Goa Shops Act 2025: under 20 workers, only section 7

Twenty. That single number decides how much of the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 2025 reaches you at work. Section 1 hands the whole Act to establishments employing twenty or more workers, and hands every smaller establishment one section and nothing else.

The Act was passed by the Legislative Assembly of Goa on 07/08/2025 and assented to by the Governor of Goa on 19/09/2025, and published by the Law Department on 01 October 2025 as Goa Act 23 of 2025. It replaces the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 1973 when it starts. Everything below is what the printed Act says, section by section.

Section 1(3) is the whole story. It reads that the provisions of this Act, “except section 7, shall apply to the establishments employing twenty or more workers and the provisions of section 7 shall apply to the establishments employing less than twenty workers”.

Read that twice. It is not a lighter version of the Act for small shops. It is one section, and one section only.

So if you work behind the counter of a five-person bakery, a two-chair salon or a small eating house in Goa, the overtime chapter, the leave chapter and the weekly-holiday chapter of this Act are not yours. That is an uncomfortable answer, and it is the answer the statute gives.

Section 7 is titled intimation of establishment employing less than twenty workers. It is a registration-lite duty, and every word of it points at the employer.

• Within sixty days of commencement or of starting business, “the employer of every establishment employing less than twenty workers shall give an intimation of having commenced the business by submitting online application as may be prescribed”. The intimation carries the name of the employer and manager, the name of the establishment, the nature of business and, importantly, the number of workers.
• Section 7(2) makes the employer “intimate within thirty days from the date of the closing of the business” if the establishment shuts.
• The first proviso is the one that matters to you: “if at any point of time the number of workers engaged in the establishment become twenty or more, then all provisions of this Act shall apply to such establishment”, and “the employer of such establishment shall have to obtain registration as per the provisions of section 6”.

That proviso is your lever. The moment the real headcount touches twenty, the entire Act switches on for that establishment. Which is why the declared worker count is the single fact worth getting on record. More on how to do that at the end.

Notice what section 7 does not contain. No hours. No rest break. No overtime rate. No weekly off. No leave. Nothing about wages. A small establishment in Goa owes a filing, and under this Act that is close to all it owes.

Even inside a twenty-plus establishment, section 3 removes whole categories of people from the Act:

• “A worker in any establishment whose average monthly wages exceed rupees twenty four thousand”. Above ₹24,000 a month on average, this Act is not yours.
• “A worker occupying position of confidential, managerial or supervisory character in an establishment”. The Act requires that list to be displayed on the establishment website, or at a conspicuous place if there is no website, with a copy to the Facilitators. If your name has quietly been put on that list, you should be able to see it.
• “A worker whose work is inherently intermittent”.
• “A member of the family of an employer”, which section 2 defines as a wife, husband, son, daughter, father, mother, brother or sister who lives with and is dependent on the employer.

Section 3 also keeps out establishments of the Central and State Government and their agencies, local authorities, establishments for the care of the infirm or destitute, most educational establishments, and temporary bazaar or fair stalls running for not more than a month at a time.

A “worker”, by section 2, is a person “employed to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational or clerical work for hire or reward”, apprentices excluded.

If your establishment is at or above twenty workers, here is what the Act gives you, with the section to quote back.

Compare this list against the hours and spread-over rules under the central occupational safety code in our guide to working hours, overtime and spread-over, and the night-work and safety conditions in women at work under the new labour codes.

There is a genuine tension inside the Act, and you should know about it rather than be surprised by it.

Section 1(3) says only section 7 applies below twenty workers. But section 40 says the Employees Compensation Act, 1923 “shall so far as may be, apply to every establishment to whom section 6 as well as section 7 of the Act applies”. On its own words, section 40 reaches both halves, including establishments below twenty workers.

The two provisions have not been read together by any court, because the Act has not commenced. Do not build a plan on section 40. Do note it, and do quote it if a small-establishment injury claim is ever refused on the ground that this Act does not apply to you.

