Alcohol Licence in Uzbekistan (2026): Types, State Fees and Requirements

As of October 2026, an alcohol licence in Uzbekistan is required only for wholesale trade and production: it is issued by the Alcohol and Tobacco Market Regulation Inspectorate, and a wholesale licence costs 200 BRV (UZS 88,000,000) a year plus 5 BRV (UZS 2,200,000) for the review of the application. Shops, restaurants and cafés do not get a licence: a legal entity files a notification with the district tax inspectorate, with no fee for the notification itself, and pays a monthly fee for the right to sell, capped in Tashkent at UZS 1,200,000 for a shop and UZS 600,000 for a restaurant or café. Beer is produced and sold wholesale and retail on a notification basis as well.

In short

• A licence is needed for wholesale (except natural and sparkling wines and beer) and for producing ethyl alcohol and alcoholic products. Applications are filed with an e-signature through the "Litsenziya" information system (license.gov.uz) or my.gov.uz.
• Wholesale: 5 BRV for the review, 200 BRV a year, a decision within 4 working days, charter capital of at least 1,000 BRV (UZS 440,000,000) paid in cash, and an owned or leased warehouse.
• Shops and restaurants: legal entities only and a separate notification for each outlet; in 2026 the shop fee is capped at UZS 1,200,000, 840,000, 600,000 or 300,000 a month depending on the locality, and at half that for cafés and restaurants.
• Beer: production and wholesale need a notification to the Inspectorate with a fee of 0.5 BRV (UZS 220,000); retail needs a notification to the tax inspectorate and 10% of the BRV (UZS 44,000) a month.
• A shop needs a sales hall used only for alcohol with its own entrance (at least 25 m² in a city, 15 m² in a village), a warehouse, an online cash register and a card terminal, and must be at least 100 m from educational, sports and religious organisations.
• Fines for a legal entity: wholesale without a licence costs 300 BRV (UZS 132,000,000); alcohol retail or catering sales without a notification cost 25 BRV (UZS 11,000,000).

Licence or notification: which regime applies

The law treats any food product with more than 1.5% ethyl alcohol by volume as an alcoholic product (Art. 3 of Law No. ZRU-844 "On Restricting the Distribution and Consumption of Alcohol and Tobacco Products", the Alcohol Law). The entry regime is set by Law No. ZRU-701 "On Licensing, Permitting and Notification Procedures": licences are listed in its Annex 1 and notifications in Annex 3. The list of permits contains no "permit to sell alcohol", and there is no separate alcohol import licence. The detailed conditions sit in the passports (annexes) to the Unified Regulation on Licensing (Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 80, CMR 80) and the Unified Regulation on Notification (Resolution No. 88, CMR 88); their numbers are given in the table. How licensing works in general is covered in our overview of licensed activities in Uzbekistan.

Who needs what

• Distributor. Supplying alcohol for resale is wholesale trade (Art. 3 of the Alcohol Law) and requires a licence (Art. 32). A wholesaler may ship only to legal entities in the register of retail or catering notifications, except for local beer, sparkling and natural wines (passport 8); the passport makes no exception for sales to another wholesaler. Contracts with chains are drafted around these rules — see our article on distribution agreements in Uzbekistan.
• Importer. There is no separate import licence. But selling imported alcohol to shops and restaurants is wholesale trade, so the importer needs a wholesale licence, except for natural and sparkling wines and beer (beer wholesale runs on a notification). Imported alcohol, other than natural and sparkling wines and beer, must bear excise stamps (Art. 31); excise tax is paid before the stamps are acquired (Art. 293 of the Tax Code); and only goods with stamps, digital marking, a laboratory test report and a certificate of conformity may be sold wholesale (para. 31 of the Regulation approved by CMR No. 45 of 29 January 2025).
• Shop: a notification to the tax inspectorate for each outlet and a monthly fee.
• Restaurant, café, bar: a notification of alcohol sales by a catering business; no separate beer notification is needed.
• A sole proprietor cannot sell alcohol: all of these activities are reserved for legal entities (Arts. 29 and 32 of the Alcohol Law). The first step is to register an LLC.

