What changed on 10 March 2026
The Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Amendment Regulations 2026 were published in the Gazette of India on 10 March 2026 and came into force the same day. They replaced regulation 2.1.7 in full.
The old regulation gave every licence a term of one to five years and a renewal window before it expired. The new one says a licence or registration remains valid and subsisting unless it is suspended, cancelled or surrendered. FSSAI’s FAQ of 27 March 2026 puts it plainly: food businesses are not required to renew.
There is no expiry date to diarise any more. There are two recurring duties instead — and missing either is worse than a late renewal ever was.
FSS (Licensing & Registration) Amendment Regulations 2026, gazette 10.03.2026
The two things that still suspend a licence
Regulation 2.1.7(2) places a licence or registration under deemed suspension if the food business operator:
- fails to pay the annual licence or registration fee as specified by the Food Authority, or
- fails to submit a return by its due date, wherever a return applies — for manufacturers and importers that is the annual Form D-1, due by 31 May; for milk and milk products it is half-yearly.
“Deemed” matters. Nobody sends a notice first. The suspension happens by operation of the regulation, and the operator is expressly prohibited from carrying on the food business while it lasts.
What happened to the ₹100-a-day late fee
It has no trigger any more. The ₹100-per-day charge lived in the old regulation 2.1.7(4) and attached to a renewal application filed late. With no renewal, there is nothing for it to attach to.
The substituted text speaks of overdue annual fees “plus applicable penalties”, but no amount has been published. Be careful with any website still quoting ₹100 a day — or selling you a “renewal”.
When is the annual fee due?
The regulation doesn’t say. It refers to the fee “as specified by the Food Authority”, and no specification setting a date has been issued. Until one is, the sensible working date is the anniversary of your licence’s grant — that is what we diarise for clients, and we tell them it is our working assumption rather than a date in the gazette.
What if my licence expired before March 2026?
The amendment has no transitional or saving clause. Our reading is that it does not revive a licence that had already lapsed before 10 March 2026. If yours expired earlier and was never renewed, treat it as needing a fresh application and confirm with your licensing authority before you trade on it.
Inspections are now risk-based
A new regulation 2.1.17 sets inspection frequency through a “dynamic risk-based mechanism”: the type of food business, past compliance history, third-party audit results and the risk category of the food handled. Under 2.1.17(5) the Commissioner or the Authority can also direct a business to obtain a third-party audit at its own cost.
The practical effect: your records are now what decides how often you see an inspector.
Closing down? Thirty days
Regulation 2.1.7(3) requires an operator who closes the business to tell the licensing authority in writing within thirty days and surrender the certificate. Under 2.1.7(4) no fee is refunded.
What to do now
- Note your grant date — it is your working annual-fee date.
- If you manufacture or import, diarise Form D-1 for 31 May every year.
- Keep your testing, medicals and training records current; they now feed your inspection frequency.
- Ignore anyone selling “renewal”.
Or let us do it: Compliance Care runs this calendar for you.