Zomato remains one of the two dominant food delivery platforms in India, and for a cloud kitchen with no dine-in presence at all, it’s frequently the primary, sometimes the only, sales channel. This guide covers the actual registration process, documents, and commission structure for getting your cloud kitchen or restaurant listed, along with the ranking factors that determine whether that listing actually generates orders once it’s live.
A Quick Note on Zomato’s Corporate Structure
Zomato’s parent company renamed itself from Zomato Limited to Eternal Limited in 2025, reflecting the group’s expanded portfolio beyond food delivery into quick commerce (Blinkit), B2B supply (Hyperpure), and events (District). This is a corporate-level rebrand only, the consumer-facing app and the partner-facing registration process you’ll use are still called Zomato, and nothing about the onboarding process described below is affected by the parent company’s new name. It’s worth knowing simply so you’re not confused if you come across “Eternal Limited” in official documentation or commission statements down the line.
Documents Required
Gather these in PDF or JPEG format before starting your application:
- FSSAI License, compulsory for every food business regardless of scale, see our dedicated guide on FSSAI licensing for cloud kitchens.
- GST Registration Certificate, required for cloud kitchens specifically, and generally expected even for smaller operations given Zomato’s onboarding standards.
- PAN card of the legal entity or proprietor.
- Cancelled cheque or bank passbook copy, showing your account number and IFSC code for payout processing.
- Restaurant menu, with clear pricing and item descriptions.
- Food safety and hygiene photos of your kitchen and preparation area.
- Owner’s KYC documents, Aadhaar card or driving licence for identity verification.
Step-by-Step Registration Process
Step 1: Visit the Zomato Partner Portal
Go to the official partner registration page and sign in with your mobile number.
Step 2: Register Your Restaurant (Even for a Cloud Kitchen)
Click “Register Your Restaurant”, this applies even if you’re operating a delivery-only dark kitchen with no dine-in space. Enter your full name, business email, phone number, restaurant name, city, and address.
Step 3: Upload Required Documents
Submit your FSSAI license, GST certificate, PAN card, bank details, menu, and kitchen photos through the partner portal.
Step 4: Verification
A Zomato executive may visit your kitchen or call you for a verification check, confirming your documentation matches your actual setup.
Step 5: Profile Approval
Once approved, you can download the Zomato Partner App and log in to begin receiving orders.
Choosing a Partner Plan
Zomato structures its partnership around tiered plans, each with a different commission rate and level of visibility/marketing support:
| Plan | Commission Range | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 10% to 15% | Standard listing, minimal promotional support |
| Standard | 18% to 25% | Includes promotional tools and better visibility |
| Premium | 25% to 30% | Maximum visibility and marketing support |
Commission is charged on order value plus 18% GST on the commission amount itself, a detail worth factoring into your actual margin calculations rather than just looking at the headline commission percentage.
Choosing the right plan depends on how much you’re relying on Zomato’s own marketing and visibility tools versus driving your own demand through other channels (your own website, social media, repeat customers). A cloud kitchen just starting out with no existing customer base often benefits from a higher-tier plan’s visibility boost despite the higher commission, while an established brand with strong repeat custom may find the Basic plan’s lower commission a better trade once they’re not depending on Zomato’s discovery algorithm as heavily. Revisiting this choice every few months as your order history and repeat-customer base build up is worth doing rather than locking in a plan at launch and never reassessing it.
Improving Your Visibility and Ranking on Zomato
Getting listed is the starting point, not the finish line. Where your kitchen or restaurant appears in Zomato’s search results for a given area and cuisine type has a direct and substantial effect on order volume, and several factors are within your control:
Order acceptance rate and preparation time accuracy: Zomato tracks how consistently you accept incoming orders and whether your stated preparation time matches reality. A kitchen that frequently rejects orders or consistently runs late on stated prep times gets deprioritized in search ranking, since the platform optimizes for a reliable customer experience.
Rating and review volume: Customer ratings collected through the platform are one of the most heavily weighted ranking signals. A kitchen that’s new to the platform starts with no rating history, which is exactly why the higher-tier partner plans’ visibility boost can matter most in the early weeks, before you’ve built a review base that can carry ranking on its own merit.
Menu completeness and photo quality: Dishes without photos convert at a meaningfully lower rate than those with professional, appetizing images. Beyond just having a photo, consistency, lighting, and actually representing portion sizes accurately (rather than idealized styling that doesn’t match what arrives) affects both initial conversion and repeat order likelihood.
Delivery time and packaging quality: Even though Zomato often handles the actual delivery logistics, packaging quality, whether food arrives intact, at the right temperature, without leakage, feeds into customer satisfaction and therefore ratings, which loop back into ranking.
Active promotions and offers participation: Running periodic discounts or combo offers through the platform’s promotional tools can boost short-term visibility and order volume, useful for building initial momentum or clearing slow periods, though this needs to be balanced against your actual margin per order after commission and discount are both factored in.
