Price transparency for licensing applications for business premises
Applications to licensing authorities for business premises — principally new premises licences, full and minor variations, and transfers under the Licensing Act 2003 (pubs, restaurants, off-licences, late-night venues). If your firm's website offers this service, Rule 1 of the SRA Transparency Rules sets out exactly what price information the site must publish.
Sources last verified: 2026-08-14.1 — official SRA links are cited in each section.
Does this apply to your firm?
Any regulated firm offering licensing work for business premises on its website. Licensing quotes hinge on whether the application draws representations and goes to a committee hearing, so honest pricing separates the smooth path from the contested one.
What must be published for licensing applications for business premises
- Separate fees — or ranges — for the distinct services: a new premises licence application, a full variation, a minor variation, and a transfer or change of designated premises supervisor. One figure across all four hides more than it shows.
- What the fee includes: taking instructions, preparing the application and operating schedule, plans coordination, serving responsible authorities, and arranging the public notices.
- What happens if representations are received: whether committee-hearing preparation and attendance are included or charged separately, and on what basis.
- Whether VAT applies to your fees and to each disbursement.
- Who does the work, their experience with licensing committees, and their supervision.
- Key stages and timescales — including the statutory 28-day consultation period on new applications and variations, and realistic time to a hearing where one is needed.
Official source: SRA — Transparency in price and service guidance · Sources last verified: 2026-08-11
Disbursements to describe
Disbursements are costs payable to third parties that your firm handles on the client's behalf. The rule expects them described and priced (or ranged) — for this service that typically means:
- The licensing authority's application fee, which is set by the premises' non-domestic rateable value band — state the banding or link to it with examples.
- Advertising: the required notice in a local newspaper and the site notices displayed at the premises.
- Scale plans of the premises where new plans must be drawn.
- The annual fee payable to the authority once the licence is granted — worth flagging even though it is the client's ongoing cost.
For every disbursement, say whether VAT applies to it — mixing VAT-inclusive fees with VAT-silent third-party costs is one of the most frequent findings on otherwise careful pages.
Common gaps on live sites
A single “licensing from £750” figure that doesn't say whether it's a new application or a minor variation.
Newspaper advertising and rateable-value application fees omitted, understating the real project cost by hundreds of pounds.
Committee hearings unpriced, so the contested case — the one that needs a lawyer most — has no visible cost basis.
No mention of the consultation period, leaving timescale expectations unmanaged.
These are patterns seen across real firm websites — none of them implies bad faith. Pages get edited, calculators break, and requirements written for lawyers get trimmed by marketing. That's an argument for checking the live page regularly, not for blame.
Is your licensing applications for business premises page still saying what it should?
FirmProof runs automated monitoring checks against your live public pages every week and keeps dated evidence of what was found. Start with the free scan — no account, one scan a day.
Check your own site