Trade Licence cum Shop & Establishment Registration in Assam

What is Shop & Establishment Registration in Assam?

Shop & Establishment Registration in Assam is the registration every shop and commercial establishment takes under the Assam Shops and Establishment Act, 1971, with fees prescribed under the Assam Shops & Establishment Rules, 1976. The issuing authority is the Department of Labour and Welfare, Government of Assam.

Assam packages it differently from most states. The service on the state's citizen portal is a "Common Application for Trade Licence cum Registration of Establishment under the Assam Shops and Establishment Act 1971", a single application that covers both the trade licence and the labour registration, rather than two separate journeys. It is listed on Sewa Setu (sewasetu.assam.gov.in), the Assam government's comprehensive citizen platform carrying more than 800 services across citizen, business and utility categories, of which 280 are business services. Sewa Setu tells applicants plainly that for this service they will be redirected to the EODB portal, where the application is actually filed.

The registration is what an Assam bank accepts as constitution proof for a proprietor's current account, what a landlord or marketplace asks for during onboarding, and what puts the establishment on the labour department's rolls for hours of work, weekly holidays and employment records. It is separate from GST registration and from Udyam registration, and Assam keeps a separate Application for Trade Licence and Application for Auto Renewal of Trade Licence under the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs for units that need only the municipal licence.

Who can and cannot apply in Assam?

You can apply if:

• You run a shop in Assam: retail or wholesale trade in goods, or premises where services are rendered to customers. Assam's fee table even has a "self-employed small shops" slab at Rs 100, so the smallest one-person shop in Guwahati, Dibrugarh or Silchar registers too.
• You run a jewellery shop, or a shop dealing in costly stones and gems, which Assam prices on separate slabs of its own.
• You run a commercial establishment, an office, a trading or broking office, a consultancy or an IT firm.
• You run an establishment for public entertainment or amusement: a hotel, restaurant, lodge, guest house, private hostel, paying guest accommodation covered by the Sarai Act, a cineplex, a multiplex or an amusement park. Assam's note under the fee table says these are all treated as establishments for public entertainment.
• You are the employer. The proprietor, a partner, a director or a person authorised to act as employer.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible on this service, if:

• You are an employee. Only the employer applies; workers have no application of their own here.
• Your unit is a factory licensed under the Factories Act. Assam runs "Registration and Grant of Factory License (Form No 2)" and "Application for Auto Renewal of Factory License" as separate Labour and Welfare services.
• Your requirement is a plantation, motor transport undertaking, contract-labour establishment or construction establishment, each of which Assam registers under its own Act through its own Sewa Setu service.
• The activity is not commercial. A household employing domestic help is not an establishment.
• You already hold a valid registration and only need to report a change, in which case you file a notice of change, which costs Rs 50 in every category.

What does Shop & Establishment Registration cost in Assam?

Assam publishes the full fee table on the service page. Notice of change is Rs 50 in every single category.

Shops

Commercial establishments

Establishments for public entertainment or amusement

If you file through a PFC or CSC, Assam allows the centre to charge a service charge of Rs 30, Rs 10 per page for printing and Rs 5 per page for scanning, and nothing more. Those three figures are the only assisted-filing charges the state permits. Anything beyond the application fee plus these published amounts is an agent's own margin, not a government charge.

What documents are required?

Assam's supporting-document list for this service is short and specific:

The appointment-letter requirement is the one that catches Assam applicants out. The state asks for attested copies of the appointment letter issued to each employee across all five categories, so a shop with eight workers needs eight attested letters ready before it starts the application, not after.

How to apply for Trade Licence cum Shop & Establishment Registration in Assam

Sewa Setu publishes the guideline for this service. Follow it in order:

1. Open the service page on sewasetu.assam.gov.in and read the Requirements tab before anything else. Sewa Setu warns that you will be redirected to the EODB portal for this particular service.
2. Register as a first-time user by clicking the Register tab at the top right and entering your full name, mobile number, email ID (not mandatory), state and a password.
3. Log in with those credentials using the Login tab.
4. Click the Apply Online tab, select the Common Application for Trade Licence cum Registration of Establishment, and click Apply after going through the Requirements tab.
5. Fill the form and upload the supporting documents — the trade licence copy, the partnership deed if applicable, and the attested appointment letters.
6. Pay the requisite amount on final submission of the form. Once payment succeeds, the application is forwarded to the higher officials for further processing.
7. Save the acknowledgement, which carries the application reference number and is also sent to you by SMS and email.
8. Download the certificate from the ARTPS portal once the SMS and email alert confirms the service is complete, and respond to the completion message as Sewa Setu asks.

An offline fee route exists alongside this. Assam's instruction is that the requisite fees should be deposited through treasury challan in the specified head of account "0230-labour & employment-101-Fees for Registration under the Assam Shops & Establishment Rules, 1976". A shopkeeper without a computer can also file through a PFC or CSC, at the published Rs 30 service charge.

How long does it take, and how do I check status?

Assam's stipulated time limit for this service is 15 (fifteen) working days from the date of submission of an application complete in all respects along with the documents in the checklist. The two conditions matter as much as the number: an application missing an attested appointment letter or the trade licence copy has not started that clock.

Track the application through the Track Services option on the Sewa Setu home page using the reference number in your acknowledgement. Assam also delivers status by SMS and email at both the submission and completion stages, and Sewa Setu carries automated document verification and real-time notifications as part of its service architecture.

Why do applications get rejected in Assam?

The recurring reasons are all about the checklist rather than eligibility: no copy of the local-authority trade licence, appointment letters that are not attested or are missing for some employees, no registered partnership deed for a firm, and, the most expensive mistake. A fee paid for the wrong category. Assam's slabs make that error costly: a jewellery shop with four to nine employees pays Rs 3,000 while an ordinary shop with the same headcount pays Rs 2,000, and a four-star hotel pays Rs 15,000 where a three-star pays Rs 10,000. Read the note under the fee table too, since it pulls lodges, guest houses, private hostels and paying guest accommodation into the public-entertainment category.

Where do I complain if the application is stuck?

Sewa Setu carries a Grievances module on its home page for complaints about service delivery, and an Appeals module. The portal describes both auto and manual appeals under the Assam Right to Public Services (ARTPS) framework, which is what gives the 15-working-day limit its bite. If your file crosses 15 working days without a decision and without a query raised against it, that appeal route is the correct escalation.

Sewa Setu's public notice at the time of checking said its helpline 1800 345 3574 was temporarily unavailable and directed users to email sewasetu.queries@gmail.com for queries, information or feedback instead, check the notice bar on the portal for the current position before you call.

Use the state's own channels. The application fee, the CSC service charge of Rs 30, the printing and scanning rates, the checklist and the 15-day limit are all published by the Government of Assam on the service page itself, so there is nothing an intermediary can tell you that the portal does not already state, and no extra amount they can legitimately charge for it.