Licence to Kill was the first Bond film to not use the title of an Ian Fleming story; it was originally titled Licence Revoked but was changed during post-production after American test audiences associated the phrase with driving licences.

The producers initially wanted to set the film in China, having been invited by the government and even planning a chase along the Great Wall and a fight among the Terracotta Army, but the idea fell through partly because The Last Emperor had already used China as a filming location and over censorship concerns.

For budget reasons, Licence to Kill became the first Bond film shot entirely outside the United Kingdom, following the 1985 Films Act removing the Eady Levy and raising costs for foreign productions; Pinewood Studios only handled post-production and sound re-recording.

Screenwriter Michael G. Wilson compared the film's destruction-from-within plot structure to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sergio Leone's remake A Fistful of Dollars rather than to Fleming's use of a similar device in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Robert Davi was cast as Sanchez after a suggestion by Albert Broccoli's daughter Tina and screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who had seen him in a television film; Davi researched Colombian cartels, learned a Colombian accent, and stayed in character off-set as a method actor.

Wayne Newton got his role as televangelist Joe Butcher simply by sending the producers a letter expressing his lifelong wish to appear in a Bond film.

David Hedison returned as Felix Leiter sixteen years after playing the character in Live and Let Die, despite director John Glen's reluctance to cast the 61-year-old actor for a scene requiring parachuting.

During filming of the parachuting scene near the church, a malfunction in the harness equipment caused David Hedison to fall onto the pavement, leaving him with an injury that made him limp for the rest of the shoot.

Milton Krest's exploding head was achieved with a prosthetic created by special effects supervisor John Richardson's team based on a mould of actor Anthony Zerbe's face, and the result was so gruesome the scene had to be shortened to avoid censorship problems.

Eric Clapton and guitarist Vic Flick were originally asked to write and perform the title theme to match Dalton's grittier Bond, but producers rejected it in favour of Gladys Knight's song, which reused the horn line from 'Goldfinger' as an homage.

Licence to Kill remains the only Bond film to be originally rated 15 by the BBFC, and the 2006 Ultimate Edition DVD marked the first release of the film without cuts.