Type 47
On-Sale General, Eating Place
- 18 on the San Francisco book
- Median ask $232,500
San Francisco County · Type 20 · Off-Sale Beer and Wine
San Francisco Type 20 Liquor License SF-4001
$15,000
Asking price · license only
The asking price of this one license, SF-4001. No premises, no fixtures, no stock and no goodwill, completing costs about $8,045 on top, $23,045 all in.
AvailableStatus
8 daysOn market
5 September 2026Date listed
$23,045This license, all in
The listing
SF-4001 in figures
Everything we publish on this license, in one place. Two columns, and they stack on a narrow screen rather than scrolling sideways.
| Reference | SF-4001 |
|---|---|
| Asking price | $15,000 |
| Status | Available |
| Date listed | 5 September 2026 |
| Days on market | 8 days |
| County | San Francisco, California |
| Class | Type 20, Off-Sale Beer and Wine |
| Quota class | No, ABC issues new originals in this class |
| What transfers | The license, and nothing else |
| Cost to close | About $8,045 |
| This license, all in | About $23,045 |
| Transfer time | Varies with the file |
Price, availability and days on market for SF-4001 are reviewed weekly and were last checked on 13 September 2026. The license number, the licensee of record and the premises address are not published here in any form, they are released to a qualified buyer under a mutual NDA, which is set out below.
What you are buying
What a Type 20 permits, and what transfers with SF-4001
A Type 20 is an off-sale beer and wine license. It permits beer and wine to be sold in sealed containers for consumption away from the premises, a corner shop, a bottle shop without spirits, a grocery, a deli with a fridge and a wine rack. No distilled spirits, and nothing opened or drunk on site. There is no kitchen obligation, and under-21s may be on the premises but may not buy.
There is one Type 20 on the San Francisco book and it asks $15,000. Whether to buy this one or apply for a new original depends on your premises and how soon you need to be trading, and an application takes time a fitted-out shop paying rent may not have. Applying is work we do as well as brokerage, so whichever route is right for you runs through this desk.
If your address is not yet approved for an off-sale alcohol use, buying solves nothing, the San Francisco Planning question follows the address, not the license, and it is the first thing we will ask you.
SF-4001 is offered license only. No premises, no lease, no fixtures, no stock, no trading name and no goodwill are included or implied. What transfers to you is the license itself, person to person, through a licensed escrow holder.
Included in the $15,000
- The Type 20 license, transferred to you person to person
- Off-sale beer and wine privileges exactly as the class carries them
- The complete confidential file on SF-4001, released once you qualify under a mutual NDA
- Escrow through a licensed escrow holder, which California requires on a license transfer
- Our handling of the ABC transfer from accepted offer to the license issuing in your name
- A straight read on whether buying SF-4001 or applying for a new original is right for your address
Not included, and not implied: premises, lease, fixtures, shelving, refrigeration, stock, trading name and goodwill. SF-4001 is the license and nothing else. Buyer-side costs of about $8,045 sit on top of the asking price and are itemized further down this page; you pay your own counsel and the escrow holder.
The class explainer above is the same on every San Francisco Type 20 listing, because the class permits the same things whoever holds it. Everything above it on this page is specific to SF-4001. The Type 20 class page carries the same explainer at greater length, the full costs breakdown and the transfer timetable. This is a summary of the class, not a quotation from it, and it is not legal advice, conditions on an individual license override the general picture, and you see those on qualification.
Against the rest of the book
Where SF-4001 sits
SF-4001 is the only Type 20 we currently hold in San Francisco, so there is no second asking price in this class to read it against and no in-class range to quote.
Across all four classes that hold stock, it is the lowest-priced of the 30 San Francisco licenses on the book, which run from this $15,000 up to $350,000. The next cheapest license in the county is a Type 21 at $78,000, more than five times this one, for the class that adds spirits to the same off-sale trade. The Type 47 book of 18 has a median ask of $232,500. Same city, same paperwork, same desk: the difference is the county quota, which this class is not under.
That is the honest reading of the figure. It is not a discount and it is not a bargain against comparable stock, because in this class there is no comparable stock, there is an application route instead, and we run those too.
Read off our own San Francisco book on 13 September 2026: 18 Type 47, 10 Type 21, 1 Type 48 and this 1 Type 20, 30 licenses in total. Restated whenever the book changes.
Either side by price
The Type 20 above and below this one
Cheaper Type 20
None on the book, and none cheaper in any class. At $15,000, SF-4001 is the lowest-priced of the 30 licenses we hold in San Francisco.
Dearer Type 20
None on the book. SF-4001 is the only Type 20 we hold here, and the next license up by price in the county is a Type 21 at $78,000.
Previous and next walk this class’s own book by price. With one Type 20 on it, the links above go to the class page and to the county hub instead, where all 30 San Francisco licenses are listed and priced across the four classes that hold stock.
Released when you qualify
The license number and the address are not on this page
Not masked, not blurred, not shown in part. They are simply not published, for any license, anywhere on this site. A seller is almost always still trading. In a city where a neighborhood and a license class narrow a business to a handful of doors, publishing either one tells their staff, their landlord and the operator across the street that they are selling. So the shop window carries everything you need to shortlist, and nothing that identifies the seller.
