What permits do you need to open a coffee shop in Wake County?

Food & Lodging Establishment Annual Permit Fee (NC DHHS)

This is a state charge that a Wake County food business pays on top of the county's own plan review fee, and the two should not be added together as a single county figure. G.S. 130A-248(d) provides that the Department shall charge each establishment subject to the section a fee of $120 for each permit issued, reassessed annually for permits that do not expire. NC DHHS bills it through its own online payment system and states on its Inspections, Statistics and Fees page that permit fees collected from food and lodging establishments support the programme and that $70 out of every $120 collected is distributed to county health departments to improve environmental health inspection programmes. Wake County's own fee schedule carries the matching footnote that fees of $120 are to be paid once a year to DHHS for holding a permit. The charge is excluded by statute for nutrition programmes for the elderly, establishments preparing and selling meat food products or poultry products, temporary food establishments, limited food service establishments and public school cafeterias. A mobile food unit or push cart is permitted the same way: the county's Food Trucks & Hot Dog Carts page states that once the unit is found compliant with the rules a Food Service permit is issued, and an approved commissary is required before that permit issues, serving as the base of operation for daily servicing, cleaning, supplies, food preparation, storage, water loading and wastewater offloading. The county page adds that a unit serving only coffee, tea or lemonade is regulated by the NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services on 984-236-4820 instead.

Temporary Food Establishment Permit

A food or drink vendor trading at a fair, festival or other special event in Wake County needs a Temporary Food Establishment permit from Environmental Health & Safety, and the county page states there is a $75 fee for each TFE permit issued. The amount is fixed by statute rather than by the county: G.S. 130A-248(d2) provides that a local health department shall charge each temporary food establishment and each limited food services establishment a fee of $75 for each permit issued, so a Limited Food Service Establishment carries the same $75. The $120 annual NC DHHS permit fee listed as a separate Wake County requirement is excluded by G.S. 130A-248(d) for temporary and limited food service establishments, so it is not owed on top of this one. The county page states that yard sales, auctions, farmers markets and flea markets are examples of events that do not qualify for a TFE permit. Citing G.S. 130A-250(7), the same page exempts drink-only vendors selling lemonade, coffee, soda and tea in single-service cups, and vendors selling only dipped ice cream, popcorn, candied apples, cotton candy, funnel cakes, doughnuts, peanuts and commercially prepackaged chips and candy — a carve-out that takes many coffee and snack stalls out of the requirement altogether. The programme is countywide, so the same $75 applies at an event inside Raleigh or any of the towns. Event contact: Ginger Johnson, 919-612-5597, TFE.Permits@wake.gov.

Wake County Beer & Wine (Beverage) License

This is the mandatory Wake County business license for alcohol retailers, issued by the Department of Tax Administration's Beer/Wine Division at 301 S. McDowell St., Suite 3800, Raleigh, 919-856-5999. G.S. 105-113.78 fixes the amount rather than capping it: the statute states that the annual tax for each license is as stated and prints on-premises malt beverage $25.00, off-premises malt beverage $5.00, on-premises unfortified or fortified wine $25.00 and off-premises unfortified or fortified wine $25.00, and both the county's Beer & Wine License page and its Beverage License Application form print the same four figures. Session Laws 2014-3, s. 12.3(b) repealed G.S. 153A-152, the county privilege license tax statute, effective July 1, 2015, and s. 12.3(a) repealed the city equivalent at G.S. 160A-211; Article 2C of Chapter 105 was untouched, which is why this license survives as the county's one mandatory business license. An applicant must first hold an ABC permit number from the NC Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, and the initial application must be notarised. The county's application form states: 'If applicant possesses a State Permit, although he does not sell alcoholic beverages, he must purchase a County License.' Where the premises sits inside a municipality, G.S. 105-113.70(a) requires the applicant to obtain the city license for that activity before the county license may issue, unless that city has declined to require one under G.S. 105-113.71(c). The license applies countywide, including inside Raleigh and all 12 towns. Renewal notices are mailed each March, and online renewal requires no outstanding balances and all property taxes paid under the same ownership, citing G.S. 105-113.4A and G.S. 105-243.1. G.S. 105-113.70(d) bars a local government from requiring any alcohol license other than those stated in the Article.

Certified Food Protection Manager

North Carolina charges nothing and issues nothing — an accredited programme certifies, and its exam fee is what you pay. The person in charge must hold it, with two narrow exemptions the base food code does not have: congregate nutrition sites, and risk category I establishments serving only non-hazardous foods. A normal restaurant is category II or higher and is not exempt. A training course alone will not do; the rule requires passing the accredited test. New permit holders get two hundred and ten days to comply. There is no statewide food handler card in North Carolina — the word handler does not appear anywhere in the sanitation rules — so rank-and-file food employees need no state credential. The five-year validity often quoted belongs to the certifying programme, not to North Carolina law, which sets no term at all.

