Florida liquor license prep
The lease is signed. The Florida liquor license isn't.
Every week you can't pour is a week of rent on a room full of empty glasses. A Florida liquor license is not hard to apply for. It is just scattered across four agencies, a state form last updated in 2013, and an annual fee that changes with your county.
We put the whole thing in one envelope. Flat fee from $249, filled from your written answers, back to you in 24 hours.
Your complete package delivered within 24 hours of finished intake.
The clock starts when your intake questions are complete. If we need anything from you, we pause it and tell you exactly what's missing.
Full refund if we don't deliver your complete package.
How do you get a liquor license in Florida?
Three steps. You choose, we prepare, you file. Most of the calendar time is the state's, not ours.
Pick your license and answer our written questionnaire.
You choose the license in the Florida license type comparison, then answer our questions about the business. Plan on 20 to 40 minutes at your kitchen table. It beats three weeks of phone tag.
We prepare your complete application package within 24 hours.
Your answers go into the state form. The supporting documents get assembled in the order a reviewer expects them, with your county's fee worked out to the dollar.
You file it and finish the state's steps with our roadmap.
You submit it. We make sure everything's in the envelope. The roadmap says what goes where, in what order, and which office signs it.
How much does a Florida liquor license cost?
Two numbers, and only one of them is ours. The state charges $168 to $1,820a year depending on your license and your county's population. We charge a flat fee to prepare the paperwork. One flat fee, paid one time. No subscription.
Every Florida liquor license fee, by county size, with the statute each one comes from.
Beer & Wine
For places that want to sell beer and wine.
Launch price$249Regular price $497
Full Liquor Restaurant
For restaurants that want to serve beer, wine, and liquor.
Launch price$349Regular price $797
Quota Lottery Entry
For entering the state's yearly drawing for a quota license.
Launch price$99Regular price $199
Why we're this cheap
An attorney quotes $2,500 and up because an attorney is selling judgment: reading your situation, deciding your strategy, arguing your corner if it goes wrong. That is worth the money when you need it.
Most first applications don't need it. They need someone who knows which form, which fee, which office, and in what order. That is a preparation job, and preparation prices differently: no office to keep the lights on in, no hourly meter, no three phone calls before anyone tells you a number.
The other half of the answer is what we leave out. We don't pick your license and we don't give legal advice, and not because we're being careful, but because in Florida only a licensed attorney can do those things. Anyone selling you a "we'll-tell-you-which-license" service without a law license is breaking the law, and you can decide what that says about the rest of their work.
So we sell the part that is honestly ours: the typing, the assembling, the knowing where everything goes. It's the boring half. It's also the half that eats your week.
See exactly what is in each package, or read the nonlawyer disclosure on how this model works.
What lands in your inbox
- Your state application, filled in. Every answer copied from what you wrote, checked against itself so two pages can't contradict each other.
- A document checklist. What to gather, what each one has to show, and which ones hold applications up when they're wrong.
- Your county and city steps. The local approvals for your actual address, because Tampa and Jacksonville do not work the same way.
- A filing roadmap. The order to do things in, and what happens after you hand it over.
Our guarantee
- Full refund if we don't deliver your complete package.
- If we made a clerical error in preparing your package, meaning a wrong entry of information you gave us, a missing page, or a wrong fee amount, we correct our error free, immediately.
Common questions
How long does it take to get a liquor license in Florida?
Nobody official will tell you, and we are not going to invent a number. DBPR publishes no processing time. Neither does the Department of Revenue for its part. What actually sets the pace is your city's zoning office, the Department of Revenue service center handling your approval, and whether your fingerprints come back clean, and those three vary enormously. This is exactly why the temporary license exists: once your application is complete on its face and nothing in it looks disqualifying, $100 or a quarter of the annual fee (whichever is greater) lets you start selling while the permanent one works its way through.
How much is a liquor license in Florida?
The state wants somewhere between $28 and $1,820 a year, and which end you land on depends on what you sell and how many people live in your county. Beer and wine over the counter and to go, a 2COP, runs $168 to $392, with a 40% surtax already baked into those totals. A restaurant full bar or a quota liquor license is $624 to $1,820, with no surtax. Quota licenses carry extra one-time costs: $100 to enter the state lottery, $10,750 if one is actually issued to you.
Can a restaurant serve liquor in Florida without a quota license?
Yes, and this is the single most useful thing on this site for a restaurant owner. The special food service license, 4COP-SFS, gives you a full bar without buying into the quota market. The price of admission is size and honesty about what you are: at least 2,000 square feet of service area, equipped to serve meals to 120 people at once, at least 120 physical seats, held out as a restaurant, and at least 51% of food-and-drink revenue coming from food and nonalcoholic drinks. That last one is audited, and missing it can cost the license.
Do I have to be fingerprinted for a Florida liquor license?
If you have a real stake in the business, yes. The state prints each sole proprietor, officers and directors, anyone holding more than half of one percent of stock in a non-public corporation, general partners, LLC officers and managing members and managers, LLP partners, and anyone else directly interested in the business and taking money out of it. It happens in person at a livescan vendor approved by FDLE, and the vendor needs one number, ORI FL920150Z, or the results never reach DBPR at all.
What is a temporary liquor license in Florida?
It is the thing that stops an unpredictable wait from becoming an unpaid lease. Once your application is complete on its face and nothing in it looks disqualifying, DBPR can issue a temporary license and you can start selling. It costs $100 or one quarter of the annual fee, whichever is greater, which works out to $100 for beer and wine. It ends when the application is denied, 14 days after it is approved, or when the permanent license lands, whichever comes first.
Does the state have to approve my application?
No. Approval is the state's decision and nobody can promise you one. Treat any service that does as a warning about the rest of their work. What is in your control is whether the application is complete, internally consistent, and arrives with the right approvals already signed. That is the part we handle.
More detail on how much a Florida liquor license costs, how to apply for one step by step, and which Florida license type fits your business.
Not sure which license yet?
All five Florida license types side by side: what each one lets you sell, what it costs a year in your county, and what the state asks for. Ten minutes of reading, no email required.