India's food licensing rules just changed. Here is what your business must do.

The Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Amendment Regulations, 2026 bring perpetual licences, higher turnover thresholds, risk-based inspections, mandatory food recall on FoSCoS, and new duties for e-commerce food sellers on ONDC. This page breaks down every change, what it means for your operations, and how a properly configured ERP helps you stay compliant without the paperwork load.

Four reforms, one commencement date. A short read before the long one.

Licences no longer expire.

Any FSSAI licence or registration issued on or after 1 April 2026 stays valid indefinitely, as long as the annual fee is paid and hygiene and safety norms are met. No more renewal paperwork.

Categories expand dramatically.

Registration now covers businesses up to ₹1.5 crore annual turnover. State Licence runs from ₹1.5 crore to ₹50 crore. Central Licence applies only above ₹50 crore.

Inspections follow your track record.

A computer-assisted system uses your compliance history, audit outcomes and testing data to decide how often you are inspected. Compliant operators are left alone. Repeat offenders face more scrutiny.

Street food is deemed registered.

Vendors registered under the Street Vendors Act, 2014 are automatically treated as FSSAI-registered. No double paperwork, no double fee. Schedule 4 hygiene rules still apply.

Sources: FSSAI Gazette Notification dated 10 March 2026 · FSSAI Order dated 13 March 2026 · FSSAI FAQs dated 27 March 2026

What actually changes for your food business

Perpetual validity on licences and registrations

The older regime forced every Food Business Operator to renew every one to five years. That is over. Once granted, your FSSAI licence or registration is valid until it is suspended, cancelled, or you surrender it yourself. This applies equally to Tatkal licences and registrations.

There is still a catch worth reading carefully. You must keep paying the annual fee. Miss it, and your licence is automatically suspended. You must also continue to comply with hygiene and safety standards under Schedule 4 and related regulations. Perpetual does not mean passive.

You have the flexibility to prepay fees for any number of years, at any time of the year. The licence number itself does not change through category migration.

What to track internally: Annual fee due date

Build a hard calendar reminder and an owner for payment. An unpaid year triggers automatic suspension without notice, and every day of operation after that is treated as non-compliance.

Revised turnover thresholds for category

FSSAI has raised the turnover bands significantly. The goal is to move a majority of small and mid-sized food businesses out of the Central Licence and into simpler categories with fewer compliance touch points. More than 98 percent of food businesses now sit under State government jurisdiction.

Migration is automatic through FoSCoS based on your self-declared turnover. There is no migration fee, no separate approval from the licensing authority, and no change to your existing licence number. If you are currently on a State Licence and the new threshold pushes you into Registration, the fee already paid gets adjusted against your new annual fee for registration.

If your application is mid-process on 1 April 2026 (document scrutiny, query reversion, or inspection stage), the certificate you finally receive will carry perpetual validity.

Who feels the biggest impact: Central Licence holders ₹20 Cr to ₹50 Cr

If your turnover sits in this band, you now qualify for State Licence instead. That simplifies ongoing compliance, but you still have to keep high-risk commodity rules intact.

Risk-based inspections and audits

FSSAI has moved from a calendar-driven inspection model to a data-driven one. The system considers your enforcement history, surveillance findings, self-compliance tests, third-party audit outcomes and food category risk profile. Businesses handling dairy, meat, packaged drinking water, infant food or fishery products continue to face tighter oversight regardless of size.

The logic is simple. A clean record earns you fewer inspections. A spotty record earns you more. For operators with strong internal systems, this is a material reduction in time spent on regulatory visits.

• Compliance history during enforcement and surveillance
• Self-compliance testing results
• Third-party audit outcomes
• Product category and inherent risk score

What inspectors will ask to see: A clean audit trail

Batch records, QC results, temperature logs, complaint handling, traceability, recall procedures, cleaning and pest control records. If it lives on paper across multiple cabinets, expect friction.

Deemed registration for street food vendors

Street food vendors, hawkers, food carts and food trucks already registered under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 are automatically considered registered under the FSS Act, 2006. This removes a duplicated layer of paperwork and fees for more than ten lakh informal food operators.

The hygiene and sanitary requirements under Schedule 4 of the Licensing and Registration Regulations still apply. Deemed registration is administrative relief, not a relaxation of safety standards.

If you supply street vendors: Traceability still matters

Your batches and invoices still need clean FSSAI documentation even when the downstream vendor is now deemed registered through the municipal route.

Two more changes that landed in the same window

18 Mar 2026: Food Recall on FoSCoS goes live

Under the Food Safety and Standards (Food Recall Procedure) Regulations, 2017, every recall now flows through the FoSCoS portal. The functionality was activated on 18 March 2026 and is binding on every Food Business Operator.