Wholesale licence: requirements and steps

The wholesale licence passport requires charter capital of at least 1,000 BRV paid in cash; a warehouse that is owned, held under economic management or operational control, or leased, and is not on a production site; use of the Inspectorate's accounting system, e-invoices, and registration of wholesale contracts with the tax authorities. The passport classes trading in goods without excise stamps or digital marking, in poor-quality or unrecorded goods, and selling to buyers outside the notification register as gross violations. Documents: an application listing the warehouse addresses, a document proving the right to the warehouse or the lease, and a document confirming the charter capital; nothing else may be demanded (Art. 26 of ZRU-701).

• File the application with an e-signature through license.gov.uz or my.gov.uz and pay 5 BRV. Sanitary and fire-safety opinions on the warehouse are obtained within the procedure (2 working days each).
• Receive the decision within 4 working days. If the shortcomings can be fixed, the Inspectorate must give up to 30 working days to fix them instead of refusing outright (Art. 29 of ZRU-701).
• Pay the first annual payment of 200 BRV within 30 days of the notice, or the decision to issue the licence is cancelled (para. 29 of the Unified Regulation on Licensing). The licence with a QR code arrives in your online account.
• Pay each following annual payment at least 30 days before the next year of the licence begins.

Production licence

The applicant must be a legal entity that is an Uzbek tax resident; the review takes 15 working days and the fee is 4 BRV (CMR 80, passport 7). Natural wines and beer are excluded from licensing (Art. 29 of the Alcohol Law). The annual state duty is paid for each product group; if the next payment is not made on time, the licence is suspended (para. 50 of the annex to Law No. ZRU-600 "On State Duty").

Other passport conditions: charter capital of at least 10,000 BRV (UZS 4.4 billion) for producers of food-grade alcohol and vodka and at least 1,000 BRV for other producers, except primary grape and fruit processors; two qualified specialists; a laboratory; video surveillance; registered trademarks. Foreign food-grade alcohol may not be used.

Shops, restaurants, cafés: requirements for the outlet

For a shop (Arts. 21 and 32 of the Alcohol Law, CMR 88, passport 19):

• a stationary outlet that is owned or leased; sales by hand, through vending machines and from self-service shelves are prohibited;
• a sales hall used only for alcohol with its own entrance, at least 25 m² in a city and 15 m² in a village, or a separate section in remote mountain districts; a warehouse;
• at least 100 m in a straight line from educational, sports and religious organisations, except in shopping centres and markets with more than 1,000 m² of total retail space and at trade fair pavilions;
• an online cash register or virtual till, a bank card terminal and e-invoices;
• excise stamps (except for beer, natural and sparkling wines) and digital marking;
• no prices below the minimum price (except for beer), and no buyers or sellers under 21.

The catering passport (passport 11) sets no requirements on floor area or a separate entrance. The 100-metre rule appears neither in it nor in the list of prohibitions in the Catering Rules (para. 20¹): Art. 21 of the Alcohol Law frames it for "trade outlets". Alcohol may still not be sold on the premises of educational and medical organisations, cultural institutions or sports facilities. Drinks are poured with officially verified measuring vessels, the menu shows the price per bottle and per 50 or 100 grams, and a catering business may not sell alcohol to take away (paras. 19–20 of the Catering Rules, CMR No. 75). Delivery and online sales of alcohol are prohibited, except for natural and sparkling wines (Art. 21 of the Alcohol Law).

The notification is filed with an e-signature through license.gov.uz or my.gov.uz before sales begin, for each outlet: tax ID, addresses, bank details and the cadastral number of the premises. The system checks the data against government databases and accepts the notification automatically (paras. 15–18 of the Unified Regulation on Notification). The fee is paid monthly in advance by the 10th; a notification filed by the 20th of a month triggers the fee for that full month, and one filed later triggers it from the following month (Art. 460 of the Tax Code).

These are the caps for 2026 (Annex 9 to Law No. ZRU-1105 on the 2026 State Budget), and the fee is charged per outlet. Trading hours for alcohol in shops are set by the regional and Tashkent city khokimiyats and, in Karakalpakstan, by the Council of Ministers (Art. 32 of the Alcohol Law).