Published on this listing
- County and city
- License class and what it permits
- Whether the class is under the county quota
- Asking price and availability
- Date listed and days on market
- Cost to close and the transfer timetable
Released after qualification and NDA
- License number and licensee of record
- Premises address and trading name
- Register standing and license term
- Conditions, encumbrances and lien position
- Seller tax clearance position
- Local approval history and any protest record
This is the reason to inquire. Qualification is two things: proof of funds, and the personal information every principal has to give ABC anyway. Sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement and the complete file on SF-4001 is released to you within one business day. There is no fee for it, and no obligation after it. How the release works. Qualification is two things: proof of funds, and the personal information every principal has to give ABC anyway. Sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement and the complete file is released to you within one business day. There is no fee for it. Four further San Francisco licenses are held entirely off-market at the seller’s request and are only ever shown this way, they are not among the 30 on the book. It starts at the inquiry form.
Beyond the price
What completing on SF-4001 costs
The asking price is not the cost of the deal. Here is the rest of it, itemized against the $15,000 on this license.
Three columns. On a narrow screen the table scrolls sideways inside its own box, the page does not.
| Item | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Escrow fee | Licensed escrow holder, as Bus. & Prof. Code §24074 requires | $1,450 |
| ABC person-to-person transfer fee | California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control | $1,250 |
| Notice of intended transfer, published | Newspaper of general circulation in San Francisco | $385 |
| Live Scan and fingerprinting, two principals | California Department of Justice, via ABC | $160 |
| Buyer’s counsel, ABC transfer work | Your attorney | $4,800 |
| Costs to close | Excluding the license price | $8,045 |
| This license plus costs to close | $15,000 + $8,045 | $23,045 |
The whole price goes into escrow, not a deposit. This is the part that surprises buyers coming from other states. California requires the full consideration for a license transfer to be placed with a licensed escrow holder before the transfer is approved, and it is released to the seller only on issue. There is no 10% and no balance on completion.
Conditional use, where San Francisco requires it. A change of license or a new alcohol use in many of the city’s Neighborhood Commercial Districts needs Conditional Use Authorization from the Planning Commission before ABC will act. Budget $3,000 to $8,000 and three to five months for that track, and treat it as separate from the figures above. It is the single largest source of San Francisco timetable slippage.
After you hold it: the ABC annual renewal on a San Francisco on-sale general license runs about $1,400, and about $700 on an off-sale.
Our commission: our fee, quoted in writing before we start, paid by the seller at closing. There is no buyer-side fee, no registration fee and no charge for the confidential file once you are qualified.
Financing: a license is not mortgageable the way real property is, and most California lenders will not lend against one alone. We work with two lenders who underwrite license transfers as part of a wider fit-out facility and will make an introduction.
Fee amounts are our current working figures for a San Francisco file and were last checked on 13 September 2026. The escrow requirement, the conditional-use track and the renewal bands are described from practice rather than quoted from a fee schedule, confirm the current ABC fee schedule and your Planning district before you sign anything. The six-stage transfer timetable that these costs sit against is set out on the Type 20 class page.
About license SF-4001, San Francisco Type 20, $15,000. The reference travels with this form; you do not have to type it.
SF-4001 · Type 20 · San Francisco
Inquire about SF-4001
Seven fields. We reply inside one business day, from a named person, with the next step and nothing else. No newsletter, no drip sequence, no call center.
Tell us the shop you have in mind and we will confirm SF-4001 is still available, send the qualification pack and say plainly whether buying this license or applying for a new original is the better route for your address, before you spend anything on either.
Prefer to talk? The direct line is (800) 799-9081, or write to mike@liquorlicenseagents.com and quote SF-4001.
Inquiring commits you to nothing, and there is no buyer-side fee.
Activity, honestly
Dates, yes. Counters, no.
SF-4001 carries the day it came to market and how long it has sat there, listed 5 September 2026, 8 days ago. That is a fact we can stand behind. What you will not find anywhere on this site:
- No view count. A view count is trivially inflated and proves nothing about demand.
- No watcher count and no “3 people are looking at this right now”.
- No bid ticker, no auction clock, no countdown. Offers are reviewed as they arrive.
- No manufactured scarcity. The county quota supplies all the scarcity this market needs.
We would rather publish the one activity signal that is checkable, the day a license came to our book, and how long it has sat there, and nothing we cannot stand behind.
Who you are dealing with
The desk handling this transfer
Broker
Liquor License Agents
Files closed
California transfers
Escrow held by
A licensed escrow holder
ABC counsel
San Francisco ABC counsel
Escrow is held by a licensed escrow holder and never by us, on this file or any other. Our commission is our fee, quoted in writing before we start and the seller pays it at closing; there is no buyer-side fee.
The other classes
If Type 20 is not the right license
Six classes have a page here. Four hold resale stock and two hold none, which changes the route rather than the answer. The wrong class is an expensive mistake to unwind, so here are the others.
On the book now
Type 21
Off-Sale General
- 10 on the San Francisco book
- Median ask $175,000
Type 48
On-Sale General, Public Premises
- 1 on the San Francisco book
- Asking $260,000
No resale stock, reached by applying
Type 41
On-Sale Beer and Wine, Eating Place
- Nothing on the resale book right now
- Reached by applying, with us
Type 40
On-Sale Beer
- Nothing on the resale book right now
- Reached by applying, with us
Type 41 (On-Sale Beer and Wine, Eating Place) and Type 40 (On-Sale Beer) each have a page of their own. Neither has resale stock on our San Francisco book right now, and both pages set out the application route instead.