How much is a liquor license in Florida?

Last verified: August 15, 2026 against 15 primary sources.

Build your budget around the wrong number and you find out in week six, with a lease running. Somebody will tell you a Florida liquor license costs $100,000. Somebody else will tell you $400. They are both right, and that is the problem with asking how much is a liquor license in Florida.

Two completely different numbers get called "the cost of a liquor license." One is the annual fee the state charges you. The other is what a limited license sells for between private parties. This page separates them, so you find out which one applies to you before you build a budget around the wrong one.

How much is a liquor license in Florida, in one number?

The state charges $28 to $1,820 a year, depending on what you sell and how many people live in your county. That is the real, recurring, invoiced number for almost every business.

The six-figure prices belong to quota licenses, a limited class of full liquor license traded privately. Most restaurants can skip that market entirely through the SFS restaurant license, which sits on the same $624 to $1,820 schedule as everything else.

What does each Florida license type cost per year?

Totals as invoiced. Beer and wine licenses carry a 40% surtax already folded into the numbers below, so what you see is what you pay.

The bracket wording is not identical across the statutes. Chapters 563 and 564 (beer and wine) read "less than 25,000", "over 25,000 and less than 50,000", "over 50,000 and less than 75,000", "over 75,000 and not over 100,000", "over 100,000". Chapter 565 (liquor) reads "25,000 or less", "over 25,000 and not over 50,000", "over 50,000 and not over 75,000", "over 75,000 and not over 100,000", "over 100,000". A county sitting exactly on 25,000 or 75,000 can land in a different bracket depending on which statute applies.

Sources: DBPR annual license fee chart (effective Oct. 1, 2025), DBPR types of licenses and permits, and the statutes themselves: Fla. Stat. 563.02, Fla. Stat. 563.025,Fla. Stat. 564.02, Fla. Stat. 564.025, Fla. Stat. 565.02.

Five population brackets, and the gap between them is real money. A 2COP costs more than twice as much in a big county as in a small one. Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Hillsborough, Duval, and Pinellas are all in the top bracket. The brackets run off the state's own population estimates rather than the census, and DBPR decides where your invoice lands.

The 40% that catches people

Look up the 2COP fee in the statute and you find $280 (Fla. Stat. 564.02). Pay $280 and you have underpaid. A separate section adds a 40% surtax to every beer and wine license (Fla. Stat. 563.025, Fla. Stat. 564.025), and it is nowhere near the section that sets the fee.

$280 plus $112 is $392, and DBPR's chart prints it exactly that way (DBPR annual license fee chart (effective Oct. 1, 2025)).

Liquor licenses have no surtax, because the liquor chapter contains no such section, so a quota or SFS license in the largest counties is $1,820 and nothing more (Fla. Stat. 565.02). Two businesses on the same street with different licenses are doing different arithmetic.

One more liquor line item: more than three separate rooms or enclosures with permanent bars adds $1,000 a year (Fla. Stat. 565.02). Service bars, portable bars, and single-event bars do not count.

What does a temporary liquor license cost in Florida?

Cheapest thing on this page and the one most worth knowing about. It costs $100 or one quarter of the annual license fee, whichever is greater (Fla. Stat. 561.181), and it lets you start selling while the permanent application is still moving.

Beer and wine land on the $100 floor, because a quarter of their annual fee is under $100. A 4COP in a large county is $455, a quarter of $1,820 (DBPR temporary license fee chart (rev. 05/16/2025)). Set against a month of rent on a room that cannot open, $100 barely registers. A temporary license ends when the application is denied, or 14 days after it is approved, or when the permanent license is issued, whichever happens first. There is more detail, including the condition that catches people out, on the Florida temporary liquor license.

Why do people say a Florida liquor license costs $100,000?

Florida caps how many full liquor licenses exist per county. Those capped licenses carry the eye-watering prices, and there are two ways to get one.

The state lottery

When new quota licenses come available the state runs a drawing, and the entry window is open right now. Entry is $100. If you are drawn and a license is issued there is a one-time fee of $10,750 (Fla. Stat. 561.19). The $10,750 is charged once when a new quota license is issued, not at renewal. The money goes to alcohol and drug abuse education, treatment, and prevention programs.

You will see that $10,750 called the "Hughes Act" fee. That phrase appears nowhere in the statute. It is industry shorthand for section 561.19, and a useful tell about whether a source is reading the law or repeating other people.

