The new regulations were proposed between June to November 2025 and will be enforced by July 1 this year.
These regulatory updates align with FSSAI’s recent moves to empower consumers. At the same time, they give manufacturers greater clarity, enabling more effective compliance.
Key changes to note
New labelling requirements
Brands will be required to display the approximate number of standard drinks on pack, rounded to one decimal place. This was introduced in FSSAI’s October 30 public notification last year.
This helps consumers track alcohol intake, encouraging mindful consumption.
India defines one standard drink as containing 10g pure alcohol (ethanol), consistent with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. This translates to roughly 30ml of 40% abv spirits or around 100ml wine.
For example, a 750ml beverage containing 8% alcohol would be labelled as having approximately 4.8 standard drinks.
What is a standard drink?
10g of pure alcohol is equivalent to approximately 12.7ml of absolute alcohol, measured at 20°C.
By FSSAI’s definition, a standard drink contains about 10g of pure alcohol. As beverages vary in alcohol strength, the serving size differs by beverage type. One standard drink is roughly equivalent to a 250ml regular beer at 5% ABV, a 100–110ml glass of wine at 12% ABV, or about 30ml of distilled spirits at 40% ABV.
This is based on standard laboratory data that puts the density of pure ethanol at approximately 0.789g per millilitre at 20°C. so 12.7ml × 0.789 g/ml = 10g
Another change affecting product labels includes updated definitions for ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages.
The revision reflects the growth of flavoured and mixed alcoholic beverages with varying alcohol strengths.
More alcohol categories defined
Nitro craft beer – defined as having a mixture of CO2 and N2 gas – will be included in the craft beer provisions.
The wine category has also expanded to include honey mead, defined as wine produced through the fermentation of an aqueous honey solution by yeast, without additional carbohydrate sources. It may contain herbs, spices or natural flavourings.
Wine-based beverages should comply with table wine standards except ethyl alcohol content which may vary between 4% to 15.5%. Wine made from whole grains has also been added to this category.
Another major update is the addition of “Indian liquor” to the food safety framework, closing long-standing definition gaps between food safety law and state excise frameworks and bringing domestically produced spirits under clearer national standards.
Categories with lower alcohol will also see new definitions added.
What is Indian liquor?
Indian liquor refers to spirits produced in India from agricultural raw materials, a regulatory category used to distinguish domestically distilled alcohol from imported products.
Replacing the “low-alcohol” label with “ready-to-drink”
Affected brands will need to adjust formulations and update labels to comply with new definitions.
One of the key updates is replacing references to “low alcohol” with “ready-to-drink alcohol”, according to FSSAI’s June 20 public notification last year.
The food authority defines alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages as containing more than 0.5% and up to 15.0% of alcohol by volume, made from spirit or the mixture of spirit or any alcoholic beverage as a base. These will usually have the addition of permitted natural or nature identical or artificial flavours and food additives, and may also contain fruit or vegetable juice, herbs and spices, sweeteners, or carbonation.
This will replace the current definition of low alcoholic beverage that contains 0.5–8% ABV.
The higher alcohol threshold for this category signals greater regulatory flexibility, helping align compositional standards with real-world products and reducing potential industry pushback.
Increased threshold for esters and tolerance for Brut sugar levels
The permissible level of esters will also be increased from 0.2 g/L to 3.0 g/L of absolute alcohol, according to FSSAI’s November 19 notification last year. This widens the allowable range of flavour-active compounds that alcohol producers can include in their products.
What are esters?
Esters are a class of organic compounds formed when acids react with alcohols – in the case of distilled spirits, this often happens during fermentation and ageing. They are key contributors to aroma and flavour in alcoholic beverages – ethyl acetate, for example, can produce fruity or solvent-like aromas depending on concentration.
Meanwhile, the sugar content for Brut remains capped below 1.2%, but a tolerance of ±0.3% will be added to align with other categories of sparkling wines – such as dry and extra dry – which already cater for tolerance levels.
This is an improvement for importers and producers as a hard sugar level cut-off increases the risk of false non-compliance, since sugar levels naturally fluctuate and lab testing itself has measurement variability.
With this change, producers will be less likely to be penalised for marginal variations and enforcement becomes more practical.
Towards better enforcement and flexibility for innovation
These updates provide clearer guidelines for quality control and improve enforceability, while allowing reasonable compositional variation, particularly for products where chemical parameters may fluctuate due to environmental or processing factors.
This indicates a move towards supporting innovation as firms have a clearer idea on compliance with food safety laws.
The new regulations are set to be in force by July this year, after the authorities moved the enforcement date from January 1.
This allows businesses more time to meet labelling requirements and lessen disruption to business operations.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) acknowledged stakeholder feedback that the new alcohol regulations should be aligned with the commencement of the excise year, which takes place on April 1 or July 1 in certain states.
“Representation has been received from a stakeholder highlighting the fact that alcoholic beverages are also regulated under State Excise Laws [and] mid-year changes would create significant operational difficulties,”according to Regulation Director Anil Mehta.
“These includedisruption of business operations, wastage of pre-printed labels, and additional costs associated with the re-registration of labels.”
