How to open a restaurant in India

1What does it cost to open a restaurant in India?

Format sets most of the budget. The ranges below are a rough guide that owners and fit-out contractors commonly quote, not survey data. Your city, the building and the lease move them a long way. For the published figures, from the market’s size to the usual running costs, each with its source, see our Indian restaurant industry statistics.

Three rules hold in every format.

1. The deposit is not the budget. Landlords commonly ask for several months’ rent as a deposit, plus rent in advance, before a single chair arrives. Count it as its own line.
2. Keep three months of fixed costs in the bank on opening day. Rent, salaries and utilities for 90 days, as if nothing sold. Sales in the first weeks are hard to predict, and the cash buys you time to find out what they are.
3. Price the paperwork honestly. Government fees are small. Architects’ drawings for the fire NOC, consultants, and a lawyer reading the lease are not. Ask for written quotes.

2Which licences does a restaurant need, and in what order?

File these in the week you sign the lease. Each has its own office and its own clock, so they run side by side.

1. FSSAI registration or licence. The food licence every other document assumes. Since 1 Apr 2026, registration covers turnover up to ₹1.5 crore a year, a state licence covers turnover above ₹1.5 crore up to ₹50 crore, and a central licence covers turnover above ₹50 crore. You apply on FoSCoS. Registrations and licences issued from 1 Apr 2026 have perpetual validity, but the annual fee still falls due. The FSSAI guide has the documents and the steps.
2. Municipal trade or health licence. From your city’s municipal corporation or council. In many cities it is the slowest file after the fire NOC, so start it the week the lease is signed.
3. Shops and Establishments registration. A state registration with the labour department. You need it to employ staff, and banks often ask for it when you open a current account.
4. Fire NOC. Whether you need one depends on your state’s fire rules, the building and how many people it holds. Basements, rooftops and upper floors get the closest look. Ask your architect to design to the rules from the first drawing; refitting a kitchen for a fire officer costs far more.
5. GST registration. Compulsory once your aggregate turnover crosses ₹20 lakh a year (₹10 lakh in a few special-category states), and you can register earlier by choice. Most restaurants charge 5% without input tax credit; the GST guide explains when 18% applies.
6. The extras your concept needs. A liquor licence from the state excise department if you serve alcohol, usually the longest file of all. A licence to play recorded music in public, if you play it. Permission for your signboard. Consent from the state pollution control board, where your state’s rules require it for your size. And ask your local body whether your city still needs a separate eating-house licence, and who issues it: Delhi, for one, moved it from the police to the local bodies in 2025.

Once you hire, add the employer registrations: EPF when you employ 20 people, ESI when you employ 10 in an area where ESI applies, and professional tax in states that levy it. The full list, with who issues each one, is in every licence a restaurant needs.

3How long does it take to open a restaurant?

A 90-day plan for a café or a casual dining room, once the site is fixed.

Days 1–15: paper and drawings. Register the lease. File FSSAI, the trade licence, the fire NOC and Shops and Establishments. Freeze the kitchen layout: moving a drain or a gas line later is the costliest change you can make. Bring the contractor on site.

Days 16–60: the build. Civil and electrical work. Order kitchen equipment against the frozen layout; imported equipment adds weeks. Choose the billing system and the printers. Cost every dish on the menu by weight, not by feel.

Days 61–80: the team and the suppliers. Hire, then train staff on the real till and the real kitchen tickets. Open accounts with two suppliers for each critical ingredient. Write every recipe down with its yield. Print the menu only after the costs check out. Buy the opening stock.

Days 81–90: the rehearsal. Run friends-and-family services as full dress rehearsals: orders, kitchen tickets, bills, payments and the close of the day. Fix the process, not only the food. Open when a full Friday-night rehearsal ends with the cash drawer matching the till.

4How many covers do you need to break even?

Break-even covers a month = monthly fixed costs ÷ (average spend per cover × gross margin). Divide by the days you open to get covers a day. Gross margin here is what is left of each rupee of sales after food cost: at a 35% food cost, it is 65%.

Take the calculator’s starting numbers as an example. Fixed costs of ₹2,75,000 a month (rent ₹80,000, salaries ₹1,50,000, everything else ₹45,000), an average spend of ₹450 per cover and a 65% gross margin. Each cover contributes ₹292.50, so you need 941 covers a month, rounded up, or 32 a day over 30 days, on sales of about ₹4.23 lakh. Put in your own numbers:

Two habits matter more than the first answer. Know your daily break-even number by heart. And check the day’s covers against it every night, because a month spent below it is hard to see from inside a busy room.

5What should be running on opening day?

Opening on a bill book and a spreadsheet means setting the restaurant up twice. On the first day you want four things working:

• Billing that follows GST: CGST and SGST on every bill, a consecutive invoice number, your GSTIN and FSSAI number printed, and a monthly GSTR-1 file your CA can use.
• Billing that carries on when the internet drops, because it will, and usually on a busy night.
• Kitchen tickets that reach the kitchen, on a screen or a printer, so nothing is shouted across the pass.
• Recipes and stock, so food cost is measured from the first week instead of guessed at the end of the first quarter.

CountStand’s Single plan does all four for ₹2,999 a month per outlet, or ₹2,549 a month paid yearly. It runs in Chrome on the till computer or a laptop, and prints to thermal printers on your network through a small print agent on the counter computer. Setup is six steps: the restaurant’s name, its cuisine, your mobile number, tax and licences, the menu, and the printer. When the internet drops, the till keeps billing, taking cash and settling bills; kitchen tickets and bill prints wait in the till’s own queue and print when the line returns, and every action is sent in order, exactly once. CountStand is open by invitation, with 30 days free and no card.

6Which rules apply from your first bill?

Four rules catch new owners out.

• The FSSAI number goes on every bill. Since 1 Oct 2021, FSSAI has required the 14-digit licence or registration number on bills, invoices and cash memos.
• A tax invoice follows Rule 46 of the CGST Rules. Your name, address and GSTIN, a consecutive serial number unique for the financial year, the date, the service code, the taxable value and the tax at each rate. A bill of ₹50,000 or more to an unregistered guest also needs the guest’s name and address.
• Cash has a ceiling. Income-tax law bars accepting ₹2,00,000 or more in cash in one transaction (the rule long known as section 269ST), and the penalty, equal to the cash received, falls on whoever receives it. Take a bill that size by UPI or card.
• A service charge is optional. The Central Consumer Protection Authority’s guidelines of 4 Jul 2022 bar adding one by default or making it compulsory, and a single judge of the Delhi High Court upheld them on 28 Mar 2025. If a guest asks for it to come off, it comes off.

CountStand holds these at the till. It won’t print a bill without your FSSAI number, it refuses cash once one bill reaches ₹2,00,000, and the service charge starts switched off on every new bill.

7Questions owners ask