A restaurant owner in Poland needs a separate permit for each of three drink groups, and each permit carries its own annual fee. Below a sales threshold the fee is a fixed amount; above the threshold it becomes a percentage of last year's sales of that group. Both the thresholds and the rates are set by the act itself.
Every amount here comes from one document: the Polish act on upbringing in sobriety and counteracting alcoholism, Dz.U. 2023 poz. 2151. We read it in the Sejm Chancellery consolidated edition, as at 23 July 2026 (opened 28 August 2026) — the edition with the amendments written in, not the text as promulgated in 2023, which does not yet know the amendment Dz.U. 2026 poz. 875. We extracted the text and read the sentences the numbers stand in. Nothing below is copied from an industry article — and one figure that industry articles repeat constantly is absent from the act entirely.
Three drink groups, three separate permits, three separate fees
Each group has its own permit and its own fee.
The permit is issued by the mayor of the commune where the point of sale is located (art. 18 ust. 1), separately for each of the three groups (art. 18 ust. 3). A venue that pours beer, wine and vodka holds three permits and pays three fees, not one licence with three ticks on it.
Two consequences are arithmetic rather than paperwork. Sales value is computed separately for each type of drink (art. 11¹ ust. 9), so the bar has three sales figures a year. And the permit for sale on the premises runs for a fixed term of not less than four years (art. 18 ust. 9) — a recurring annual cost across several years, not an entry ticket.
What this page does not cover
The arithmetic of the fee is national and lives in one act. What is local is named by the same act, and it is worth knowing exactly where the line runs. The commune council sets by resolution the maximum number of permits on its territory, separately for each of the three drink groups and separately for sale on the premises and off them (art. 12 ust. 1). The same council may limit night-time sale of drinks intended for consumption off the premises, between 22:00 and 6:00 (art. 12 ust. 4).
Both are resolutions of one particular council, so an answer for your address exists — it simply is not a number any general page can print. The same goes for how the days are counted in your first year: the act fixes the proportion and stops there. What this page can do is make sure that by the time you get the local answer you already know what it costs you per year and per litre, and that you are not surprised by the arithmetic on top of being surprised by the queue.
One change is waiting in the queue, and it is better known early than discovered at the counter. The permits under art. 18 ust. 3 are issued after a favourable opinion of the commune commission for solving alcohol problems on whether the location of the sales point agrees with the council's resolutions (art. 18 ust. 3a) — and in today's wording the act gives that commission no deadline at all. The amendment Dz.U. 2026 poz. 875 adds art. 18 ust. 3aa: the commission has 30 days from the day it receives the request, and silence counts for the applicant — failure to deliver the opinion within that time is treated as a favourable opinion. The provision enters into force on 1 January 2027 and does not apply before that date. Apart from it, the two editions of the act — the one promulgated in 2023 and today's consolidated one — differ in nothing this page stands on: the amounts, thresholds, rates, instalments and deadlines all stay as they are.
The base fee: three amounts a venue pays below the threshold
Base fee — the fixed annual amount for a venue whose sales of that group in the previous year did not pass the threshold. From the text of the act: 525 PLN, 525 PLN and 2100 PLN.
Art. 11¹ ust. 2 sets these amounts and requires payment into the commune's account before the permit is issued. They apply to entrepreneurs starting the business (art. 11¹ ust. 3), and equally in later years to anyone whose sales of a group stayed below the threshold (art. 11¹ ust. 6).
| Group | Base fee | Sales threshold | Rate above the threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 4.5% and beer | 525 PLN | 37 500 PLN | 1.4% |
| Above 4.5% to 18%, except beer | 525 PLN | 37 500 PLN | 1.4% |
| Above 18% | 2100 PLN | 77 000 PLN | 2.7% |
The middle row is the one retellings mangle. In the act it carries the same three numbers as the first row.
Beer sits in the first group whatever its strength.
These permits are not subject to stamp duty (art. 11¹ ust. 10), so no second charge hides behind the first.
Paid before the permit is issued, not after the first month of trading
The wording of art. 11¹ ust. 2 puts the payment before the document. For a venue opening with all three groups that is 525 + 525 + 2100 = 3150 PLN leaving the account before a single glass is poured, and before the till has produced anything to pay it with. If the permit starts partway through the year the proportional rule of art. 11¹ ust. 8 reduces the amount, but it does not move the moment: the reduced amount is still due up front.
It matters because this is one of the few opening costs that cannot be negotiated, staged or deferred, and it lands in the same weeks as the deposit, the fit-out and the first stock order. A venue that plans the bar list late discovers the number late. The order of operations is the other way round: decide which of the three groups you actually intend to sell before the opening budget is closed, because each group you add is a separate line in it.