Buying one from someone else

Existing quota licenses change hands privately. This is where six figures come from.

Here is where we stop giving you a number, and why. The state does not set, publish, or track what a quota license sells for. It is a private market that moves by county and by year. Brokers advertise ranges from tens of thousands into the hundreds of thousands, but a broker earns a commission on the sale, which makes a published range marketing rather than data.

We also read the most detailed Florida price guide on the web and found it labels its own local figures as AI-generated and "indicative only," with numbers that contradict each other from page to page. Repeating them would make this page look more complete and be worth less. If you are buying on the secondary market, get real quotes and treat every published range as an opening position.

Then check whether you need that market at all. For a restaurant, the the 4COP-SFS restaurant license is a full bar with no purchase.

What else do you pay besides the license fee?

Fingerprinting

Everyone required to be printed pays for their own scan. Budget roughly $60 a head in government processing, plus a vendor fee on top.

Local approvals

Before the state signs anything, your city or county has to. Zoning approval is required on every new application (DBPR ABT-6001 application packet), and plenty of cities want their own permit or letter first, each with a fee.

We are not publishing per-city numbers. Going through eight Florida jurisdictions, several published no alcohol fees online, two published no alcohol sign-off process at all, and some documents that did exist were years out of date. A number we cannot stand behind is worse than telling you to phone your zoning office. So: phone your zoning office.

The things nobody budgets for

Registering for sales and use tax comes before the license, and that sequence is on how to get a liquor license in Florida, and how long the whole thing takes covers the wait. And the table above is annual, not one-off. License years even differ by county, some running October to September and others April to March (DBPR annual license fee chart (effective Oct. 1, 2025)).

Where people lose weeks

Budgeting the statute number instead of the invoice number

The surtax is the most common underpayment on a beer or wine application, because the fee and the surtax sit in different sections and only DBPR's chart shows them added together (DBPR annual license fee chart (effective Oct. 1, 2025)). Short payment means the application comes back.

Guessing your county's bracket

Five brackets, and the wording is not even consistent between statutes. Chapters 563 and 564 say "less than 25,000" where chapter 565 says "25,000 or less" (Fla. Stat. 565.02). A county sitting exactly on a boundary can classify differently depending on which license you are applying for.

Pricing a quota license you never needed

People talk themselves out of opening over secondary-market prices they were never obliged to pay. If the dining room meets the size and revenue test, the SFS route is the same annual fee with nothing to buy (Fla. Stat. 561.20(2)(a)4).

Which liquor license costs online are out of date?

Checked against the statutes on August 15, 2026.

Two wrong figures circulate widely enough that they are worth naming. Neither comes from a bad source exactly; both are numbers that used to be right, or that got attached to the wrong license.

"A restaurant needs 2,500 square feet and 150 seats"

That was the rule until July 1, 2023, when chapter 2023-65 cut it to 2,000 square feet and 120 (ch. 2023-65, Laws of Florida). The current statute reads 2,000 and 120 (Fla. Stat. 561.20(2)(a)4). Any page still quoting 2,500 and 150 predates that change, and building to it means overbuilding by 500 square feet and 30 seats you never needed.

A different bill in 2026 would have cut the numbers again, to 1,200 and 80. It died in committee, so that is wrong in the other direction. The full story is on did Florida lower the SFS requirements in 2026?

"The restaurant license costs $10,750 to activate"

It does not. The $10,750 is section 561.19, and the statute ties it to a new liquor license issued subject to the quota limitation (Fla. Stat. 561.19). It is a quota-license fee.

An SFS restaurant license is a nonquota special license issued under a different section entirely (Fla. Stat. 561.20(2)(a)4), which is the whole point of it. An SFS applicant pays the annual fee in the table above and no $10,750. Seeing that number attached to the restaurant license is a reliable sign a page has confused the two, and it is an expensive thing to budget for by mistake. The lottery and what the fee actually attaches to are on the Florida quota license lottery.

What we charge

Separate from anything the government charges, and paid once. One flat fee, paid one time. No subscription.

• Beer & Wine: $249 (launch price, regularly $497)
• Full Liquor Restaurant: $349 (launch price, regularly $797)
• Quota Lottery Entry: $99 (launch price, regularly $199)

See what is included in each package.