Restaurant licence IV: what it actually is
A drinks licence is an administrative authorisation. It allows you to sell alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. Without one, you can serve water, soft drinks and coffee, and nothing else.
The licence IV is the broadest of them all. It is also known as the grande licence, or full-scope licence. It covers the sale of every drink in groups 3, 4 and 5: wine, beer and cider, but also rum, whisky, gin, vodka and liqueurs.
The restaurant licence, by contrast, is tied to meals. It lets you sell alcohol only during main meal services and as an accompaniment to food. A customer sitting at the counter for a drink on its own falls outside that scope.
That is the whole distinction. The licence IV covers a drinks outlet in the full sense: people can drink without eating. The restaurant licence covers a food business where alcohol goes with the plate.
Plenty of operators go looking for a licence IV when a restaurant licence already covers 100% of their list. The question is not which licence carries more prestige, it is whether you will serve alcohol outside meal times.
Drink groups, the key to the whole system
The rules are not built around types of business but around categories of liquid. Drinks are sorted into groups, and that classification determines which licence you need.
- Group 1: non-alcoholic drinks. No licence is required to sell them.
- Group 3: fermented, non-distilled drinks. Wine, beer, cider, perry, mead, naturally sweet wines, wine-based aperitifs, crème de cassis.
- Group 4: rum, tafia, and spirits distilled from wine, cider or fruit.
- Group 5: all other alcoholic drinks — whisky, gin, vodka, liqueurs.
Group 2 was scrapped in 2016 and absorbed into group 3. So there are three tiers that matter in practice: non-alcoholic, fermented, distilled. A licence III covers group 3. A licence IV covers groups 3, 4 and 5.
Run this test on your own list before you start any paperwork. If you want to offer a house-infused rum, a digestif or cocktails, you move straight into licence IV or full restaurant licence territory.
Restaurant licence, licence III, licence IV: the comparison
Four authorisations exist side by side for on-premises consumption. The table below lays them out.
| Licence | Drinks allowed | Conditions of use | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small restaurant licence | Groups 1 and 3 (wine, beer, cider) | During meals only | Free (declaration) |
| Restaurant licence | All groups | During meals only | Free (declaration) |
| Licence III | Groups 1 and 3 | Unrestricted, no meal required | €0 to €3,000 |
| Licence IV | All groups | Unrestricted, no meal required | €5,000 to €30,000 |
The cost gap is hard to miss. It comes down to one simple point of law: restaurant licences are granted on a simple declaration, whereas no new licence IV has been created in France since 1941. Existing licences IV change hands between operators.
The standard restaurant
A restaurant serving wine and digestifs at the table needs nothing more than a restaurant licence. It is free, immediate, and covers the entire list. There is no point tying up €15,000 in a full-scope licence.
The bar-restaurant
The moment you run bar service outside meal times, a licence IV becomes essential. Terrace drinkers at 5pm, walk-in aperitifs, after-work crowds: all of that falls outside the restaurant licence, and an inspection will pick it up.
Who can hold a licence: training, criminal record, nationality
Getting a licence is not just about the premises. The operator has to meet specific personal conditions.
- Be of legal age, or an emancipated minor, and not under guardianship.
- Be a French, EU or European Economic Area national.
- Have no conviction for procuring, theft, fraud or breach of trust, any of which carries a five-year ban on operating.
- Hold a valid operating permit (permis d’exploitation).
The operating permit comes from an approved training course. Allow 20 hours spread over three days, or 6 hours if you can show ten years of experience as an operator. Fees run from €200 to €600 depending on the provider and the region. The permit is valid for ten years.
This training is not a box-ticking exercise. It covers the protection of minors, tackling public drunkenness, closing hours, drink-driving enforcement, and your civil and criminal liability. Selling alcohol to anyone under 18 is prohibited without exception, and checking age is your responsibility.
Opening formalities: town hall, prefecture, timescales
The procedure is quick once your file is complete. It goes through the town hall of your commune, or the police prefecture in Paris.
You file a prior declaration of opening at least 15 days before trading starts. Form Cerfa 11542 is the basis for it. Attach your operating permit, proof of identity, a Kbis extract and, if you are taking over a business, the deed transferring the licence.
The town hall issues you a receipt. That document is your proof: keep it, as you will be asked for it during an inspection. Allow anywhere from a few days to three weeks depending on the commune. The same fifteen-day notice applies to a change of operator or a move to new premises.
Watch out for protected zones. A drinks outlet cannot open in the immediate vicinity of a school, hospital, sports ground or place of worship. The exclusion radius is set by prefectoral order and varies from one département to another. Check this before you sign a lease, not after.
Restaurant licence IV price: buying, transferring and quotas
Since none can be created, the market is entirely second-hand. Prices range from €5,000 in rural areas to over €30,000 in high-demand city centres. What drives the price is how many licences are available locally, not any intrinsic value of the title itself.
A quota caps the stock: the general rule is one fourth-category drinks outlet per 450 inhabitants. A saturated commune will not see a new licence appear. A commune with none left, on the other hand, can take one in through a licence transfer.
Transfers are in principle limited to within the same département, with some flexibility for communes under 3,500 inhabitants that have no licence IV. The transfer must be authorised by the prefect and declared at the town hall. If you are buying a dormant licence, check one decisive point: a licence left unused for more than five years lapses and is worth nothing.
One more thing to watch when buying: the owner of the business and the holder of the licence are not always the same person. Ask for the full history of the title and the successive declaration receipts.
The licence IV plaque, mandatory notices and the drinks list
The licence IV plaque is part of the classic bistro look, but it is not in itself the legal requirement. What the rules do impose are three specific notices displayed in your premises.
- The notice on protecting minors and tackling public drunkenness, visible from the dining room.
- The prices of every drink served, both inside and outside.
- The no-smoking notice and, where applicable, the origin of the meat.
The drinks list has rules of its own. You must state the serving size, the price per size, the appellation and vintage for wines, and whether water is charged for. These requirements come from the same texts as restaurant price display rules, and they are the first things checked in a DGCCRF inspection.
This is where a digital menu earns its keep. Changing a by-the-glass price or pulling a sold-out wine takes ten seconds on a digital restaurant menu, against a full reprint on paper. The mandatory information then stays current at all times, including on the cocktail list, which tends to change often.
The same logic applies to allergens and food information under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, which has to remain available to the customer. A restaurant QR code menu brings all of these obligations together on a single medium, updated from your phone.
Bars, cafés, clubs: the special cases
A bar with no kitchen cannot make do with a restaurant licence: it needs a licence III or a licence IV depending on what it serves. Opening hours for a bar holding a licence IV are set by prefectoral order, often 2am, sometimes later with a night-trading authorisation.
A café serving only wine, beer and cider stays within the scope of a licence III. That is a far more accessible route for a tea room or a wine bar that will never serve spirits.
Clubs and associations follow different rules. An association can apply to the town hall for a temporary authorisation to sell drinks from groups 1 and 3, up to five authorisations a year. Certain approved sports associations have specific exemptions, overseen by the mayor.
One last point that often gets forgotten: takeaway and delivery fall under separate licences — the small takeaway licence for group 3 and the full takeaway licence for all groups. If you add bottle sales to your restaurant business, this extra step is required.