What permits do you need to open a restaurant in Madison?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 12 records listed for a restaurant in Madison, WI, 5 apply to every business of this type and 7 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 5 that always apply, 2 carry a flat fee, coming to $30.00. That is a floor, not a total. 3 of the 12 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 3 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Food Establishment Licence: New licence fee for a retail food establishment serving meals, by gross annual sales: $0–$10,000 $861.46 (simple) or $904.86 (complex); $10,001–$100,000 $1,223.28; $100,001–$250,000 $1,466.76; $250,001–$500,000 $1,845.03; $500,001–$1,000,000 $2,023.11; $1,000,001–$5,000,000 $2,394.94; over $5,000,000 $2,689.55. Separate, lower tables apply for establishments not serving meals, mobile/service-base units, micro markets, and schools.

Commercial Building Permit: Plan review — commercial alterations/remodeling: $0.04/sq ft, minimum $100 (HVAC alterations: $0.03/sq ft, same minimum); new construction uses the same $0.04/sq ft rate. Structural review of building elements: $50 per element. Inspection fee for existing-building alterations/repairs: $11 per $1,000 of value (or fraction), minimum $25. New buildings/additions are billed by occupancy group instead — e.g., assembly/office/retail is $0.51/sq ft, minimum $25. Trade fees: plumbing fixtures $8 each (min $25); electric service replacement $50/panel; electrical openings $25 for the first ten, $1 each additional.

Retail Food Establishment Licence: $105–$1,457.35 a year — $105 to $540 from the state, more where a local health department is the licensing agent

Permits for a restaurant in Madison, WI come from 7 separate offices: Public Health Madison & Dane County, Environmental Health Division, Madison Fire Department, City of Madison Clerk's Office, City of Madison Development Services Center, Building Inspection Division, Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, Division of Corporate and Consumer Services, Wisconsin Department of Revenue, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, Division of Food and Recreational Safety. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• Public Health Madison & Dane County, Environmental Health DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Food Establishment Licence2300 S. Park Street, Suite 2010, Madison, WI 53713 · (608) 242-6515publichealthmdc.com/businesses-licensing/food-establishments
• Madison Fire DepartmentIssues 1 permit on this page: Fire Occupancy Licence(608) 266-4420www.cityofmadison.com/fire/permits-inspections/construction
• City of Madison Clerk's OfficeIssues 1 permit on this page: No Generic Business Licence210 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Room 105, Madison, WI 53703 · (608) 266-4601www.cityofmadison.com/clerk/licenses-permits
• City of Madison Development Services Center, Building Inspection DivisionIssues 2 permits on this page: Certificate of Occupancy, Commercial Building Permit215 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Madison, WI 53703 · (608) 266-4551www.cityofmadison.com/development-services-center/fees/building-inspection-fees
• Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, Division of Corporate and Consumer ServicesIssues 4 permits on this page: Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Report, General Business Licence (does not exist in Wisconsin)4822 Madison Yards Way, North Tower, Madison, WI 53705 · (608) 261-7577onestop.wi.gov
• Wisconsin Department of RevenueIssues 1 permit on this page: Seller's Permit and Business Tax RegistrationPO Box 8902, Madison, WI 53708-8902 · (608) 266-2776www.revenue.wi.gov/Pages/FAQS/pcs-btr.aspx
• Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, Division of Food and Recreational SafetyIssues 2 permits on this page: Retail Food Establishment Licence, Certified Food Protection ManagerPO Box 93598, Milwaukee, WI 53293-0598 · (608) 224-4720datcp.wi.gov/Pages/Programs_Services/RestaurantsCatering.aspx

Every establishment must have a Certified Food Protection Manager; operating without one draws a $225 fine, and operating without a licence at all draws a $375 fine. Reinspection fees range from $37.50 up to $3,375 depending on tier and repeat count. A separate, undated fee table on the City Clerk's own site shows lower, apparently stale figures for the same tiers — this current, dated PHMDC table is used here.

Around 30 hazard-specific categories are each licensed at $125/year, including Places of Assembly, Flammable & Combustible Liquids, Repair and Service Garages (the category an auto repair/body shop would fall under), Hazardous Materials, Cutting and Welding, and High-Pile Storage — not a blanket fee on every business, only those triggering a listed hazard. Separately, Open Burning is $50/event, Pyrotechnic Special Effects $250/event, and a Tent (401+ sq ft) is $125.

