Shop Act Registration in Uttar Pradesh (2026): The 20-Employee Rule, Online Registration, Hours and Penalties

Searching for "shop act registration UP" usually means a bank, landlord or marketplace has asked for a shop licence. The rules behind that licence changed sharply on 19 November 2025. Uttar Pradesh's shops law now covers the whole State, but it applies only to shops and commercial establishments with 20 or more employees, and those must register online within six months. This guide is for shop owners, clinic and office owners, small employers and their accountants in Lucknow, Noida, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Varanasi and elsewhere. It explains who registers now, fees, the online process, the new hours and night-work rules, penalties and a worked example.

Quick answer

Under the Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan Adhiniyam, 1962 as amended from 19 November 2025, a shop or commercial establishment with 20 or more employees must apply for registration on the Labour Department's web portal within 6 months of starting business. A complete application is approved automatically and the certificate is emailed. Establishments with fewer than 20 employees are outside the Act. The fee is calculated by the portal; there is no periodic renewal.

• Count outsourced and agency staff: they are now employees under the Act

• Up to 9 hours a day and 48 a week; overtime at double pay, up to 144 hours a quarter

• Women may work 7 pm to 6 am with consent, transport and safety arrangements

• Fines up to ₹2,000 (first) and ₹10,000 (later), after a 15 days improvement notice

What the UP shops law covers after the 2025 amendment

The Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan Adhiniyam, 1962 (U.P. Act 26 of 1962) is the State's Shops and Commercial Establishments Act. It regulates opening hours, weekly closure, working hours, rest intervals, leave, wage payment and notice of termination in shops and commercial establishments. Until 2025 it applied only to areas the State had notified, in practice the larger towns. The amendment omitted that limit, so the Act now extends to the whole of Uttar Pradesh, urban and rural.

The amendment also widened what counts as a "commercial establishment". Besides premises carrying on trade or business for profit, banks, insurance and brokerage offices, printing and journalism, cinemas and places of entertainment, the definition now expressly includes the establishment of any medical practitioner (hospitals, dispensaries, clinics, polyclinics and maternity homes), architects, tax consultants and other technical or professional consultants, service providers, and businesses running service platforms and delivery services. The State can add others by notification.

"Employee" now includes a person engaged through an outsourcing agency to do manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational or clerical work for hire or reward. This matters because the 20-employee line is a headcount line: guards, housekeeping staff and delivery riders supplied by an agency count.

The shop act registration is a labour-law registration. It is separate from the municipal trade licence that some nagar nigams require, from GST registration and from Udyam. Food businesses still need FSSAI, and clinics still need their health registrations.

The November 2025 change: 20 employees and statewide

The Governor promulgated the Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan (Sanshodhan) Ordinance, 2025 (U.P. Ordinance No. 16 of 2025) on 19 November 2025. A Bill to replace it was introduced in the Legislative Assembly on 22 December 2025, and its English translation was published in the Gazette on 30 December 2025. The Assembly passed the Bill in early 2026, and law-firm updates from April 2026 report that the Amendment Act has been enacted and the Ordinance repealed. The Act is deemed to have come into force on 19 November 2025, so there is no gap.

The Statement of Objects and Reasons says the aim was to protect the health, safety and welfare of workers, improve compliance, and raise penalties enough to deter breaches. The main changes are:

• Coverage: a new clause (g) in section 3(1) takes shops and commercial establishments employing fewer than twenty employees outside the Act altogether.
• Registration: a substituted section 4-B requires owners with twenty or more employees to apply on the departmental web portal within six months of starting business.
• Hours: section 6 now allows nine hours a day for adults, 48 a week, an eleven-hour cap including overtime, and 144 hours of overtime a quarter.
• Women at night: section 22 now permits work between 7 pm and 6 am with consent and facilities.
• New duties: seating for staff who work standing, and an appointment letter for every employee.
• Enforcement: a 15-day improvement notice before prosecution and higher fines.

UP shops law at a glance (2026)

20+

Employees that bring a shop under the Act

from 19 November 2025

6 months

Time to apply for registration

from starting business

9 hours

Daily hours limit

48 a week; 11 with overtime

₹10,000

Maximum fine, repeat offence

first offence ₹2,000

Who must register, and by when

Fewer than 20 employees. The Act does not apply. You do not register and the hours and leave chapters of this Act do not bind you, but other laws still do: minimum wages, payment of wages, the POSH Act once you have 10 or more workers, ESIC from ten employees in notified areas, and the Labour Codes. Some smaller businesses register voluntarily because a bank asks for a shop licence; ask the bank whether GST, Udyam or a trade licence will do instead.