The sales threshold: where the fixed amount stops and the percentage starts
Sales threshold — the value of sales of that group in the previous year, above which the fee stops being a fixed amount: 37 500 PLN for the first two groups, 77 000 PLN for the third.
The thresholds sit in art. 11¹ ust. 5, and three details in that sentence decide the calculation. The threshold applies to the previous year, not the current one. It applies to a point of sale, not to a company. And it applies to one group, so a venue can be below it on spirits and above it on beer in the same year.
That is why the fee cannot be guessed from a neighbour's bill. Same turnover, different drink mix, different total. There is no average alcohol permit cost for a restaurant, and any figure presented as one is an average of unrelated numbers.
Two venues make the point better than an argument. Both sold 120 000 PLN of alcohol last year. The first is a beer bar: 110 000 PLN on beer, 6000 PLN on wine, 4000 PLN on spirits. Beer is above its threshold, so that group costs 0.014 × 110 000 = 1540 PLN; wine and spirits are both below, so they cost the base 525 PLN and 2100 PLN. Total 4165 PLN. The second is a cocktail bar with the same overall figure split the other way: 20 000 PLN beer, 10 000 PLN wine, 90 000 PLN spirits. Beer and wine are below their thresholds at 525 PLN each; spirits are above, so 0.027 × 90 000 = 2430 PLN. Total 3480 PLN.
Same alcohol turnover, a difference of 685 PLN, and neither number is derivable from the other. Ask the neighbour what he pays and you will get an honest answer about a different business.
Two rates, 1.4% and 2.7%, and which group each belongs to
Fee for a group = Base fee, if last year's sales of that group did not pass the threshold; otherwise Rate × last year's sales of that group
Base fee— 525, 525 or 2100 by group, PLN;Rate— a dimensionless share: 0.014 or 0.027;last year's sales of that group— value of sales of that group at that point of sale in the previous calendar year, PLN.
The seam is smooth in two groups and dips in the third
Here the arithmetic pays for itself, and the common shorthand "the fee is the larger of the two" turns out to be wrong.
In the first two groups the branches meet exactly: 0.014 × 37 500 PLN = 525.00 PLN, the base fee to the last grosz. Cross the threshold by one zloty and the fee rises smoothly.
In the third they do not meet. 0.027 × 77 000 PLN = 2079.00 PLN — 21 PLN below the base fee of 2100 PLN. A venue selling spirits for 77 001 PLN pays 2079.03 PLN, less than a venue that sold 77 000 PLN. The fee returns to 2100 PLN only at 2100 ÷ 0.027, about 77 778 PLN. A small dip, worth about twenty zloty, and a real feature of the arithmetic. A page that promises the actual arithmetic and then smooths this over is worth less than no page.
The figure the act does not contain
Search the whole text for 1050 in any spacing and you find nothing.
Neither has anything to do with a rate on sales.
That absence is a measurement, not a memory, and it counts only if the probe that returned zero can be shown to see.
A zero from a blind check and a zero from a sighted one look identical on screen; the sighted proof is the part that matters. This is the same discipline that makes an automated number trustworthy at all, and it is the difference between a report you can act on and a report you merely read — the argument is set out in reporting automation.
If you have read 1050 PLN somewhere as the fee for a spirits permit, treat it as a figure whose origin nobody can point to.
What happens when sales cross the threshold in mid-year
Nothing, in the year they cross it. The fee for a calendar year is computed from the previous year's sales, so a bar that passes 37 500 PLN of beer sales in August still pays what its previous year required. The crossing shows up in the fee for the following year, through the declaration filed by 31 January.
One case is not a full year. In the year the permit is acquired or loses validity, the fee is proportional to the period of validity (art. 11¹ ust. 8). The act sets the proportion and does not prescribe how to count days, so the day-count convention belongs to the licensing authority; the shape of the arithmetic does not. A permit valid 92 days of a 365-day year at 525 PLN gives 525 × 92 ÷ 365 = 132.33 PLN, and at 2100 PLN gives 529.32 PLN.
Two smaller cases sit next to it. A one-off permit for up to two days costs one twelfth of the annual fee (art. 18¹ ust. 3): 43.75 PLN and 175 PLN.
The three instalments, and what a late one costs
The fee is paid in every calendar year covered by the permit, in three equal instalments due by 31 January, 31 May and 30 September, or in one payment by 31 January (art. 11¹ ust. 7). At the base amounts: 175 PLN three times for each lower group, 700 PLN three times for spirits.
Laid out as a calendar for a venue holding all three permits and staying below every threshold, the year looks like this: 175 + 175 + 700 = 1050 PLN due by 31 January, the same 1050 PLN by 31 May, the same again by 30 September. Three identical withdrawals, no interest, no invoice arriving to remind you. The alternative allowed by the same provision is 3150 PLN in one payment by 31 January, which costs the same in total and buys you two fewer dates to miss.
