Seating capacity, premises licence, and music licensing for UK cafes and coffee shops

TL;DR: Three operational questions that catch cafe owners off guard: how many people can legally occupy your space, whether you need a premises licence, and whether the music you play all day requires a licence. None of these is automatic. Your maximum occupancy comes from fire risk assessment guidance, not a certificate on the wall. A premises licence depends on what your cafe actually does: sell alcohol, provide regulated entertainment, or operate as a late-night refreshment business. Music licensing applies to most cafes playing background music, and involves two separate organisations (PRS for Music and PPL), though TheMusicLicence bundles both. This post works through each area factually, explains the thresholds and conditions that determine whether you need to act, and is honest about the areas where local authority or licensing solicitor advice is the right next step. If you do nothing else this week: check your fire risk assessment's occupancy figure, check whether your use of music is covered, and verify your licensing position with your local authority if you have any doubt.

Cafes and coffee shops in the UK operate under several overlapping regulatory frameworks that are easy to underestimate when you are focused on product quality and customer experience. Seating capacity, premises licensing, and music licensing are three areas where the rules are real, the penalties for non-compliance are meaningful, and the required action is often simpler than cafe owners expect, once you know what applies to your situation.

This post does not give legal advice. It gives you the landscape so that you know which questions to ask and where to ask them.

There is no single national document that says "this cafe holds X people." Your maximum safe occupancy depends on your premises, your layout, your fire risk assessment, and in some cases conditions attached to your premises licence.

The starting point for any occupied premises in the UK is the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. For most cafes, this means:

• A competent fire risk assessment of the premises, completed by the responsible person (usually the owner or manager).
• The assessment identifies how many people can safely occupy the space and evacuate in the event of a fire, based on the available exits, exit widths, travel distances to exits, and the nature of the occupants.
• That figure is your maximum safe occupancy. It should be documented in your fire risk assessment record and acted upon operationally.

Fire risk assessment guidance typically uses floor area calculations: approximately 0.5 square metres per standing person, or roughly 1 square metre per seated person (allowing for furniture clearance, circulation space, and egress routes). These are starting figures; a layout with poor sight lines, narrow gangways, or a single exit will have a lower effective capacity than the floor area alone suggests.

The important point: maximum occupancy is not a plaque on the wall that you can ignore on busy Saturdays. It is a documented safety limit that the responsible person is required to enforce. If a fire occurs and the premises was overcrowded beyond its assessed safe capacity, the liability consequences are serious.

If your cafe holds a premises licence (see the section below), your licence may include conditions that specify a maximum number of people, particularly for licensable activities such as regulated entertainment. Where a licence condition specifies a lower maximum than your fire risk assessment's general figure, the licence condition is the operative limit for the activity in question.

If you are uncertain about the interaction between your fire risk assessment and your premises licence conditions, your local authority's licensing team can clarify. EHO inspections and licensing visits both look at whether cafes are operating within their documented limits.

For most daytime cafes, the relevant number is the maximum number of seated customers your fire risk assessment supports. For operational planning (staffing, stock ordering, table layout) this is the ceiling you design around, not a number to push against on busy days.

Practical seating management also involves balancing table size and turnover. This sits outside fire safety law but inside general operational efficiency: two-seat tables turn faster than six-seat tables; layout that creates clear sight lines makes management easier; visible seating from outside the cafe affects how many walk-in customers decide to enter. These are operational decisions, not licensing decisions, but they cascade from the capacity number that fire safety gives you.

The most common misunderstanding in this area is that all cafes need a premises licence. They do not. Whether you need one depends on what your cafe does.

The Licensing Act 2003 governs four types of licensable activity:

1. Sale of alcohol by retail: selling beer, wine, spirits, or other alcoholic drinks.
2. Regulated entertainment: live music, recorded music played to an audience, performance of a dance, provision of facilities for making music, boxing or wrestling entertainment.
3. Late-night refreshment: supplying hot food or hot drink between 11pm and 5am to members of the public.
4. Exhibition of films.

If your cafe does none of these things (you serve coffee, soft drinks, and food during daytime hours with background music via a radio or playlist) you likely do not need a premises licence under the Licensing Act. Food business registration with your local authority is still required, but that is a separate process.

Selling alcohol. If you serve wine with brunch, sell beer or cider, or hold evening events with a bar, you will likely need a premises licence with an alcohol licence condition. This requires a designated premises supervisor (DPS), an individual who holds a personal licence, and is subject to conditions set by the licensing authority.