Section 38 also protects whatever you already have: nothing in this Act affects a right or privilege under any other law, contract, custom, award or settlement “if such rights or privileges are more favourable to him than those to which he would be entitled under this Act”.

This matters more than any single entitlement above.

Section 1(4) says: “It shall come into force on such date as the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.” As of 30 August 2026 no such notification has been traced. That does not prove one was never issued. It means nobody should assume the Act is running, and nobody should assume it is dead either.

Two consequences follow, and both are keyed to that same untraced notification.

• The sixty-day clocks have not started. Section 6(1) and section 7(1) both run from “the date of commencement of this Act or the date on which establishment commences its business”. No commencement date, no deadline to miss.
• The 1973 Act has not been repealed by it. Section 43 repeals the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 1973 only “On and from the date of commencement of this Act”. So the register that would hold your employer entry today is the 1973 register, not a new one.

The transition is written into the new Act in two places. The proviso to section 6(1) says “nothing contained hereinabove shall apply to the establishments already having valid registration or renewal under the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 1973”, and holds that off “until expiry of their registration or renewal”. Section 7(1) carries the same proviso for small establishments. Then section 43(a) says a registration made under the repealed Act shall, so far as it is not inconsistent, “be deemed to have been made, issued or given under the provisions of this Act, unless and until superseded”.

Put plainly: when this Act starts, nobody has to re-register the day it starts. Existing 1973 registrations ride out their term and are treated as if made under the new Act.

Take a bakery in Goa that keeps five workers on the counter and runs seven days a week. One worker is asked to come in on her rest day every second week and is paid a flat daily wage for it.

Under this Act, once it commences, the bakery falls under section 7 alone. The double-wage rule for rest-day work in section 15(5) sits in a section that does not apply to her establishment. Her employer owes an online intimation with the number of workers, and a closure intimation if the bakery shuts. That is the extent of it under this Act.

Now suppose the bakery opens a second counter and the headcount reaches twenty-one. The first proviso to section 7(1) fires. “all provisions of this Act shall apply to such establishment” from that point, and the employer must register under section 6. Her weekly holiday, her double wages for rest-day work, her nine days of sick leave and her nine paid holidays all arrive at once, because the headcount crossed a line.

The number in the employer's own filing is what decides which of those two paragraphs describes her.

This Act is not the only law in the room. What remains is real, but none of it comes from this statute, so this page will point rather than quote.

• The central labour codes. Hours, wages, safety and social security for shop and commercial-establishment workers are dealt with by the central codes, which apply on their own terms and thresholds. Start with hours, overtime and spread-over under the central code.
• The State labour machinery. Unpaid wages, unlawful deductions and provident fund complaints are handled by the labour department, not by a Shops Act intimation. Our guide on complaining to the labour department about salary or PF sets out that route.
• Your contract, award or settlement. For a covered establishment, section 38 expressly preserves anything more favourable to the worker. For a smaller one, this Act never reached your contract at all.
• The registration paper trail. If you want to see what your employer has actually filed, RTI for shop and establishment registration shows what to ask for, and how a shop and establishment licence is applied for explains what the file should contain.

Penalties sit only on the employer side, and only for establishments the Act covers.

• General contravention, section 32. A contravention of the Act or the rules made under it is “punishable with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees”, and for a continuing contravention “an additional fine which may extend to five hundred rupees for every day during which such contravention continues”.
• Repeat of the same contravention, section 32(2). “he shall be punished on a subsequent conviction with fine which may extend to twenty thousand rupees”.
• Contravention causing an accident, section 33. Where it results in serious bodily injury or death of a worker, a “fine which shall not be less than twenty-five thousand rupees and which may be extended upto one lakh rupees”.
• Obstructing an inspection, section 34. Whoever “wilfully obstructs the Facilitator-cum-Inspector in exercise of any powers conferred on him”, or refuses to produce a register, faces a fine up to ₹10,000.