Zomato Gold and Promotional Programs
Beyond the base partner plans, Zomato periodically runs promotional and loyalty programs (historically branded things like Zomato Gold) that offer participating restaurants additional visibility in exchange for specific discount commitments to program members. Whether participating makes sense depends on your margin structure and whether the additional order volume from program visibility offsets the discount commitment. This is worth evaluating specifically for your kitchen’s numbers rather than assuming participation is automatically beneficial just because it’s offered, a thin-margin kitchen may find a program discount erodes profitability faster than the added volume compensates for.
Managing Multiple Platforms: Zomato and Swiggy Together
Very few cloud kitchens list exclusively on one platform, most run both Zomato and Swiggy in parallel to maximize reach, since the two platforms don’t have fully overlapping user bases. This does mean maintaining two separate partner accounts, two menu configurations, and two sets of order management workflows unless you’re using a unified point-of-sale or order aggregation system that syncs both. For a single-kitchen operation, manually managing both isn’t overly burdensome, but as you scale to multiple kitchen locations or a more complex menu, the operational overhead of keeping both platforms’ listings consistent, menu items, pricing, availability, becomes a real coordination cost worth addressing with the right tooling (see our guide on CRM and channel manager integration).
Timeline
The full process, from initial application to receiving your first order, typically takes 3 to 7 working days with complete documentation, though this extends if your kitchen fails an initial hygiene check or documents are incomplete.
How Zomato’s FSSAI and GST Requirements Interact With Your Broader Compliance
It’s worth connecting the documents Zomato asks for directly to the broader compliance picture covered across our other guides. The FSSAI license Zomato requires is the same license covered in our FSSAI guide for cloud kitchens, and the thresholds, fees, and perpetual validity rules that changed in 2026 apply regardless of whether you’re selling through Zomato, Swiggy, or your own channels. Similarly, the GST registration Zomato expects follows the same process and thresholds as our general GST guide for restaurants, including the Section 9(5) mechanism where Zomato itself collects and remits GST on orders placed through the platform rather than you handling that specific transaction’s tax directly. Treating your Zomato onboarding documents as a subset of your overall compliance picture, rather than a separate one-off checklist, avoids duplicated effort and keeps your registrations consistent across every channel you sell through.
Common Mistakes Cloud Kitchen Owners Make
- Underestimating photo and menu presentation quality, since these directly affect order conversion once you’re listed, a poorly photographed menu performs worse regardless of food quality.
- Choosing the cheapest commission plan without considering visibility needs, particularly damaging for a new kitchen with no existing customer base that needs the platform’s discovery tools to get initial traction.
- Not accounting for GST on the commission itself when calculating actual margins, leading to pricing that looks profitable on paper but isn’t once all platform costs are factored in.
- Letting FSSAI or GST registration lapse after initial onboarding, which can affect your ability to continue operating on the platform if compliance documentation isn’t kept current.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my cloud kitchen need a Shop and Establishment license to list on Zomato? Zomato’s core document requirements focus on FSSAI, GST, and PAN, but having your Shop and Establishment registration in place (see our dedicated guide) is still a legal requirement independent of Zomato’s specific onboarding checklist.
How often does Zomato pay out to restaurant partners? Payout frequency and cycles are detailed in your specific partnership agreement, generally on a regular periodic basis after commission deduction, confirm the current cycle for your account during onboarding.
Can I change my commission plan after I’m already listed? Generally yes, partner plans can typically be adjusted as your business needs change, though specific terms and any lock-in periods should be confirmed with your Zomato partner account manager.
Does Zomato’s rebrand to Eternal Limited affect my existing partner agreement? No, this is a parent company-level corporate rebrand. Your partnership agreement, the app your customers use, and your day-to-day operations on the platform are unaffected.
Can I run the same cloud kitchen brand under a different name on Zomato than on Swiggy? There’s no requirement to use identical branding across platforms, though consistency generally helps with customer recognition if someone encounters your kitchen on one platform and looks for it elsewhere. Some kitchens do intentionally run differently branded virtual concepts from the same physical kitchen across platforms as a deliberate strategy.
What happens if a customer complains about food quality or a missing item? Zomato has a structured dispute and refund process accessible through the partner app. Repeated complaints affect your rating and can trigger platform review of your account, so addressing root causes (packaging, order accuracy, food quality consistency) matters beyond just handling individual complaints as they arise.
Can I pause my Zomato listing temporarily, for instance during a kitchen renovation or ingredient supply issue? Yes, most partner accounts allow toggling your availability status off temporarily without fully delisting, through the partner app’s online/offline toggle, useful for planned closures or temporary operational issues.
Does Zomato require exclusivity, or can I also sell directly through my own website or app? Zomato doesn’t generally require exclusivity preventing you from also taking direct orders through your own channels, though specific commission plan terms are worth confirming, and running your own direct ordering alongside aggregator listings is an increasingly common strategy precisely to reduce dependency on commission-based platforms for all your volume.
We Handle Your Zomato Listing End-to-End
From getting your FSSAI and GST registrations in order to choosing the right partner plan and preparing a menu and photo set that actually converts, we manage the full Zomato onboarding process for cloud kitchens and restaurants.
Call or WhatsApp us today to get your kitchen listed on Zomato.