For a venue above the thresholds the instalments are a third of whatever the percentage branch produced, so they move from year to year while the dates do not. This is the practical reason to compute the fee in January rather than in the week the payment is due: the declaration and the first instalment share a deadline, and the declaration is what the instalment is computed from.
A missed instalment is not a late-interest situation.
Read as a sequence, the deadlines are unforgiving but not obscure. The instalment is due on its date. Nothing happens on the following day. Thirty days later the permit expires — unless within those thirty days the instalment has been paid with the surcharge on top. There is no discretion in the middle and no application to make; the window either closes or it does not.
The number that hurts is not the surcharge. An entrepreneur whose permit expired that way may apply for a new one no earlier than six months after the decision (art. 18 ust. 13). Half a year with the spirits shelf closed costs more than every fee on this page put together. Three dates a year are exactly the kind of thing that should arrive on its own rather than be remembered, which is what self-assembling reports are for.
The sales declaration: what backs it and what a mistake costs
A venue that sold alcohol last year must file, by 31 January, a written declaration of the value of sales of each type of alcoholic drink at that point of sale in the previous year (art. 11¹ ust. 4). The whole percentage branch stands on this document.
The act names the obligation and the deadline, not the document that backs the figure. In practice the figure has to be reproducible from your own sales records, split by group, for one point of sale, for one calendar year. If your till reports give a single alcohol line, you have a number you cannot defend; splitting the bar list into the three statutory groups once is an evening's work. That split is also what makes cross-venue analytics of a bar mean anything, and it is a good first candidate when you are deciding where automation actually starts.
- Late. If the declaration is not filed in time, the permit expires thirty days after the deadline unless within those thirty days it is filed together with an additional fee of 30% of the fee set in art. 11¹ ust. 2 (art. 18 ust. 12a). That surcharge is computed on the base amount even for a venue that pays the percentage.
- False. If false data is presented in the declaration, the licensing authority withdraws the permit (art. 18 ust. 10 pkt 5), and a new application is possible no earlier than three years after the decision (art. 18 ust. 11).
Late is a fee. False is three years.
Permit cost per litre: your own yardstick instead of a neighbour's bill
Permit cost per litre — your own measure: the annual fee for a group divided by the volume of that group sold. There is no norm for it and there is not meant to be one; it exists so the fee can be compared with your own markup.
Permit cost per litre = Annual fee for the group ÷ Litres of that group sold
Annual fee for the group— the amount from the previous formula, PLN;Litres of that group sold— volume sold in the year the fee is computed for, litres.
Share of the fee in the group's sales = Annual fee for the group ÷ Sales of that group
- both values are for one group and one year, PLN, so the result is a dimensionless share.
Take a bar with last year's numbers: beer and low-alcohol drinks 220 000 PLN over 14 000 litres, wine 60 000 PLN over 3000 litres, spirits 72 000 PLN over 1800 litres.
| Group | Last year's sales | Fee | Fee per litre | Share of sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 4.5% and beer | 220 000 PLN | 3080 PLN | 0.22 PLN | 1.400% |
| Above 4.5% to 18% | 60 000 PLN | 840 PLN | 0.28 PLN | 1.400% |
| Above 18% | 72 000 PLN | 2100 PLN | 1.17 PLN | 2.917% |
| Total | 352 000 PLN | 6020 PLN | — | 1.710% |
The spirits row is the interesting one. Sales of 72 000 PLN sit below the 77 000 PLN threshold, so the fee is the base 2100 PLN — and as a share that is 2.917%, higher than the 2.7% the same bar would pay if it sold more. Below the threshold the share falls as sales grow; above it the share is flat and equal to the rate. A small spirits list is proportionally the most expensive one to license.
Where this fee sits in drink cost, and where it does not
It does not sit in the variable cost of a drink. This year's fee was fixed by last year's sales; pouring one more glass changes it by nothing. Putting it into the cost of a portion the way you put in the liquid and the garnish gives a per-portion figure that moves whenever volume moves — the definition of a number you cannot price with.
It belongs with the annual fixed costs of running the bar, and enters a portion only through whatever method you already use to spread fixed costs. When you decide what a drink should cost, the group to work with is the one behind food cost percentage. When you decide which positions the list keeps at all, the arithmetic is menu engineering, and fee per litre is a legitimate extra column in that table.
One caveat about the denominator. The percentage in the act applies to the declared value of sales as it stands. When you compare the fee with your own margin, know whether the sales figure you compare against carries tax or not — that single question changes conclusions, and the argument is in gross or net sales.
Two neighbouring pages in this section are being written and are not published yet: food safety approval and HACCP and energy cost per cover. Their links start working when those pages go live.
