended up in Australian sign catalogues. Australian food law is built around the facilities and the practices rather than around a notice: you need the hand washing facilities, the warm water and the trained staff, and an inspector will test the practice, not the poster. Keep the sign if it helps your team. Do not count it as compliance.
The same logic applies to anything a sign shop sells as a "restaurant compliance pack". A pack cannot know your licence type, your state's tobacco law or whether your site has a designated smoking area, which are the three things that decide your actual list.
And one gap we will state rather than fill. Kilojoule labelling on menu boards is mandatory for large chains in several states, with thresholds based on outlet counts and a prescribed average daily energy intake statement. We could not read the New South Wales thresholds from the Food Authority's own site on 27 October 2026, so there is no number for it on this page. If you run more than a handful of outlets, that is a question for your state food authority directly.
Four calls and a walk around, in this order.
Then walk the room with the list and check the paper itself: size, colour, single sided, unfaded, unaltered. That is the part that fails, not the absence of a sign.
Signage is state law layered on national food law, and we have used New South Wales for liquor and Queensland for tobacco because those are the two we could read and date. Your state will differ in the detail and possibly in the substance. Nothing here is legal advice, and a condition written into your own licence or development approval overrides a general rule every time. If a sign is named in your licence conditions, that is your answer.
Compliance reading is the job that waits for a quiet hour, and a quiet hour is the thing a venue with an unanswered phone never gets. The afternoon you set aside to download a liquor pack is the afternoon the phone rings fourteen times about Saturday.
Skai Solutions answers the phone for Australian and New Zealand venues so that the admin that has to happen in business hours can actually happen in business hours. Bookings, hours, location and the obvious questions get handled while you work on the things that only you can do. Setup takes five days.
What signs are required for a restaurant in Australia?
There is no single national list. Food law asks for very little on the wall, liquor law asks for the most and only if you are licensed, tobacco law asks for signs mainly where you provide a smoking area, and exit signs and evacuation information come through building and work safety law. Your licence type, your state and whether you have a smoking area decide your actual list.
Do you legally have to put allergens on a menu in Australia?
No. Food Standards Australia New Zealand's allergen labelling guidance says that where food is not in packaging or does not need a label, the information must be displayed with the food or can be requested from the supplier. A restaurant meal is unpackaged food, so an accurate answer on request satisfies the obligation. Putting it on the menu is a service decision, not a signage requirement.
Is an 'ask our staff about allergens' sign enough?
It meets the spirit of the rule only if the staff can actually answer. The obligation is that allergen information is displayed with the food or available from the supplier on request, so the sign is a pointer to a system. If nobody on shift knows what is in the dressing, the sign does not help the customer and it will not help you.
What size do NSW liquor signs have to be?
A4 at 210x297mm, or 190x350mm, with sign 6G also permitted at A3, 297x420mm. Liquor and Gaming NSW requires them single sided, in full colour, on white paper, printed from the original downloaded file and not altered, with professional prints at 100% of actual size and home prints limited to A4 using fit to page.
Can you reprint or resize a mandatory liquor sign?
No. The Liquor and Gaming NSW guidance says signs must be printed from the original downloaded file and must not be altered, and that professional prints must be at 100% of actual size. It also requires them to be legible and not faded, blurry or excessively damaged, and says a sign that fails that must be replaced. A resized or laminated-then-faded sign is the common failure.
Do you need a no smoking sign at an outdoor dining area?
Queensland Health's factsheet for outdoor eating and drinking places puts the signage duty on venues that provide a smoking area: a map of the area and its buffers, a sign advising no food or drink can be consumed in it, and a sign that smoking is restricted to the provided area, with a two metre smoke free buffer. It states no general obligation to display a plain no smoking sign. Other states differ.
What is the fine for smoking in a Queensland outdoor eating area?
The published factsheet gives an on the spot fine of two penalty units and a maximum court penalty of twenty penalty units, aimed at the person smoking rather than the venue. It states the penalty unit was $154.80 as at 1 July 2023 and rises annually, so at that rate two units is about A$309.60 and twenty about A$3,096. Confirm the current unit value with 13 QGOV.
Is a hand washing sign required in an Australian commercial kitchen?
We could not trace an Australian requirement for one in an ordinary restaurant. Australian food law is built around facilities and practices rather than notices: you need the hand washing facilities, the warm water and trained staff, and an inspector tests the practice. Keep the sign as a training prompt if it helps your team, but do not count it as compliance.