20 or more employees. Apply within six months of starting business. If you are already trading and cross 20, apply as soon as you reach that number rather than waiting; the Act counts employees working in the establishment, and outsourced staff are now included.

Regulated businesses. If your business falls under another department's regulatory domain, for example a hospital, pharmacy, restaurant or fuel outlet, section 4-B asks for an affidavit that you comply with that department's rules, along with the fee.

Already registered. The amendment does not say what happens to registrations granted before November 2025, and law firms have flagged the gap. Keep your existing certificate; if your headcount is below 20 you are now outside the Act anyway, and if it is above 20 the old certificate continues to record the establishment. Update the portal if any detail changes.

Registration fees in UP

There is no published fixed fee table for this service. The amended section 4-B(2) says the application must be accompanied by "such fees as prescribed on the departmental web-portal", and the State's Nivesh Mitra single-window listing describes the fee for both registration and renewal as calculated by the department from the details in the form, with a 30-day service timeline. In other words, the portal works out the fee from your establishment's category and headcount and shows it before you pay.

Some online guides quote small fee bands for UP; we could not find those figures in any official source, so we do not repeat them here. Pay only the amount the portal shows. An agent's quote above that is a professional fee for their time, not a government charge.

How to apply online

UP's labour registrations are filed online through the Labour Department's portal and the Nivesh Mitra single-window system. Under the new section 4-B, if the application is complete and you are eligible, registration is granted automatically by the portal and the certificate is sent to your email.

Shop act registration in Uttar Pradesh

1. 1

   Log in to Nivesh Mitra or the Labour Department portal

   Create an entrepreneur account with your mobile number and email, then fill the common application form for your unit.

   Open Nivesh Mitra
2. 2

   Choose the Shops and Establishment registration service

   Under the Labour Department, select registration under the UP Shops & Establishment Act, 1962.

3. 3

   Enter establishment and employee details

   Name, address, nature of business, date of commencement, employer and manager details, and employees by category — including people engaged through an outsourcing agency.

4. 4

   Upload documents and any affidavit

   Identity and address proof, proof of premises, and, if another department regulates your business, an affidavit that you comply with its rules.

5. 5

   Pay the fee the portal calculates

   Click to calculate the fee and pay online.

6. 6

   Receive the certificate by email

   A complete application from an eligible establishment is approved automatically; the certificate is emailed to you. Display it at the premises.

   Tip: The Act says the certificate is not proof of ownership of the premises. A registration obtained with false documents is void and can be cancelled.

Documents to keep ready

• PAN and Aadhaar of the owner, partners or directors
• Rent agreement or sale deed, with a recent electricity or property-tax bill
• Owner's no-objection letter for rented premises
• Partnership deed, LLP agreement or incorporation certificate
• Employee list with designation, wages and date of joining, including outsourced staff
• Licences from other departments that regulate your business, such as FSSAI, drug licence or clinical establishment registration

Working hours, overtime, holidays and leave

These rules apply to establishments that the Act covers, that is, those with 20 or more employees.

Hours. No adult may be required or allowed to work more than 9 hours a day or 48 hours a week; for young persons the limit is six hours. Including overtime, the day cannot exceed 11 hours, except on a day of stock-taking or making accounts. Section 7 requires a rest interval of at least half an hour after no more than five hours of continuous work, and the working day cannot spread over more than twelve hours.

Overtime. Overtime is capped at 144 hours in a quarter, the quarters starting on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October. It is paid at twice the ordinary rate, where the ordinary rate is basic wages plus allowances, but not bonus. For calculating overtime pay, a day counts as nine working hours.

Weekly closure and holiday. A shop must close one day a week, chosen by the employer and changed no more than once a year, and every employee gets one whole day off each week with pay.

Leave. Section 10 gives earned leave of at least 15 days for every twelve months of continuous service, sickness leave of 15 days a year after six months' service, and casual leave of 10 days a year. Earned leave can accumulate up to 45 days.

Seating and appointment letters. Employers must provide adequate seating for employees who have to work standing. Every employee must get an appointment letter giving name, father's name, date of birth, qualification and skill category, post, wages, mobile number, Aadhaar number and nature of the post.