Beer

Beer production and wholesale require a notification to the Inspectorate, filed for each wholesale site in the case of wholesale; a brewer needs charter capital of at least 1,000 BRV, two specialists and a laboratory (passport 24). Beer retail requires a notification to the tax inspectorate: the outlet must be stationary, at least 100 m from educational, sports and religious institutions, and not at public transport or metro stops, bus stations or recreation areas; beer may be bought only from businesses entitled to sell it wholesale, against an e-invoice (passport 33).

Validity, renewal and re-registration

• Validity. Wholesale and production licences have no expiry date: they are not on the closed list of exceptions in Art. 16 of ZRU-701. No renewal is needed, but the annual payment is mandatory.
• Silence of the authority. The statutory maximum for a review is 20 working days. If no decision is made in time, the applicant notifies the Inspectorate through the system, pays the state duty, receives the licence and may operate (Art. 28 of ZRU-701, para. 20 of the Unified Regulation on Licensing).
• Re-registration. After a conversion of the company or a change of name or address, the application is filed within 5 working days of the company's re-registration; the fee is half the review fee, and none is charged when filing through a public services centre (Art. 30). If the licensee ceases to exist in any other reorganisation (except a merger of companies holding the same licence), the licence is cancelled (Art. 33).
• A new warehouse must be added to the licence first, through a licence amendment rather than a re-registration, because the passport sets requirements for the warehouse (Art. 31 of ZRU-701, para. 38 of the Unified Regulation on Licensing). Storing goods at an address not listed in the application carries a sanction of 100% of the goods' value, but not less than 100 BRV (UZS 44,000,000) for a wholesaler and 150 BRV (UZS 66,000,000) for a producer.

Refusal, suspension and cancellation

A licence may be refused only if the documents are incomplete, the applicant does not meet the requirements, the information is false, a ban is in force or a mandatory expert review gives a reasoned negative opinion (Art. 29 of ZRU-701); a refusal on grounds of "inexpediency" is prohibited, at least 10 working days are given to remedy the reasons, and a second review takes up to 5 working days with no fee. The Inspectorate may suspend a licence for up to 10 days; a longer suspension, of up to 6 months, requires a court (Art. 32). A court cancels a licence, among other cases, for two or more breaches within a year or for one gross breach that caused harm, after which no new licence is issued for a year either to the company or to new companies set up by its founder or beneficial owner (Art. 33). Alcohol without an excise stamp or digital marking is withdrawn from circulation, and the licence to trade in it is cancelled in the prescribed manner (Presidential Decree No. UP-84 of 3 June 2024, para. 4). Your rights during inspections are covered in our article on inspections by regulators.

Fines

The legal basis is Annex 4 to ZRU-701 and Art. 165 of the Code of Administrative Liability. Annex 4 has no separate line for beer retail without a notification; an official faces 10–15 BRV under Art. 165 of the Code. If 50% of the fine is paid within 15 days, or 70% within 30 days, and an application for a licence or a notification is filed, the rest of the fine is waived (Art. 55 of ZRU-701). A wholesale licensee faces a 100 BRV sanction for selling without recording the sale in the Inspectorate's accounting system and in "Asl belgisi", and an official of a producer or importer pays 100 BRV for breaching the digital marking rules (Art. 166 of the Code). Operating without a licence or a notification with an especially large income (Art. 190 of the Criminal Code), illegally producing alcohol, and illegally putting it into circulation in a significant amount or after an administrative penalty (Art. 186¹) carry criminal liability. How to challenge a fine is explained in our article on appealing fines.

Common mistakes

• Opening an alcohol outlet as a sole proprietor.
• Signing a lease before checking the 100-metre rule, the floor area and the separate entrance.
• Filing one notification for a whole chain instead of one per outlet.
• Selling alcohol from a restaurant to take away or with delivery.
• Buying from a supplier that has no right to sell alcohol (Art. 21 of the Alcohol Law).
• Following checklists written for Resolution No. 301 of 20 May 2020, which was repealed on 30 January 2025 (CMR No. 45, Annex 3).

How Pactum helps

• We determine the regime that fits your business model and check the premises before you sign a lease.
• We register an LLC for an alcohol business, from UZS 1,500,000.
• We prepare the wholesale licence application or the notifications for each outlet and reply to the Inspectorate's requests to fix shortcomings.
• We review supply contracts from UZS 2,000,000 and foreign trade contracts for importers from UZS 4,000,000.
• We support you through inspections and the lifting of a suspension; in court, you are represented by an advocate of our partner bureau under a separate agreement.

