Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Act, 2026

Karnataka has enacted the Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Act, 2026, amending the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961. The Act received the Governor’s assent on 3 September 2026, was published in the Gazette on 4 September 2026, and comes into force at once. The Kannada text published with it is the authoritative version under section 6 of the Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Act, 2022.

1. Registration: OSH&WC-registered establishments carved out, lifetime validity, digital filing

• New exemption (s. 3(1)(k)): establishments employing ten or more workers that are already registered under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 are added to the list of establishments to which the Act does not apply. Godowns and storage facilities within 100 metres of the principal establishment need no separate registration.
• Digital by default (s. 4(1), (2), (4); s. 6): the registration application, the certificate and fee payments move to electronic/digital mode, and the intimation to the Inspector under s. 6 no longer needs to be “in writing”.
• Deemed registration in seven days (s. 4(3A)): if the Inspector is not satisfied with the application, the refusal with reasons must now be communicated within seven days of receipt (earlier thirty); if nothing is communicated in that time, the establishment is deemed registered.
• No renewals (s. 4(5), (6)): a registration, once issued, remains valid until the establishment closes or ceases business; sub-section (6) is omitted.
• Decriminalised (s. 4(8)): imprisonment of not less than six months plus a fine of up to ₹5,000 is replaced by a fine of up to ₹50,000.

2. Two new employer obligations (ss. 6-B and 6-C)

• Service certificate (s. 6-B): to be issued within seven days of receiving the employee’s application, in the form to be prescribed.
• No retention of originals (s. 6-C): employers may not hold an employee’s original educational certificates, experience certificates or any other original documents, either at appointment or during employment.

Both sections are added to the list of provisions penalised under s. 30(1).

3. References aligned with the Labour Codes (ss. 21 and 22)

• 21: Payment of Wages Act, 1936 → Code on Wages, 2019: It lets the State Government, by notification, apply the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (or any of its provisions) to all or any class of employees and their employers in establishments covered by the Act, as if enacted in the state Act, and makes the S&E Inspector the deemed Inspector for enforcing it. The PW Act on its own reached only factories, railways and notified industrial establishments, so this section was how timely-payment and authorised-deduction rules were extended to shop staff.
• 22: Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 → Code on Social Security, 2020: It applies the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 directly to employees of establishments, so a shop or office employee injured at work gets compensation even though such employees are largely outside the compensation Act’s own schedule of covered employments.

4. Women’s night work (s. 25)

Clauses (h) to (o) of s. 25(1) — eight of the conditions governing the employment of women during night hours — are omitted.

(h) Driver vetting — obtain bio-data and screen the antecedents of every driver employed directly; for outsourced drivers, satisfy yourself that the service provider has done so.

(i) Pick-up/drop route schedules fixed only by the supervisory office; in an emergency, drivers, routes or shifts may change only with the prior knowledge of supervisory officers or the employees.

(j) Women employees’ phone and mobile numbers, email IDs and addresses not to be disclosed to unauthorised persons.

(k) Routes chosen so that no woman employee is picked up first and dropped last.

(l) Security guards at the workplace and in the night-shift vehicle whenever a woman is picked up first or dropped last.

(m) Designated supervisors of the company or service provider to randomly check vehicles on the various routes.

(n) A control room or travel desk to monitor vehicle movement.

(o) A mobile app (optional — “may”) through which a woman employee can signal for help in an emergency.

5. Penalties, compounding and appeals

Compounding (s. 33-A, substituted): the jurisdictional Labour Officer may compound any offence under the Act or rules by collecting 50% of the prescribed fine for a first offence and 75% for a second or subsequent offence. An offence of the same nature committed by the same person more than twice in a year cannot be compounded, and no penalty may be imposed without a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

Appeal (s. 33-B, new): an order under s. 33-A can be appealed within thirty days of receipt to an appellate authority notified by the Government, not below the rank of Assistant Labour Commissioner. The fine must be deposited before the appeal is entertained, and the appeal is to be disposed of within sixty days in the prescribed manner.

What employers in Karnataka should do now

1. Check whether your OSH&WC Code registration now takes the establishment outside the state Act, and document the position taken.
2. Return any original certificates held on file and stop collecting them at onboarding.
3. Set up a seven-day turnaround for service-certificate requests.
4. Re-map night-shift SOPs for women employees against the conditions that survive in s. 25(1).

Please find attached the official notification:

The Karnataka shop and establishment amendment act, 2026