Women at night. An employer that provides shelter, food or canteen facilities, a rest room, a night crèche, ladies' toilets, adequate protection of safety, and transport from the shop to each woman's home may, with the women's consent, allow them to work between 7 pm and 6 am. Before the amendment the window for such arrangements was 9 pm to 6 am.

Working-time rules before and after 19 November 2025

Rule	Before	From 19 Nov 2025
Applies to	All shops in notified areas	20 or more employees, whole State
Daily hours (adult)	8	9 hours
Day including overtime	10 hours	11 hours
Overtime cap	125 hours a quarter	144 hours a quarter
Overtime rate	Twice ordinary rate	Twice ordinary rate
Women at night	Arrangements from 9 pm	7 pm–6 am with consent and facilities
Maximum fine	₹100 / ₹500	₹2,000 / ₹10,000

Applies to

Before

All shops in notified areas

From 19 Nov 2025

20 or more employees, whole State

Daily hours (adult)

Before

8

From 19 Nov 2025

9 hours

Day including overtime

Before

10 hours

From 19 Nov 2025

11 hours

Overtime cap

Before

125 hours a quarter

From 19 Nov 2025

144 hours a quarter

Overtime rate

Before

Twice ordinary rate

From 19 Nov 2025

Twice ordinary rate

Women at night

Before

Arrangements from 9 pm

From 19 Nov 2025

7 pm–6 am with consent and facilities

Maximum fine

Before

₹100 / ₹500

From 19 Nov 2025

₹2,000 / ₹10,000

Worked example: a Lucknow electronics showroom

Verma Electronics opens a showroom in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow on 1 August with 16 sales and service staff on its own payroll, four guards and housekeepers from an agency, and two delivery riders engaged through an outsourcing firm. Headcount is 22.

Is the Act applicable? Yes. Outsourced workers are employees under the amended definition, so the count is 22, not 16. The owner must apply on the portal by 31 January, six months after opening. Had he counted only payroll staff, he would have wrongly treated the showroom as outside the Act.

Overtime. Lucknow has a Nagar Nigam, so it is a Category II district for minimum wages, where the unskilled rate from 1 April 2026 is ₹13,006 a month. Over 26 working days that is about ₹500 a day, and because the Act treats a day as nine hours for overtime, the hourly rate is about ₹56. Overtime at twice the rate is about ₹111 an hour. In the Diwali week, a stockroom helper works 54 hours, six over the weekly limit, so he is owed about ₹667 of overtime, and the day never exceeds eleven hours. Use actual wages if you pay above the minimum; see our UP minimum wages guide.

Evening shifts. Two saleswomen agree to work until 9 pm during the festival season. The showroom arranges a cab home, keeps the rest room and ladies' toilet open, and records their written consent.

Other compliance. With 22 employees, the showroom also needs PF registration (from 20 or more employees), ESIC and an Internal Committee under the POSH Act.

Penalties and the improvement notice

Fines. The substituted section 35 says any person guilty of an offence under the Act is liable to a fine of up to ₹2,000 for a first offence and up to ₹10,000 for every subsequent offence. The old figures were ₹100 and ₹500.

Improvement notice first. The new section 33(2) requires the Inspector, before starting prosecution for any offence other than one under section 20(1), to give the employer a 15-day written improvement notice. If you comply within that time, the Inspector cannot prosecute. The protection is lost if the same kind of breach is repeated within five years of the first; then prosecution follows directly.

How inspections happen. UP selects most establishments for inspection through its central computerised system rather than by an Inspector's choice, and complaint-based inspections still happen. Inspectors look at the registration certificate, attendance and wage registers, overtime records, appointment letters and leave records.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Following the old "register within 3 months" advice. Many guides still say every shop in UP must register within three months. Since November 2025, only establishments with 20 or more employees register, and the window is six months.

Leaving out outsourced staff. Agency guards, housekeeping staff and riders now count as employees. If adding them takes you to 20, register.

Paying for renewal. Renewal under section 4-C was removed in 2019. If someone asks you to "renew" a shop licence for a fee, check the portal first.

Missing appointment letters. The new duty to issue appointment letters with prescribed details applies to every employee of a covered establishment. Missing letters are an easy inspection finding; fix them during the 15-day improvement period if you get a notice.

