Shops & Establishment Registration: Process, Fees & Renewal in Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana
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The cleanest fact in this whole topic belongs to Maharashtra. Run a small establishment there with fewer than ten employees, register it once under the 2017 Act, and you never touch the renewal process again. Nothing else in this article is that simple. Every state runs its own Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, its own portal, and its own fee table, and at least one of the four states covered here has numbers that flatly disagree with each other in the source material.
There is no central Shops & Establishment portal. Karnataka's current fee is the best-sourced figure here, Rs 405 to Rs 1,01,250 by employee-count slab, revised February 2025. Maharashtra gives lifetime registration with no renewal to establishments with 0-9 employees. Delhi's registration fee, registration timeline and renewal requirement are each contested across sources, and this article states both competing figures rather than picking one.
How this works across four states
Each state's Shops and Commercial Establishments Act is its own law, administered by its own labour department, on its own portal, with its own fee schedule and renewal calendar. A figure that's true in Karnataka tells you nothing about what applies in Delhi. The state comparison table further down pulls all four side by side, but read the individual state sections first. Some of these numbers carry a genuine asterisk.
Delhi
Registration happens through the Delhi Labour Department portal. You create an account, file Form A under Section 5 with the employer and manager's details, the establishment's name, category and employee count, then upload supporting documents: identity proof, address proof of the premises, PAN of the business entity, the list of directors or partners where relevant, and a photo of the establishment.
⚠ Registration timeline, sources disagree. The Delhi Shops and Establishments Act's own text (Section 5, as summarised by the Delhi Labour Department) gives 90 days from the establishment's commencement. Several service-provider guides, including Cashfree and AgileRegulatory, state 30 days instead. This guide is not picking one. Confirm the current figure against the live Delhi Labour Department portal or the current Delhi Shops and Establishments Rules before you rely on either number.
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