How to stay compliant with liquor laws

As a licence or permit holder, you are required to comply with the conditions of your licence and the law.

These legal requirements aim to reduce alcohol-related harm, keep the community safe and ensure a fair liquor industry.

You may be personally penalised if your licensed venue or location is not compliant.

Your obligations are determined by your licence conditions and the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998.

Penalties for non-compliance

There are serious penalties for not complying with your licence, including:

fines of more than $24,000
jail term of up to 2 years
cancelling your licence and disqualifying you from holding another one, including for life.

If you have a non-compliance incident, it can increase your annual licence renewal fees for 3 years.

Find out what offences can lead to a fine (infringement notice), including maximum penalties.

Read about enforcement actions and outcomes.

Comply with licence conditions

Read your liquor licence. It has important details on the conditions you must follow to stay compliant. These may be unique to your licensed venue or location.

If you do not follow all conditions, you could face serious penalties.

Get help to understand your licence conditions.

If your licence no longer suits your needs, you can apply to make changes to your licence type or conditions. You must get our permission first. Find out how to make changes to your licence.

Protect minors from alcohol

The legal drinking age in Victoria is 18 years. Anyone under 18 is considered a minor.

It is against the law to:

supply alcohol to a minor anywhere, including at your licensed venue or location or when you deliver alcohol
allow minors at your licensed venue unless they are with a responsible adult or in certain approved situations
employ minors to supply alcohol (but they're allowed to serve alcohol if it's part of a training program we have approved).

You are responsible if alcohol is supplied to a minor at your licensed venue, even if you didn’t know about it.

You could be fined more than $24,000 for breaching these laws.

Read about the definition of a responsible adult, ID checking and other legal requirements to prevent minors from accessing alcohol.

Manage intoxicated customers

It is against the law for you or your staff to:

supply alcohol to an intoxicated person
permit a drunk or disorderly person to be at your venue.

You could be fined more than $24,000 for breaching these laws.

Find out how to decide if a person is intoxicated and get a checklist to help you manage intoxicated customers.

Complete required training

Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) training is legally required for anyone selling, offering or serving alcohol under these licence types:

general
on-premises
packaged liquor
late night (general, on-premises or packaged liquor).

This includes the licensee and anyone who takes orders or payment for alcohol, pours alcoholic drinks or delivers them to a customer, stocks alcohol in view of the public or removes glasses containing alcohol at your venue.

RSA training may also be compulsory in other situations where there is a special condition on your licence.

Find out your requirements for Responsible Service of Alcohol training.

Display correct signage

Every licence type, except pre-retail, legally requires you to display certain signs.

You must display:

a copy of your liquor licence or permit
various signs, depending on your licence type.

They must be displayed in an area where customers can easily see them.

Find out what signs you must display and what's optional for signage in licensed venues and locations.

Provide free drinking water

If you have a licensed venue, you are legally required to provide free drinking water to customers. This reduces alcohol-related harm by encouraging customers to pace themselves and stay hydrated.

To meet this requirement:

the water you provide must be free, clean and available at all times your venue is open
if customers cannot serve themselves water, staff must provide it when asked.

Download the 'free water available' poster from our optional signs.

In some rare situations, you can get an exemption from providing free drinking water.

As the licence or permit holder, you are personally responsible for all alcohol supplied under your licence.

Unless you have our approval, you must not:

lease or sub-let any part of your licensed venue
transfer or assign your right to supply alcohol to another person or business
allow another person (who is not your employee) or entity to run a business supplying alcohol at your venue.

If you:

want to sublet part of your venue, read how to make changes to your licence
buy a business, before you can trade you must transfer the liquor licence into your name
have a licence (other than BYO permit) and someone wants to use it for a one-off private event, they can only do this if you supply the alcohol. Otherwise, they need a temporary limited licence.

There are serious penalties for trading without a licence, including fines of more than $48,000.