Most Bengaluru founders weighing a trade licence are really asking something else: does the e-Karmika shops registration already cover them? It does not. The shops registration is a Labour Department instrument under the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961. The trade licence is a municipal permission granted by a city corporation Commissioner under section 303 of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 (Karnataka Act 36 of 2025). A restaurant in Indiranagar deals with both. A software team on a coworking desk in Koramangala deals with the first for certain, and section 303 lists corporate offices and shared office spaces among its subjects. So the fork is not licence against registration. It is which body your street answers to, and that answer changed for every business here on 2 September 2025.
Which businesses fall inside the section 303 licensing net?
Section 303 sits in Chapter XXIII of the Act and reads plainly: the Commissioner may grant licences in matters pertaining to eighteen listed subjects. The list is wider than most readers expect. It reaches trade establishments, markets wholesale or retail, restaurants, industries and commercial undertakings. It also reaches corporate offices, shared office and living spaces, service apartments and paying guest accommodation. Hospitals, theatres, food trucks and cart stands sit on the same list.
Three qualifications matter before you assume the answer.
- Government premises are outside the regime. Section 304 exempts the State Government and the Central Government for any place in their occupation or control.
- Electronic City runs on a different statute. Phases I to III were notified in March 2013 as an industrial township area under section 364-A of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, and the instrument there is an ELCITA General Licence.
- A coworking desk is an open question. Section 303 lists corporate offices and shared office spaces separately, and nothing published settles whether the operator licence carries the occupier.
Bommasandra, Nelamangala and Hoskote sit outside all five Bengaluru city corporations. Outside the five is not outside every licensing regime, so we identify the local body for that address rather than assume one.
What has to be true about your premises before we file?
Applications here fail on the premises, not on the paperwork. The three conditions in the online declaration say so directly.
- The licence does not regularize unauthorized construction or a breach of building bye laws. It is not a retrospective building approval.
- The business must sit within the zonal regulations of the Comprehensive Development Plan issued by the Bangalore Development Authority. Zoning is the quiet killer on this filing.
- The applicant undertakes to answer objections raised by immediate neighbours. In the dense stretches of Chickpet or Jayanagar that undertaking has teeth.
Corporation dues matter too. Section 305(3) lets a licence be suspended or revoked while property tax or any other due to the corporation remains unpaid. An arrear on the premises becomes a licensing problem, not only a tax one. We assemble the constitution, identity and premises papers alongside that, and settle the address itself before anything is lodged.
How do we take your trade licence from address to grant?
The application goes to one trade licence portal serving all five corporations, at trade.bbmpgov.in, with separate modules for new registration and renewal. The domain and the footer still carry the old BBMP name. That branding is legacy: BBMP ceased to exist on 2 September 2025 and five city corporations took over its municipal work.
- We resolve your address on the Greater Bengaluru Authority Know Your Ward tool, because the corporation and not the neighbourhood name decides where the application goes.
- We fix the section 303 subject that matches the trade actually carried on, since the fee and the conditions follow the subject.
- We assemble the documents and check that corporation dues on the premises are clear.
- We lodge the application addressed to the Commissioner of the corporation your premises fall in.
- We carry the queries, any inspection and any neighbour objection through to the grant.
For an Electronic City address the route is ELCITA instead, and a food and beverage, hotel or paying guest operator there submits the FSSAI licence with the application.
Which authority holds the file, and what can it do later?
Who issues your licence is not a citywide question. Section 305(2) requires every application for a licence or permission to be addressed to the Commissioner of the City Corporation, and section 305(1) has that Commissioner sign it for the zone. Each corporation is a separate legal person under section 26(4), which is why a notice or a suit has to name the right one of the five.
The Greater Bengaluru Authority does not grant trade licences. Under section 8(3) it coordinates among the corporations, and Commissioner is defined in section 2(16) as the Commissioner of a City Corporation.
| Where the premises sit | Who grants the licence | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Indiranagar, MG Road, Chickpet | Commissioner, Bengaluru Central City Corporation | Section 303 licence |
| Koramangala, HSR Layout, Jayanagar | Commissioner, Bengaluru South City Corporation | Section 303 licence |
| Whitefield, Marathahalli, Hoodi | Commissioner, Bengaluru East City Corporation | Section 303 licence |
| Peenya, Malleshwaram, Rajajinagar | Commissioner, Bengaluru West City Corporation | Section 303 licence |
| Yelahanka, Hebbal, Kalyan Nagar | Commissioner, Bengaluru North City Corporation | Section 303 licence |
| Electronic City Phases I to III | Electronics City Industrial Township Authority | ELCITA General Licence |
The five corporations are currently administered by a government appointed Administrator. Elections to the new city corporations have been notified as being in preparation, with the electoral roll revision completed in 2026, but had not been held when this page was last reviewed. Nothing in this affects your application: licences and tax are issued and collected by the corporation officers either way.
The corporation keeps two levers afterwards. Section 305(3) allows suspension or revocation for unpaid dues, and section 306 allows the Commissioner to seal premises used without a licence. A licence granted before the split did not lapse: section 361 saved every licence granted and registration effected under the repealed corporation Act, until superseded.
What does it cost, and when does it come round again?
The Act fixes no fee. Section 303(2) leaves the manner of procuring a licence to the rules or bye laws. Section 305(2) makes the licence subject to such fee as may be specified by the City Corporation, with different rates for different licences. So the fee is a corporation level, trade wise schedule that can now differ between the five, and we confirm the current figure before we file.
A trade licence here runs with the financial year and expires on 31 March; renewal for the year ahead opens well before that, and a late fee applies once the renewal window closes. The exact window and any extension are set by circular each year, so we check the current circular before we file. The renewal module on the portal is headed for the 2026 to 2027 financial year, which is the government own confirmation of that cycle.
Our own side is fixed. Trade License Registration in Bengaluru starts at ₹799, and the usual run is 15 to 20 days from a complete file, with the corporation fee payable separately. For the national frame behind the Karnataka detail, read our complete trade licence guide for India.
Who is applying for one right now?
- A biotech and life sciences startup taking lab and office space at Bommasandra. That address is outside all five city corporations, in Anekal taluk, so we identify the local body for it and never borrow an answer from a neighbouring locality.
- The same startup a year later, adding a small analytical unit inside one of the five. Two premises means two applications, because each is addressed to the Commissioner of the corporation those premises sit in.
- An IT services and BPM operator in Electronic City. ELCITA notifies its General Licence fee for trade units in the township every March, and General Condition 2 says it will not issue one for trade units inside industrial or tech park campuses.
- A restaurant group opening a second outlet across a corporation boundary, say from Indiranagar to Jayanagar. Restaurants are named in section 303, and the second outlet answers to a different Commissioner from the first.
Why bring this to LegalX India in Bengaluru?
Three things on this service are easy to get wrong from outside Karnataka. We resolve the address on the Greater Bengaluru Authority Know Your Ward tool rather than guess a corporation from a neighbourhood name, since the gazette draws those boundaries as roads and landmarks. We check the current circular before quoting a renewal window. And we say so when nothing published settles a point, as with a coworking desk taken as a registered office.
The work runs online with our CA and CS team, at a price agreed before we start. Frazer Town and Cox Town are neighbours in two different corporations now, North and Central. That is the whole problem in one sentence, and it is why the address comes first on every file we open here.