How to get a liquor license in Florida

Last verified: August 15, 2026 against 11 primary sources.

The hard part of a Florida liquor license is not any single step. It is that the steps live in four different places and nobody hands you the order.

Miss one and you do not get told at the time. You find out weeks later when the whole file comes back. Here is the sequence, start to finish.

What are the steps to get a liquor license in Florida?

1. Choose which license type fits what you plan to sell.
2. Register the business for sales and use tax.
3. Get zoning approval from your city or county.
4. Get Department of Revenue clearance.
5. Get health approval, if customers will drink on the premises.
6. Get fingerprinted.
7. File the ABT-6001 application.
8. Buy a temporary license if you want to open before the permanent one lands.
9. Pass inspection and receive the license.

Steps three, four, and five are three different offices signing three different boxes on the same page. They are the reason this takes weeks rather than days, and they can be chased in parallel.

Step 1: Choose your license type

Everything downstream depends on this, and it is your call. The Florida license type comparison lays all five out side by side, and what a Florida liquor license costs prices them.

Two shortcuts worth knowing. Beer and wine, poured and sold sealed, is a the 2COP beer and wine license. A restaurant that wants a full bar usually wants an the 4COP-SFS restaurant license rather than a quota license, which is the difference between an annual fee and a six-figure purchase.

Step 2: Register for sales and use tax

The Department of Revenue will not approve anything until the business is registered for sales and use tax. Registration is online (Florida Department of Revenue tax registration). Allow three business days before checking on it, and the certificate arrives by mail.

Do this early. It is the one step that gates another step, and it takes days, not hours.

Steps 3, 4 and 5: The three approvals

Section 5 of the form has three signature blocks. You collect these yourself. Nobody routes them for you, and this surprises almost everyone.

Zoning approval

Signed by: Your city or county zoning office

The zoning office signs to say the location meets zoning rules for selling alcohol. It is required on every new application. The one exception is a state college or university on state-owned land. DBPR ABT-6001 application packet

Department of Revenue clearance

Signed by: Florida Department of Revenue

The business must be registered for sales and use tax first. Then you email your signed application to the Department of Revenue, which signs to say you are registered and your taxes are paid. The Department of Revenue will not process an application that is incomplete or unsigned. Florida Department of Revenue beverage license approval

Health approval

Signed by: Division of Hotels and Restaurants, the county health authority, or the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

This one is required only when people will drink on the premises. If the business serves food, the approval comes from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants. DBPR ABT-6001 application packet

The Revenue step has a specific shape: you email your completed and signed application to the address on their page, with your business partner number and sales tax certificate number. Your local service center reviews it. They publish no turnaround time at all (Florida Department of Revenue beverage license approval), so start it early and chase it.

Local approvals are the wild card. Across eight Florida jurisdictions we found everything from a polished online portal to nothing published whatsoever, and two cities document no alcohol sign-off process at all. Phone your zoning office and ask what they need. It is quicker than deducing it.

Step 6: Fingerprints

The state runs a background check on everyone with a real stake in the business, which is why this comes before the application rather than after. The results need to be waiting when your file is read. Who goes (DBPR ABT-6001 application packet):

• Each sole proprietor
• Officers and directors
• Individual shareholders owning more than one half of 1% of stock in a corporation that is not public
• General partners of a general partnership, and general partners of a limited partnership
• Officers, managing members, or managers of a limited liability company
• Partners of a limited liability partnership
• People who are directly interested in the business and receive money from it

Pick a livescan vendor from FDLE's list (FDLE registered livescan providers) and turn up in person, because the scan cannot be done remotely. Give the vendor ORI FL920150Z. That number is the only thing routing your results to the alcohol division, and DBPR warns that a wrong or missing one means they never arrive (DBPR fingerprinting page).

The scan takes five or ten minutes. Results travel vendor to FDLE to DBPR electronically; you carry no paperwork. DBPR says two to four days after a vendor scan, and asks that you are printed at least five days before applying (DBPR Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco FAQ).

Out of state? Ask the division for hard-copy fingerprint cards and get printed where you live rather than flying in (DBPR fingerprinting page).

The application also asks about criminal history, and the questions reach everyone on the list above rather than just the person signing. What the form asks and who decides is on criminal history and the application.

On cost, two official sources disagree, so budget about $60 in government processing plus a vendor fee. The full explanation is on what a Florida liquor license costs.

Step 7: File the ABT-6001

One form for every new alcohol license, incorporated into the rules by Rule 61A-5.010 (Rule 61A-5.010, F.A.C.). Worth setting expectations: it is dated August 2013, and whether the online system uses a newer version internally is not something we could confirm.

What goes with it (DBPR ABT-6001 application packet):

• The completed DBPR ABT-6001 application
• Payment of $100 or one quarter of the annual license fee, whichever is greater, if you want a temporary license
• Your fingerprint receipt, if it applies to you
• A copy of an arrest disposition, if it applies to you
• Mitigation for moral character, if it applies to you
• Your right of occupancy: a signed lease or deed in the name of the business applying

The form also asks you to name everyone with an interest in the business: officers, directors, shareholders, partners, managers, the whole ownership structure. It reaches further than people expect: someone who guaranteed the lease or co-signed the loan counts (DBPR ABT-6001 application packet).

DBPR district offices

Each office covers a set of counties. Find yours and call before you file (DBPR district office contact list). Central licensing in Tallahassee is (850) 488-3227.

One address to double-check: DBPR's contact page and Miami-Dade County's own website list two different street addresses for the Miami office. Confirm before you drive there.

Step 8: The temporary license

You do not have to wait for the permanent license to start selling. Once the application is complete on its face and nothing in it looks disqualifying, DBPR can issue a temporary one (Fla. Stat. 561.181).

It costs $100 or one quarter of the annual license fee, whichever is greater, which is the $100 floor for beer and wine. 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.

How long does all this take?

We are not going to give you a number, and it is worth explaining why when every other site will.

DBPR does not publish a processing time on any page we checked. Neither does the Department of Revenue for its clearance step (Florida Department of Revenue beverage license approval). The figure you see quoted, "90 days" being the usual one, does not trace back to any government source we could find. The most detailed site publishing it labels its own local figures as AI-generated and "indicative only."

What actually sets your timeline is three things: how fast your city handles zoning, how fast the Revenue service center works through your email, and whether your fingerprints come back clean. All three vary enormously and none of them are published.

The temporary license exists precisely because that wait is unpredictable. If you are opening on a fixed date, that is the mechanism to ask your district office about.

What holds up a Florida liquor license application?

Discovering the Revenue step late

Nothing tells you this is your job until you read Section 5 closely. People post everything else and then learn they still need a signature from an agency they have not contacted, which does not publish how long it takes (Florida Department of Revenue beverage license approval). Start it in week one.

Getting fingerprinted with the wrong ORI

The scan works, the vendor is paid, the results go somewhere that is not DBPR. There is no error message. Your application simply sits incomplete until somebody works out why (DBPR fingerprinting page). One number, FL920150Z, and it is on you to give it to the vendor.

Filing the way the wrong page told you

The FAQ says online, the 2013 packet says take it to a district office, and both are published by DBPR right now. Following the outdated one costs you the round trip. Call your district office and ask before sending anything anywhere.