Treating the Labour Codes as a replacement. The four Labour Codes came into force on 21 November 2025, but State shops acts still apply alongside them. Our Labour Codes guide explains where they overlap.

Official links

• Nivesh Mitra — Approvals for EntrepreneursShops & Establishment registration service, timeline and fee basis
• Labour Department, Uttar PradeshOrders, notifications and helpline
• UP Shops (Amendment) Bill 2025 — gazette English text (PDF)Published 30 December 2025
• UP minimum wages order, 17 April 2026 (PDF)Category-wise rates

What to do next

Count everyone who works at your premises, including outsourced and agency staff. Under 20, keep your GST or Udyam certificate as business proof and focus on wages and social security; at 20 or more, apply on the portal within six months and issue appointment letters to everyone. Then set up an hours and overtime register and check pay against the UP minimum wages. Our salary slip generator shows overtime separately, and the hourly rate calculator helps you price overtime hours. Check whether your nagar nigam needs a trade licence, and if you also run an outlet in Delhi, see the Delhi shop act guide.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice — confirm on the official source or with a professional.

Frequently asked questions

Is shop act registration mandatory in UP?

Only for larger businesses. Since 19 November 2025, the amended Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan Adhiniyam, 1962 does not apply to shops and commercial establishments employing fewer than 20 employees. An owner with 20 or more employees must apply for registration on the Labour Department's portal within 6 months of starting business. Smaller businesses may still be asked for other proof of business, such as GST or Udyam.

What is the fee for shop registration in Uttar Pradesh?

The UP Labour Department does not publish a fixed fee table for this service. The amended section 4-B says the fee is the one prescribed on the departmental web portal, and the Nivesh Mitra listing says the fee is calculated by the department from the details in your form. The portal shows the amount before payment; anything an agent adds is a service charge.

Does UP shop registration need renewal?

A 2019 amendment removed the renewal requirement in section 4-C, so a registration does not lapse after a fixed period. The Nivesh Mitra portal still lists a renewal service, which serves older registrations. If your registered details change, update them on the portal.

What are the working hours under the UP Shops Act now?

An adult employee may work up to 9 hours a day and 48 hours a week. Including overtime, the day cannot exceed 11 hours, except on stock-taking or accounts days. Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate and capped at 144 hours a quarter. Young persons may work only six hours a day.

Can women work night shifts in shops in UP?

Yes. The amended section 22 lets an employer allow women to work between 7 pm and 6 am with their consent, if the shop provides shelter, food or canteen facilities, a rest room, a night crèche, ladies' toilets, adequate safety, and transport from the workplace to their homes.

What is the penalty under the UP Shops Act?

Since the 2025 amendment, any offence under the Act can attract a fine of up to ₹2,000 for a first offence and up to ₹10,000 for every later offence. For most offences the Inspector must first give a 15 days written improvement notice; if you comply, there is no prosecution, unless the same breach is repeated within five years.

Sources & verification

Figures on this page were checked against the sources below when it was last reviewed on 12 October 2026. Each rate and limit is stored once with its own official source and review date, and official update channels are monitored daily so changes are picked up. How we verify

1. 1.UP Gazette Extraordinary, 30 December 2025 — English translation of the Uttar Pradesh Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhishthan (Sanshodhan) Vidheyak, 2025 (Notification No. 289/XC-S-1–25-36S-2025) — Sansadiya Karya Anubhag-1, Government of Uttar Pradesh (gazette copy via Simpliance) · accessed 12 October 2026
2. 2.Nivesh Mitra — Approvals for Entrepreneurs (Labour Department services) — Invest UP, Government of Uttar Pradesh · accessed 12 October 2026
3. 3.UP Shram Anubhag-2 Order No. 374/36-2-2026-2041256 dated 17 April 2026 (minimum wages) — Labour Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh · accessed 12 October 2026
4. 4.The U.P. Dookan Aur Vanijya Adhisthan Adhiniyam, 1962 — Indian Kanoon · accessed 12 October 2026
5. 5.Uttar Pradesh enhances coverage for employees and applicability limits for registration of commercial establishments — DLA Piper · accessed 12 October 2026
6. 6.Uttar Pradesh passes key bill to amend shops and establishments law — Khaitan & Co · accessed 12 October 2026
7. 7.UP Shops & Establishments Act goes live statewide: 2026 guide — India Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates) · accessed 12 October 2026