Alcohol Licensing

Licensing Hours and Late-Night Refreshment: What Your Licence Actually Allows

Reading the hours on a premises licence, drinking-up time, late-night refreshment after 11 pm, extended hours orders and how to change your hours

Quick answer

There are no national licensing hours in England and Wales. Since 2005 every premises has the hours written on its own licence, negotiated at application and varied since, and the same street can hold a pub licensed to 11 pm and a bar licensed to 3 am. That freedom is where the confusion starts: the hours for alcohol sales are not the same as the opening hours, the hours for music may differ again, and hot food after 11 pm is a licensable activity of its own. This article explains how to read the hours on your licence and how to change them.

Licensing hours are specific to each premises licence and to each activity on it; opening hours are separate and usually later.
Hot food or drink to the public between 11 pm and 5 am is late-night refreshment and must be on the licence.
New Year's Eve is the only automatic extension; others come by government order.

Key takeaways

Licensing hours are specific to each premises licence and to each activity on it; opening hours are separate and usually later.

Hot food or drink to the public between 11 pm and 5 am is late-night refreshment and must be on the licence.

New Year's Eve is the only automatic extension; others come by government order.

Later hours need a full variation with a 28-day consultation; a single night needs a TEN.

Hours for Each Activity, and Opening Hours

A premises licence states the hours for each licensable activity separately: the sale of alcohol, each kind of regulated entertainment, and late-night refreshment. It also states the hours the premises is open to the public, which are usually later than the alcohol hours to allow drinking-up time. A typical pub licence might read alcohol 10 am to 11 pm Monday to Saturday and 12 to 10.30 pm Sunday, opening hours to 11.30 pm. Serving alcohol after 11 pm is a breach; customers finishing drinks until 11.30 is not. There is no statutory drinking-up time any more, only the gap between the two sets of hours on your licence.

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Late-Night Refreshment

Supplying hot food or hot drink to the public between 11 pm and 5 am, for consumption on or off the premises, is late-night refreshment and needs authorisation. A pub serving food to 11.30 pm, a takeaway open to midnight and a hotel serving room service coffee at 1 am all need it on the licence, though hotels supplying only residents are exempt, as are vending machines and free supplies. Councils can now designate areas or types of premises as exempt. Late-night refreshment conditions often cover litter, dispersal and door staff, because the queue at a kebab shop at 2 am is a public nuisance and crime and disorder question in its own right.

National and Seasonal Extensions

The Act itself gives an extension on New Year's Eve: premises licensed for alcohol on 31 December can continue until their licensed start time on 1 January. Other extensions come by government order for national occasions, such as royal events and major sporting finals, and are announced in advance. Christmas Eve and Boxing Day have no automatic extension; the hours are whatever the licence says, and many licences carry a non-standard timing for those dates because operators asked for it at application. Check your licence rather than assuming.

Changing Your Hours

Extending the hours for alcohol, or adding late-night refreshment, is a full variation: the same fee as a new application, the blue notice for 28 days, the newspaper advertisement and the responsible authorities served. Residents can object and hours applications draw more objections than any other. Reducing hours is a minor variation. For a single night, a temporary event notice extends the hours for that event. Where a council has adopted a cumulative impact policy for a town centre, an application for later hours starts with a presumption against grant, and the operating schedule has to rebut it.

What to do next

Post the licensed hours behind the bar and in the kitchen

Staff should know the last time alcohol can be sold and the last time hot food can leave the kitchen, and that the two may differ.

Common mistakes to avoid

Mistake

Assuming opening hours are alcohol hours

Instead

Alcohol sales must stop at the alcohol hour on the licence even if the premises is licensed to stay open later. A sale at 11.10 pm on an 11 pm licence is a breach of condition.

Frequently asked questions

What time do pubs have to stop serving alcohol?

Whatever time is written on their premises licence. There are no national closing hours; each licence sets its own, and opening hours are usually later than alcohol hours to allow drinking up.

Do I need a licence to sell hot food after 11 pm?

Yes. Supplying hot food or drink to the public between 11 pm and 5 am is late-night refreshment, a licensable activity that must be on your premises licence or covered by a TEN.

Alcohol Licensing