Apply for your premises licence
A premises licence is the legal permission to sell alcohol from your building — everything else (your personal licence, your DPS or premises manager, your opening hours) hangs off it.
A premises licence is the legal permission to sell alcohol from your building — everything else (your personal licence, your DPS or premises manager, your opening hours) hangs off it. You apply to the licensing authority for the area, publish a public notice at the premises, and sit out a statutory consultation period before it can be granted.
You cannot sell a single drink without one, and trading without it is a criminal offence with an unlimited fine. The bigger risk is timing: this is the longest lead time on the whole launch checklist, and if you apply late it is your opening date that moves, not your fit-out programme.
England
Apply at least 16 weeks before you plan to open. The statutory consultation period is 28 working days; build in extra time for advertising the notice, objections, and a possible licensing sub-committee hearing.
Banded by rateable value (Bands A–E), roughly £100–£635 for the application, using the same bands as the annual fee.
Apply to the licensing authority for the area the premises is in.
Scotland
Apply as early as you can — realistically 6 months before opening. Applications go to Licensing Board meeting dates, not a fixed working-day clock, and most boards meet only every 6–8 weeks, so missing a cut-off adds the whole gap to the next meeting.
Banded by rateable value, roughly £180–£900.
Apply to the Licensing Board for the area, via the council.
Who this is for
Any venue that will sell alcohol for consumption on or off the premises — bars, pubs, restaurants with a licensed bar, and shops or delis selling take-home alcohol.
Open to any applicant aged 18+ with a suitable operating business behind them. If you are buying an existing licensed business rather than starting fresh, you may be able to apply for a licence transfer instead of a fresh grant — quicker, but it still needs the authority or board to sign off before you trade under it.
What you’ll hold
- Operating schedule
- Plan of the premises showing licensable activities
- DPS consent form (England) or premises manager details (Scotland)
Watch out for
- Treating the English 28-working-day cycle as the norm everywhere. Scotland runs on Licensing Board meeting dates — miss the paperwork cut-off for the next meeting and you can add 6–8 weeks waiting for the one after, sometimes longer around summer recess.
- Applying before the fit-out plan is settled. The layout plan submitted with the application has to match what you actually build — a late redesign after grant means a variation application, which restarts part of the clock.
- Assuming buying an existing licensed business carries the licence over automatically. It does not — you need a transfer application, and trading before it is confirmed risks an unlicensed sale even if the previous owner was fully licensed.
Sources
- GOV.UK — Premises licence (England & Wales) checked 2026-09-02
- GOV.UK — Premises licence (Scotland) checked 2026-09-02
- gov.scot — Alcohol licensing guidance checked 2026-09-02
See also
This is item 56 of 66 in the free UK Launch Checklist. See the whole list →