What Time Can You Buy Alcohol in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts answers this question in three places at once, which is why the internet gets it wrong so often. Chapter 138 sets an outer window, your city or town writes the actual hours onto each individual license, and a handful of days are closed by statute no matter what the license says. Here is what each layer does, taken from the statute itself.

Chapter 138, Section 15 lets a package store make sales, in accordance with the terms of its license, at any time between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., and until 11:30 p.m. on any day immediately preceding a legal holiday. That is the outer boundary, not the answer. Local licensing authorities write the specific terms onto each individual license, so one shop may have to stop earlier than the statutory ceiling while a shop a town away runs to the limit. For a dependable answer about a particular store, the license controls; the statute only says what a license cannot exceed. Section 15 also provides that a sale is conclusively presumed to have been made in the store where the order was received from the customer. That is a rule about where a sale happens, not about which moment the clock measures, so do not assume it settles the timing of a phone or online order.

For bars, restaurants and other on-premises licensees, Section 12 hands the hours to the local licensing authorities and then fences them in. No sale may be made on any secular day between 2:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. And, except as provided in Section 33, a licensee may not be barred from making sales on such a day after 11:00 a.m. and before 11:00 p.m. The eleven-to-eleven core is protected, the 2:00-to-8:00 a.m. ban is absolute, and the space between them is set locally. There is a procedural protection too: before a licensing authority decreases a licensee’s hours it must hold a public hearing, and the affected licensee is entitled to two weeks’ notice of it.

Section 33 sets day-specific rules, and it restricts delivery as well as sale. No Section 15 licensee may sell or deliver alcoholic beverages on the last Monday in May before 12:00 noon, on Thanksgiving Day, or on Christmas Day. Separately, no Section 15 licensee may sell or deliver during polling hours on a day when a state or municipal election, caucus or primary is held in the city or town where the licensed premises sits — unless the local licensing authority issues an order to the contrary, applicable alike to all licensees of every class. The polling-hours rule is the one people forget, and it is entirely local: a store in one municipality can be shut for alcohol during that election’s polling hours while the next town over trades as normal.

Sunday is the most-asked question and the honest answer is narrower than the internet suggests. Section 33’s list of closed days does not name Sunday for package stores, and Section 15’s window is not written day-by-day on the face of the statute — so once again the terms on the individual license and the local licensing authority decide. Restocking is different, and it is explicit. Regulation 204 CMR 2.05(4) allows manufacturers, wholesalers and importers to sell and deliver to other licensees on any day except Sunday, the last Monday in May, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, or the day following when Christmas falls on a Sunday. The two calendars do not line up: a store can be open on a day it cannot accept a wholesale delivery. If you handle ordering, plan holiday weeks around the wholesale calendar, not your own opening hours.

Section 12½, signed into law on 30 April 2024, allows on-premises licensees holding an all-alcoholic-beverages, distilled-spirits, or cordials-and-liqueurs license to sell mixed drinks for consumption off the premises. Six conditions apply: no sale to anyone under 21; no delivery without verifying that the person receiving the order has attained 21; a sealed container; sale in the same transaction as at least one item of food prepared on site and sufficient to serve one person, with the order placed no later than the hour the establishment is licensed to sell alcohol or 12:00 a.m., whichever is earlier; a cap of 64 fluid ounces per customer per transaction; and, if transported by motor vehicle by delivery or pick-up, carriage in the trunk or another area that is not the passenger area. The ABCC’s advisory adds that Section 12½ does not reach wine or malt beverages sold on their own, and that ready-to-drink cocktails cannot go out in unopened original containers. One caution before building a service on this: two ABCC how-to pages still state that on-premises licensees may never deliver off the licensed premises, while Section 12½ and the ABCC’s own 2024 advisory contemplate delivery. Nothing published reconciles them, so get your position from the ABCC in writing.

Hours are one layer of several. Section 34 makes a sale or delivery of alcohol to a person under 21 punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, imprisonment of up to one year, or both — while the same section allows a licensee to employ anyone 18 or older for the direct handling or selling of alcoholic beverages. Section 34B lists the identification a licensee or its agent or employee may reasonably rely on, including a Massachusetts liquor purchase identification card, a Massachusetts motor vehicle license, a valid passport issued by the United States government or by a foreign government recognised by the United States, a valid motor vehicle license from another state, and a valid United States military identification card. Reasonable reliance raises a rebuttable presumption of due care — but it is rebuttable, and the statute expressly says nothing in it affects Section 69, which prohibits selling or delivering alcohol to an intoxicated person on licensed premises. Negligence actions over service to a minor or an intoxicated person are commenced in the superior court department under Chapter 231, Section 60J.

Massachusetts has no statewide alcohol server training mandate. The only certification requirement in Chapter 138 sits in Section 12C, covering caterers: all agents and employees of a licensed caterer who serve alcoholic beverages must be certified by a nationally-recognised alcoholic beverages server training programme. The ABCC’s published regulations contain no server-training regulation. What does vary is local — cities and towns set the terms of each license, and under Section 64 the licensing authorities may act on satisfactory proof that a licensee violated a condition of its license or any law of the commonwealth — so check your own city or town licensing authority for conditions the state does not impose. For more on where training actually sits in Massachusetts, see our guides to Massachusetts alcohol server training and whether you need a bartending license in Massachusetts. Certification Experts offers independent responsible alcohol service education through our Massachusetts alcohol awareness course. It is not TIPS, and it is not approved or recognised by any Massachusetts authority — Massachusetts approves none. Treat this page as a starting point and confirm anything license-specific with the ABCC and your local licensing authority.

Alcohol delivery in Massachusetts is both legal and highly regulated. Drivers must follow strict ID verification rules, comply with ABCC delivery hours, and complete mandatory alcohol training certification.