Two limits are worth knowing before you plan anything. Section 35 says “No court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act” unless the complaint is made by the Facilitator-cum-Inspector, and only “within six months of the date on which the alleged commission of the offence came to the knowledge” of that officer. A worker cannot walk into court directly. And section 36 lets most offences be compounded by a notified Gazetted Officer, before or after prosecution.

So the enforcement route is: get the facts into the inspector's hands, on paper, with a date. Which is exactly what an RTI reply gives you.

No. Section 1(3) applies only section 7 to an establishment employing less than twenty workers, and section 7 contains no weekly holiday. The weekly holiday sits in section 15, which is in the twenty-plus half of the Act. Any weekly off you get in a five-person shop comes from your contract, from the central labour codes or from custom, not from this Act.

No commencement notification has been traced as of 30 August 2026. Section 1(4) requires one: the Act comes into force on such date as the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint. To check, look for a Goa Official Gazette notification appointing a date under section 1(4), and for rules made under section 41, which the Act says are subject to previous publication. If you cannot find either, ask by RTI. That is a one-line question with a one-line answer.

Not by itself. The first proviso to section 7(1) says that if at any point of time the number of workers engaged becomes twenty or more, all provisions of this Act apply and the employer must register under section 6. So the number is a live fact, not a settled one, and it is the employer who declares it in the section 7 intimation. Getting that declared number, and the register entry behind it, is the point of the RTI below.

The Act does not print a figure. Section 6(1) says the application goes with “such fees and such self declaration” and documents as may be prescribed, so the amount lives in rules made under section 41. The only fee proportion in the Act itself is the late-renewal penalty in section 6(5): “an additional fee as late fee equal to half of the fee payable for the renewal of a registration certificate”. Since no rules have been traced, the fee schedule is itself a fair RTI question.

Everything on this page turns on two figures that are not published anywhere you can read: whether the section 1(4) notification has issued, and what worker count your employer has declared. Both are held by the labour department, and both are ordinary RTI questions. The prescribed fee is not in the Act either, which is a third thing worth asking while you are writing.

Address your application to the Public Information Officer, Office of the Commissioner of Labour, Government of Goa. Section 2 of the new Act names the Commissioner of Labour as the prescribed authority under it, so that is the office that will hold all of this. Ask for these:

1. A copy of the Official Gazette notification issued under section 1(4) of the Goa Shops and Establishments Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service Act, 2025 appointing the date of commencement, and if none has issued, a statement to that effect.
2. A copy of the rules notified under section 41 of that Act, including the fee schedule for registration and renewal.
3. The registration or renewal record of the establishment named below held under the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 1973, including the number of workers declared by the employer and the date of expiry of the registration.
4. The number of establishments currently registered in my taluka or district under the Goa Shops and Establishments Act, 1973, split into establishments employing twenty or more workers and establishments employing less than twenty workers.

That last one is what turns a personal grievance into a checkable fact. If the department returns a register showing your establishment declared at nineteen while twenty-two people clock in, the section 7(1) proviso is doing work for you, and the Facilitator-cum-Inspector is the officer who can act on it under section 35.

The clock is short and it is not the Act's clock. The Public Information Officer has thirty days to reply. Miss that and the reply is deemed refused, and your first appeal is due within thirty days of the reply or of the date the reply was due. Compare that with the seven working days section 6(2) gives the inspector to issue a certificate: the registration side of this system is meant to move fast, so a department that cannot answer in thirty days is telling you something.

Draft the application with the AI RTI Drafter, keep both deadlines visible in the RTI Timeline Tracker, and if the thirty days pass with nothing, build the appeal in the First Appeal Builder. Goa-specific addresses and fee mode are in how to file an RTI in Goa, the section numbers you are relying on are in the RTI Act, and the full method for pushing a stalled application is in The RTI Playbook.

One last honest line. If you work in a shop below twenty workers in Goa, this Act is not going to be the thing that protects you. Knowing that in advance is worth more than a page that pretends otherwise.