Food Establishment Permit

One number for the whole state, which makes North Carolina unlike almost every other. The statute sets $120 a year and local boards of health are barred from adopting any rule about grading, operating or permitting food facilities, so no county charges its own annual restaurant fee — Wake County's schedule footnotes every permit line back to the $120 paid to the state. Seventy of every hundred and twenty dollars is passed back to the county health department that does the inspecting. The permit itself never expires while you trade; only the fee recurs, and it expires a year after an establishment closes. What a county may still charge is plan review, capped by statute at $250, and a mandatory $75 for a temporary event. Late payment adds $25 after forty-five days and reinstatement after a suspension costs $150. Chain and franchise plans approved by the state need no further local review.

Shared with other businesses in Wake County

• Prepared Food & Beverage Tax Gross Receipts Account — Wake County Department of Tax Administration, 1% of the sale price of prepared food and beverages sold at retail for consumption on or off the premises, county-only, collected by the retailer on top of North Carolina sales tax and remitted to Wake County monthly. The county's Prepared Food & Beverage Tax page and its Gross Receipts Tax index page describe the application process for the account and publish no registration or application fee for opening it., continuing account; the county page requires a report each month on or before the twentieth day of the month following the month in which the tax accrues, and a zero-due return for a month with no tax. Also required for restaurants, food trucks and retail stores; what it involves is set out on the food trucks page.
• Food Service Establishment Plan Review — Wake County Environmental Health & Safety, $250 per plan review, county-only; each plan re-review is a further $100, charged only for facilities that were charged an original fee, one-off, at construction, renovation, modification or a change of ownership; the food service permit that follows does not expire, and permits do not transfer at the sale of a business, though staff may evaluate a site for a transitional permit. Also required for restaurants and retail stores; what it involves is set out on the restaurants page.
• Onsite Wastewater (Septic) Permit — Residential and Small Systems — Wake County Onsite Water Protection, County-only, effective July 1, 2025: Improvement Permit, limited to less than 3 acres per evaluation, $400; Construction Authorization, which includes the Operation Permit and any requested revisions to an existing construction authorization, $400; both together $800; Verification for Change of Use or System Reuse on an existing system with no change to flow or lot size $400; Design Review Fee for Residential Permits $110; Field Consultation $100; Re-Inspection, charged for unnecessary return trips on lot evaluations and failed installation inspections, $200. Renewing a septic permit that has lapsed after five years is $400 for the construction authorization alone or $800 for both. Manufactured or mobile home relocation is $400 for the construction authorization, and the county charges nothing for a mobile home relocation inside a permitted mobile home park. As published on the Wake County Onsite Water Protection wastewater fees page., a septic permit lapses five years after issue; renewal is $400 for the construction authorization alone or $800 where both the improvement permit and construction authorization are renewed. Also required for restaurants, childcare centres, fitness studios, auto repair shops, veterinary clinics and salons and barbers; what it involves is set out on the salons and barbers page.
• Onsite Wastewater (Septic) Permit — Commercial and Engineered Systems — Wake County Onsite Water Protection, County-only totals, effective July 1, 2025: domestic strength up to 720 gallons per day, excluding industrial process wastewater, $910 in total — a $400 improvement permit, a $400 construction authorization and a $110 design review. Domestic strength above 720 and up to 3,000 gallons per day, and industrial process wastewater up to 3,000 gallons per day, $1,260 in total — $400, $400 and a $460 design review. Above 3,000 gallons per day, whether domestic strength or industrial process, the improvement permit and the construction authorization are each $400 per connection, a connection being 360 gallons per day, with design review varying by the number of connections. Operation and maintenance inspections of low-pressure pipe and alternative Type V and Type VI systems are $19 per connection. As published on the Wake County Onsite Water Protection wastewater fees page., a septic permit lapses five years after issue; the operation permit that comes with the construction authorization governs the system in use, and alternative systems carry recurring operation and maintenance inspection charges. Also required for restaurants, childcare centres, fitness studios, auto repair shops, veterinary clinics and salons and barbers; what it involves is set out on the restaurants page.
• ABC Permit Zoning and Compliance Sign-Off (unincorporated Wake County) — Wake County Planning & Development Services, $110 per application, county-only, in the unincorporated portion of Wake County; the schedule reduces it to $50 where a building inspection is not required (fee schedule as of 1/1/22), per application, completed once for the establishment when the state ABC permit is applied for; the state permit itself renews on the Commission's cycle. Also required for restaurants and retail stores; what it involves is set out on the retail stores page.