No licence fee applies. Quoted directly: 'The City of Madison does not have a generic business license.' Licensing is entirely activity-specific — the Clerk's own fee schedule covers roughly 30 categories (alcohol, amusement devices, auto salvage, body art, food, hotel/motel, secondhand dealer, and more), plus separate Fire Department and PHMDC categories.

A Zoning Certificate (a change of use without a building permit) is separately $75, per Madison General Ordinances sections 29.07(3)(e) and 28.206.

A commercial-only Early Start Permit is $50 plus $0.01/sq ft; revisions to previously-examined plans are $100.

Forty dollars cheaper online than on paper, and the saving applies only to LLCs — a corporation costs $100 either way. Expediting is available and steep: $100 for next business day, $250 for four hours over the counter and $500 for one. All fees are non-refundable. Note that the department's fee table shows foreign entities at a hundred dollars with a plus sign, and what the plus covers is not explained anywhere published, so no foreign registration figure is recorded here.

A flat $100 with no authorised-shares component at all, which is worth stating because several states — Texas, Delaware and Nevada among them — scale this fee by how many shares you authorise. Wisconsin makes you declare a share count on the application and then charges the same regardless. Filing online adds only the one-dollar portal fee, so unlike an LLC there is no meaningful paper-versus-online difference. A nonstock corporation is much cheaper at $35.

An LLC and a corporation pay the same, and the paper price is simply the online price plus the fifteen-dollar surcharge the department introduced in March 2024 — the two documents reconcile exactly. The due date is not a fixed calendar day: it is the end of whichever calendar quarter contains the anniversary of your registration, so a business formed in February files by 31 March every year. Foreign entities always file by 31 March. There is no monetary late penalty at all — the consequence is delinquent status and, after an extended period, administrative dissolution, with reinstatement requiring the accumulated per-year fees.

No fee, because Wisconsin issues no general business licence — its own single-point-of-entry portal defines the basic requirements most new businesses need as exactly three registrations, entity with the financial institutions department, tax with revenue and unemployment insurance with workforce development, and there is no licensing step among them. What replaces it is activity-specific licensing plus whatever the municipality requires. One honest caveat on how this was established: no state page says in words that Wisconsin has no general business licence, so the finding rests on the state's own exhaustive enumeration of what a new business must do.

Wisconsin is one of the minority of states that charges for a seller's permit at all, and it is one umbrella fee: the twenty dollars covers every permit the registrant holds — seller's permit, withholding account, use tax certificate, excise permit — for two years, then ten dollars for each two years after. The department no longer reissues the seller's permit on renewal; the registration certificate is what carries the expiry date. Watch the security deposit: the department may require up to $15,000 before or after issuing the permit, returned after twenty-four consecutive months of compliance. Several categories are exempt from the registration fee, including agricultural and household employers, but every one of them loses the exemption the moment it holds a seller's permit.

Who licenses you depends on your address. The agriculture department licenses retail food across most of the state at $105 for prepackaged, $230 simple, $330 moderate and $540 complex, plus a one-off pre-inspection of $130 to $770 — but a local health department that has signed an agent contract licenses and prices in the state's place within its own jurisdiction. The spread is real: Oneida County charges $120 to $615 with identical pre-inspection fees, while Public Health Madison and Dane County charges an agency fee from $266.76 to $1,457.35 banded by food and drink sales, collects the state portion on top and remits it, and adds plan review of $562.50 to $1,200. So a single Wisconsin restaurant fee does not exist. Every licence expires on 30 June whenever it was issued, though one granted after 1 April runs to the following June. Operating unlicensed adds a $749 surcharge. A non-profit serving food on no more than three days in a year needs no licence.

No state fee and no state certificate — an accredited exam provider issues it and sets the price, which is a real contrast with states that run a registry and charge for it. Most licensed food establishments need at least one certified manager, but the exemptions are broader than usual: prepackaged retail establishments whether or not they serve meals, operations handling only fresh fruit or produce, transient events and micro markets are all outside it. A new establishment or one changing operator has ninety days to have a certified manager in place, and the certificate must be posted in public view. A small operator with five or fewer food handlers may recertify through an approved short course rather than sitting the full exam, provided they do it within ninety days of expiry; past that, everyone retakes the exam.