Support with obtaining a business licence starts from UZS 2,500,000; the price of a sector licence, including an alcohol licence, is quoted after we review the task, and state duties and fees are paid separately. Learn more on our page about business licences and permits or book a lawyer consultation: 60 minutes, UZS 300,000, credited toward the cost of the service. Phone +998 99 050 50 70, Telegram, info@pactum.uz, office: 21 Afrosiyob Street, Tashkent.

FAQ

How much does an alcohol licence cost in Uzbekistan?

A wholesale licence costs 5 BRV (UZS 2,200,000) for the review and 200 BRV (UZS 88,000,000) a year. A production licence costs 4 BRV for the review and 25 to 250 BRV a year, depending on the product group. Shops and restaurants do not need a licence.

Do I need a licence to sell alcohol in a shop in Uzbekistan?

No. The legal entity files a notification with the tax inspectorate, and no fee is charged for it. In 2026 the monthly fee for the right to sell is capped at UZS 1,200,000 per outlet in Tashkent and at UZS 840,000, 600,000 or 300,000 in the regions, depending on the locality.

Does a restaurant or café need a permit to sell alcohol?

There is no separate permit: the company files a notification of alcohol sales by a catering business for each venue and pays up to UZS 600,000 a month in Tashkent. The notification also covers beer, but alcohol may not be sold to take away or for delivery.

How much is a wholesale alcohol licence?

200 BRV (UZS 88,000,000) a year plus 5 BRV for the review. You need a legal entity with charter capital of at least 1,000 BRV (UZS 440,000,000) paid in cash, a warehouse and access to the Inspectorate's accounting system. The decision takes 4 working days.

Do you need a licence to sell beer in Uzbekistan?

No. Beer production and wholesale run on a notification to the Inspectorate with a fee of UZS 220,000, and beer retail on a notification to the tax inspectorate with a monthly fee of UZS 44,000. Only legal entities may do this.

Can a sole proprietor get an alcohol licence?

No. Wholesale, production, retail and catering sales of alcohol are open only to legal entities, so an entrepreneur first registers an LLC.

How long does it take to get an alcohol licence?

A wholesale licence is reviewed in 4 working days and a production licence in 15, with a statutory maximum of 20 working days. The state duty is paid within 30 days of the decision. A shop or café notification is accepted automatically.

Do I need a licence to import alcohol into Uzbekistan?

There is no separate import licence. But an importer that itself sells the imported alcohol to shops and restaurants is a wholesaler and needs a wholesale licence, except for natural and sparkling wines and beer. The goods must carry excise stamps (except natural and sparkling wines and beer), digital marking and a certificate of conformity.

Sources

• Law No. ZRU-701 on Licensing, Permitting and Notification Procedures, Arts. 16–55, Annexes 1, 3 and 4 (in Russian)
• Law No. ZRU-844 on Restricting the Distribution and Consumption of Alcohol and Tobacco Products, Arts. 3, 21 and 29–33 (in Russian)
• Law No. ZRU-600 on State Duty, annex, para. 50 (in Russian)
• CMR No. 80 of 21 February 2022, Unified Regulation on Licensing, passports 7 and 8 (in Uzbek)
• CMR No. 88 of 25 February 2022, Unified Regulation on Notification, passports 11, 19, 24 and 33 (in Uzbek)
• CMR No. 45 of 29 January 2025, Regulation para. 31 and Annex 3 item 11 (in Uzbek)
• Tax Code, Arts. 293 and 455–460 (in Russian)
• Law No. ZRU-1105 on the 2026 State Budget, Annex 9 (in Uzbek)
• CMR No. 75 of 13 February 2003, Catering Rules, paras. 19–20¹ (in Russian)
• Code of Administrative Liability, Arts. 165 and 166 (in Russian)
• Criminal Code, Arts. 186¹ and 190 (in Russian)
• Presidential Decree No. UP-84 of 3 June 2024 (in Russian)
• Presidential Decree No. UP-115 of 23 June 2026, BRV of UZS 440,000 (in Russian)
• "Litsenziya" information system
• Single Portal of Interactive Public Services