How this fee differs from excise and from a tax on turnover
Three different things get called "the alcohol charge" in the same conversation, and only one of them is on this page.
Excise duty is a tax on the goods. It is settled upstream, by the producer or the importer, and by the time a bottle reaches your store room it is already inside the purchase price. You do not calculate it, declare it or pay it as a venue; you buy it. Its size moves with what you buy, not with what you sell, and it belongs in the cost of the liquid.
A tax on turnover moves with what you sell, in the period you sell it, and passes through your prices. It scales continuously: sell twice as much and it doubles.
The permit fee does neither. It is an administrative charge for the right to use a permit, its amount for a given year is fixed before that year starts, and inside the year it is completely insensitive to volume. It also has a destination the other two do not: the revenue funds the commune's prophylaxis programmes and may not be spent on other purposes (art. 18²).
The practical consequence is a modelling one. Excise belongs in the cost of a portion. A turnover tax belongs in the bridge between gross and net figures. The permit fee belongs in neither — it belongs in the annual fixed block, and treating it as a per-drink cost produces a number that changes every time volume changes, which is exactly the property a pricing input must not have.
What to work out before you widen the bar list
Adding a spirits shelf to a venue that sells only beer and wine is not a 2100 PLN decision. It is a decision about which branch of the fee you will be on next year and the year after.
The order is short. Take last year's sales split into the three groups; if you do not have that split, produce it first, because everything below depends on it. Work out the fee for each group under both branches and see which applies. Divide each fee by the litres sold and put the result next to your markup per litre. Only then ask what the new list does to next year's sales in each group, and repeat. A scenario worked through before the decision costs an evening; the same scenario after the shelf is bought costs a year of a permit.
Two thresholds worth a marker in your numbers
Neither event announces itself; both are visible months ahead in the running total, which is what a finance layer is for, and what belongs in a calculator on your own numbers rather than a spreadsheet nobody opens.
Where that watching should live is a separate question with a real answer: sometimes a new system layer, sometimes one more report on the layer you already run. The trade-off is laid out in CRM or ERP, the price side in what process automation costs, and the venue-specific version in restaurant automation.
Frequently asked questions
How many alcohol permits does a Polish restaurant need?
As many as it has drink groups on the list. Permits are issued separately for drinks up to 4.5% together with beer, for drinks above 4.5% up to 18% except beer, and for drinks above 18% (art. 18 ust. 3). A venue pouring beer, wine and spirits holds three permits and pays three fees; a venue pouring only beer holds one.
What are the base fees for each drink group?
525 PLN for the group up to 4.5% and beer, 525 PLN for the group above 4.5% up to 18% except beer, and 2100 PLN for the group above 18% (art. 11¹ ust. 2). They are paid into the commune's account before the permit is issued, and the same amounts apply in later years to any venue whose sales of that group stayed below the threshold.
At what sales level does the fee become a percentage?
Above 37 500 PLN of previous-year sales for each of the two lower groups, and above 77 000 PLN for the group above 18% (art. 11¹ ust. 5). The threshold is measured per point of sale, per drink group, against the previous calendar year, so one venue can be above it on one group and below it on another in the same year.
Which rate applies to beer and low-alcohol drinks?
1.4% of the total value of previous-year sales of that group. The same 1.4% applies to the middle group, drinks above 4.5% up to 18% except beer; the 2.7% rate belongs only to the group above 18%. Beer stays in the first group regardless of strength, so a strong craft beer does not move a venue into the middle group.
Is there really a 1050 zloty alcohol permit fee?
Not in the act. We searched the full extracted text of Dz.U. 2023 poz. 2151 for 1050 in any spacing and found no occurrence, while the same search on the same text finds 525, 2100, 1.4% and 2.7% where they belong. The figure circulates without a traceable origin; budget with the three amounts the act sets.
How do I compare the permit cost with my drink margin?
Divide the annual fee for a group by the litres of that group you sold, and put the result next to your markup per litre. That converts a yearly administrative amount into the unit your pricing decisions use. The share of the fee in the group's sales is the second useful view: below the threshold it falls as sales grow, above it the share is flat and equal to the rate.
What happens to the fee if sales cross the threshold mid-year?
The current year's fee does not change, because it was computed from the previous year's sales. The crossing is reported in the declaration due by 31 January and changes the following year's fee. The only mid-year proportioning in the act is for the year a permit is acquired or expires, where the fee is proportional to the period of validity (art. 11¹ ust. 8).
Work out the permit cost per litre for each of your three groups and put it beside your markup per litre — the step at the threshold usually explains why the bar suddenly got more expensive. The rest of the arithmetic a Polish venue has to keep straight is collected in the restaurants section, and it starts with the same habit: open the source, read the sentence the number stands in, and only then put it in a budget.