The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India vide its notification dated 29th October 2021 has decided to enable Food Business Operator to renew the FSSAI License/Registration even after expiry date with penalties of three times of the existing annual license/registration fee in the period – 1st day to 90th day from the original expiry date or Additional two times of the existing annual license/registration fee (i.e. total 5 times) in the period – 91.’ day to 180’r’day from the original expiry date.
Clause 2.1.7 of FSS (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011 states that F’BOs shall apply for renewal of license as early as 30 days prior to the expiry date mentioned in the license. ln case, renewal of license is not filed till 30 days prior to the expiry date, a late fee of Rs. 100 per day to be paid by FBO along with the renewal fee. The window for filing renewal application opens for Food Businesses as early as 180 days prior to expiry date. Till now, once the license/registration expired, there was no provision for filing the renewal of FSSAI License or Registration. Such FBOs are required to apply for fresh License/Registration, in case they want to restart the business.
However, due to prevailing CoVID pandemic in the country, the instances have increased where FBOs have been failed to renew their License/Registration in the provided time. They were required to obtain fresh License/Registration to continue their food business. This resulted in redoing the complete procedure for obtaining license/registration, circulating the new license/registration number across all trading food businesses, loss of pre-packaged printing material etc.
Therefore, in order to facilitate the food businesses to continue with same license number even after expiry date, it has been decided with the approval of Food Authority to enable Food Business Operator to renew the FSSAI License/Registration even after expiry date.
Further, No renewal shall be allowed after l80tr’ day from the original expiry date. FBOs whose license/registration has expired within last 180 days from the date of issuance of this order, can avail the policy and apply for renewal of License/Registration through Food Safety Compliance System, FoSCoS [https://foscos.fssai.gov.in].