• FBOs log into FoSCoS to create a recall and record every subsequent action
• Designated Officers and Central Licensing Authorities create and monitor recalls through their own login
• Consumers can check the status of any recalled product on the FoSCoS homepage

In practice, this means you need ready access to batch numbers, distribution lists, buyer contact details, and quantity data the moment a recall is triggered.

1 Apr 2026: E-commerce and ONDC compliance obligations

The ONDC model splits a single transaction across a buyer app and a seller app. FSSAI has now clearly divided the food safety duties between them, effective 1 April 2026.

• Seller apps own the accuracy of licence details, product information and principal display panel pictures
• Buyer apps are responsible for displaying all that information and cannot list items past the use-by or expiry date
• Any food article delivered to a consumer must have at least 30 percent shelf life or 45 days before expiry at the time of delivery
• Restaurants and caterers receiving online orders can only deliver fresh food
• FSSAI licence or registration numbers must appear on all invoices and bills

Eight things to check before your next FSSAI touchpoint

Confirm your turnover band

Check your latest annual turnover against the new ₹1.5 Cr and ₹50 Cr limits. Note whether you migrate up, down, or stay.

Put annual fee payment on autopilot

Perpetual validity depends on it. A single missed year triggers automatic suspension without notice.

Set up batch and lot traceability

One-step-forward, one-step-back must be real, not theoretical. Trace inputs to outputs to the customer who received them.

Digitise production and QC records

Paper logs are the single biggest friction point during risk-based inspections. Move them into a system that can query and export on demand.

Document your recall procedure

Map the exact steps from trigger to FoSCoS filing. Know who does what in the first thirty minutes.

Print FSSAI numbers on every invoice

Not optional. Not just for e-commerce. Check your ERP and POS outputs today.

Audit shelf-life logic on e-commerce listings

Configure automatic delisting if remaining shelf life falls below 30 percent or 45 days before expiry.

Schedule a Schedule 4 self-audit

The hygiene requirements did not get diluted. A clean annual self-audit is your strongest defence against category-led inspections.

We turn the checklist above into a working system

TCB Infotech implements Odoo and ERPNext for businesses across many industries. For food and beverage companies, we configure the regulatory requirements directly into the ERP so that compliance becomes a byproduct of normal operations, not a separate activity.

Licence and fee tracking built in

Annual fee reminders, state or central category flags, renewal history (for pre-April licences still running), and automatic alerts before any statutory deadline.

Batch and lot traceability end to end

Configure serial or batch numbers on raw material GRNs, work orders, finished goods, and sales invoices. Trace any output back to its input in seconds.

Quality Management that ties to the process

Inspection templates at incoming, in-process and outgoing stages. QC results tied to batches. Non-conformance workflows with corrective action tracking.

Expiry and shelf-life enforcement

Automated shelf-life rules on inventory moves. FEFO picking for e-commerce. Alerts and auto-delist for stock that breaches the 30 percent or 45-day window.

Recall-ready data model

One-click batch recall report showing every customer, invoice, and quantity that received a specific lot. Ready to upload to FoSCoS.

FSSAI number on every document

Automated printing of FSSAI licence or registration number on invoices, bills, and cash memos across GST, non-GST and export templates.

Schedule 4 self-audit workflows

Digitised cleaning schedules, pest control logs, employee health checks, temperature monitoring, and supervisor sign-offs. Ready for any risk-based visit.

E-commerce and ONDC ready

Product master with principal display panel images, allergen and nutrition attributes, veg or non-veg marking, and integration with buyer and seller app requirements.

Audit trail and dashboards

Immutable audit trail across transactions, role-based access, and real-time dashboards your compliance officer can open during any inspection.

Every Food Business Operator, with sharper focus on these segments

• Food Manufacturing: Processed foods, snacks, bakery, confectionery
• Dairy & Milk Products: High-risk commodity, stricter oversight
• Meat & Poultry: High-risk commodity, cold chain critical
• Packaged Drinking Water: High-risk, continued tight monitoring
• Infant & Baby Food: Highest regulatory sensitivity
• Cloud Kitchens: Shelf-life rules hit hardest here
• QSR & Restaurant Chains: Multi-outlet licence consolidation
• E-commerce Food Brands: Full ONDC obligation set applies
• Importers & Exporters: Central Licence retained above ₹50 Cr
• Distributors & Wholesalers: Traceability and documentation load
• Catering & Institutional: Fresh delivery norms for online orders
• Street Food & QSR Carts: Deemed registered but hygiene bound

Official sources

• Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Amendment Regulations, 2026 — Gazette Notification dated 10 March 2026
• FSSAI Order dated 13 March 2026 on revised turnover thresholds
• FSSAI FAQs dated 27 March 2026
• FSSAI Order dated 18 March 2026 on the Food Recall functionality under FoSCoS
• FSSAI Order dated 18 March 2026 on e-commerce FBO compliance under the ONDC model
• Press note from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare dated 17 March 2026.

Read the latest advisories at fssai.gov.in. This page is informational and does not constitute legal or compliance advice.