Venues
Insurance for pubs, hotels and taverns
Whatever state or territory your pub, hotel or tavern trades in, our brokers will have insurers price it for you.
01
The hotel licence in each state
A pub's licence comes from its state or territory government, so names, standard hours and conditions vary.
- 1
New South Wales
A hotel licence allows drinking on site, takeaway sales and gaming machines. Food has to be on offer the whole time alcohol is served. Standard hours for drinking on site are 5am to midnight, and every licence has a six-hour closure each day, usually 4am to 10am.
- 2
Victoria
Pubs, taverns and hotels trade under a general licence, selling for drinking on site until 1am and takeaway until 11pm. Trading after 1am needs a late-night licence.
- 3
Queensland
A commercial hotel licence needs a commercial kitchen. The hotel also needs at least two of these: a dining room, three or more guest rooms, or a function room for hire. It can apply to run up to three detached bottle shops.
- 4
Western Australia
A hotel licence holder must provide accommodation, while a tavern licence holder doesn't. Standard hours are 6am to midnight from Monday to Saturday.
- 5
South Australia
The general and hotel licence allows sales for drinking on site and takeaway, including online and mail-order sales. The licensee picks the takeaway hours, up to 13 a day between 8am and 10pm.
- 6
Tasmania
Hotels and taverns are often issued a general licence, which allows sales from 5am to midnight and expires each year on 31 December.
- 7
Northern Territory
A liquor licence carries one or more authorities, which decide what the venue may sell and when. A public bar authority allows drinking on site from 10am to midnight. It needs working video surveillance, and a full meal on offer at least five days a week.
In the ACT, a general licence is for one premises. It allows drinking there, or takeaway in sealed containers, within the times set on the licence.
02
Gaming rooms
Hotels in most states can run poker machines, with a cap on each venue. Western Australia doesn't allow them.
- 1
New South Wales
A hotel can have up to 30 gaming machines, and must hold an entitlement for every one. Entitlements are the rights to run machines, and hotels buy them from other hotels. More than 10 machines have to be in a separate gaming room.
- 2
Victoria
A hotel needs a venue operator's licence, and no premises can hold more than 105 entitlements.
- 3
Queensland
A hotel can have up to 45 machines, with an operating authority for each. That's the right to run the machine, and only the Queensland Public Trustee sells it.
- 4
South Australia
Up to 40 machines, under a gaming machine licence held on top of the liquor licence.
- 5
Northern Territory
Up to 20 machines in a venue with a hotel liquor licence.
03
Rooms upstairs
Western Australia's liquor regulator says each guest room should have hardwired smoke alarms. Ideally, each room also has a solid door, not a hollow-core one, that closes by itself. In Victoria, a venue that fails fire safety standards can be evacuated and temporarily closed.
In 2025, Western Australia removed the limit on what a hotel guest, called a lodger in the law, can claim for lost belongings. The regulator's view is that those claims are now a matter for the licensee's insurance. Ask your broker which insurers would cover a lodger's lost belongings.
04
Beer gardens and smoking areas
New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria each limit smoking in a pub's outdoor areas. Pubs in other states and territories should check with the local health department.
New South Wales
No smoking or vaping in outdoor dining areas, or within 4 metres of a seated dining area or a hotel's entrance.
Queensland
A commercial hotel can set aside outdoor smoking areas covering up to half its outdoor licensed area. No food, gaming machines or children are allowed in them.
Victoria
No smoking in an outdoor drinking area within 4 metres of outdoor dining, unless a wall at least 2.1 metres high separates the two.
05
Six covers to think about for a pub
Public liability, if a chair gives way under someone watching the footy and they say the pub should have fixed it.
Building, contents and stock cover. It can insure the building if your business owns it, along with the bar fittings and every keg and carton in the cellar.
Behind the bar and in the kitchen
Machinery breakdown, for repairs when the glass washer packs it in on a Friday night or a kitchen freezer fails.
Theft, money and glass cover, in case thieves get the safe open after hours, or someone kicks in the glass entry doors.
Business interruption, for the bar and bistro takings a fire costs you and some regular bills, up to the time limit in your policy.
Management liability, if a former employee or a supplier takes the company's directors to court over how the hotel was run.
Hotel owners ask
How many rooms you let, and whether guests can buy a drink after the bar closes. Hotels in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia can sell to residents outside normal trading hours.
Yes. Say whether it's part of the pub or a separate shop down the road. Also say roughly what the stock on its shelves is worth in a typical week.