Live music. The Live Music Act 2012 and subsequent amendments created exemptions for live music in certain circumstances. Live unamplified music is generally not a licensable activity. Amplified live music for audiences of up to 500 people between 8am and 11pm is generally exempt from licensing requirements in premises that are already licensed for alcohol (though conditions may apply). For a cafe without an alcohol licence, the position is less clear and depends on local authority interpretation.

Recorded music. Recorded music played to an audience can constitute regulated entertainment, but the exemption for background music (music not presented as entertainment in its own right) means most cafes playing background playlists are not caught by this provision. The distinction between "background music" and "regulated entertainment" is a matter of fact and can depend on volume, whether it is the focus of the customer's visit, and local authority interpretation.

Late-night refreshment. If you plan to open a cafe or coffee shop past 11pm serving hot drinks or hot food, you will likely need a premises licence for late-night refreshment. Most daytime cafes are not affected.

The honest answer is: if you are in any doubt about whether your activities require a premises licence, contact your local authority's licensing team. They will tell you what they require for your specific situation. The fee for obtaining a premises licence is based on the rateable value of the premises and ranges from £100 to £1,905 for a new application; the cost of not having one when required is much higher.

Three honest routes for resolving a licensing uncertainty: speak to your local authority licensing team directly (free), consult a licensing solicitor for a fixed-fee review (typically £100–£500), or join a trade association such as the British Coffee Association or UKHospitality, which provide licensing guidance to members.

This is the area where most cafes are genuinely non-compliant without knowing it. Playing recorded music (Spotify, a radio station, a CD, a playlist from any source) in a place of business where customers can hear it requires music licences.

Recorded music involves two separate rights:

• The composition and lyrics: owned by the songwriter or publisher, administered in the UK by PRS for Music (Performing Right Society).
• The sound recording: owned by the record label or artist, administered by PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited).

Playing a track in your cafe means using both rights simultaneously. Historically, businesses needed two separate licences. Since 2018, PRS for Music and PPL have jointly offered TheMusicLicence, which covers both rights through a single licence from a single organisation.

Pricing is based on the number of people who can hear the music (broadly, your seating capacity or the size of the area covered), whether music is live or recorded, and the type of business. For a small cafe, costs typically start from around £200–£350 per year for recorded background music. TheMusicLicence can be obtained directly at pplprs.co.uk.

Radios and streaming services: A domestic or personal radio licence does not cover commercial use. Spotify Personal, Apple Music, or any consumer streaming subscription does not include a music licence for business premises. If you play music through any of these in a cafe where customers can hear it, you need TheMusicLicence regardless of what streaming subscription you hold.

Silence or non-licenced music: If you genuinely play no music, you need no licence. If you play only music from sources that are explicitly cleared for commercial use (some specialist background music services include music licensing as part of their subscription), check the terms carefully, as some bundle the licence and some do not.

PRS for Music and PPL both actively monitor business premises for unlicensed use of music. Enforcement can result in a formal demand for back-payment covering the period of unlicensed use, plus penalties. The reputational and financial exposure is disproportionate to the cost of the licence.

If you play music in your cafe and you do not have TheMusicLicence, the right action is to obtain it. There is no grey area here, unlike some aspects of premises licensing. You are either licensed or you are not.

Most disputes can be traced back to three gaps: no documented occupancy limit, uncertainty about premises licensing requirements, and unresolved music licensing.

Each of these has a clear resolution:

1. Fire risk assessment with documented occupancy figure. If you do not have this, commission or complete one. Templates and professional assessment services are both available.
2. Premises licence check. Review what your cafe currently does and what it plans to do. If there is any doubt, contact your local authority licensing team. The query costs nothing.
3. TheMusicLicence. If you play any recorded music in your cafe, obtain it. A year's licence is a predictable, deductible business cost.

These are not aspirational compliance items. They are the baseline from which everything else in your cafe's regulatory position cascades from that foundation.

For the operational documents that sit alongside licensing and fire safety (HACCP records, allergen management, staff contracts, cleaning schedules, and EHO readiness checklists) see essential business documents for UK cafes and coffee shops.

For quarterly financial record-keeping under Making Tax Digital, see Making Tax Digital for cafe and coffee shop owners.

LaunchKit's cafe and coffee shop business documents bundle (£19.99 Premium) includes operational checklists, risk assessment frameworks, incident logs, and compliance documentation templates structured for a cafe or coffee shop environment. The MTD Compliance Kit (£16.99) covers quarterly financial records.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Licensing requirements depend on your specific activities and local authority. For advice on your premises licence position, consult your local authority licensing team or a qualified licensing solicitor. For fire safety, consult a competent fire risk assessor.