Door-to-Door Permit Rules by City

In most cities a commercial rep needs a permit in hand before the first knock, and in a few of them the permit has to be on the rep’s person and visible. This page lists what sixteen named cities actually require — permit, fee, hours, badge — with the ordinance section beside each one and the date it was checked. Where a fact could not be confirmed from an official source, the card says so instead of guessing.

Jump to a state — or see all sixteen at a glance

How to use this

Find your city, read the card, then open the ordinance link and read the section yourself before you commit a team to a market. This is orientation, not legal advice, and a city clerk can tell you in one phone call what a code page takes an afternoon to settle. The point of the reference is that you walk into that call already knowing which section to ask about. On a phone, or when you only want one city, the permit lookup carries these sixteen cities and 236 more, one card each, with the questions this page leaves open printed under every one.

Two habits worth building. Assume the lead time is longer than you want — San Antonio wants the application five days before the first sale, and a background check is a queue, not a form. And check the sign rule separately from the permit rule: they are usually in different sections, and the sign rule is the one that gets a rep a complaint.

The sixteen cities at a glance

Salt Lake City, Boise, Fort Collins, Nashville, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Jacksonville and Peoria checked 4 September 2026. Dallas, Fort Worth, Orlando and Phoenix checked 5 September 2026. West Valley City, St. George and Las Vegas checked 6 September 2026. Provo checked 6 September 2026 and re-checked 13 September 2026, when its fee was corrected from the city’s fee schedule. “Not confirmed” means no official source stated it — call the clerk.

The sixteen cities, one at a time

Salt Lake City, Utah

A permit is required, and the ordinance is unusually direct about carrying it. Section 5.64.130 makes it unlawful to engage in face-to-face solicitation for the sale, lease or rental of consumer goods or services “without first obtaining a permit for solicitation from the City and carrying such permit on their person while engaged in face-to-face solicitation” (Ord. 67-18, 2018). Exemptions sit in 5.64.150.

The city’s business licensing page adds the step that catches new managers out: applicants obtain a BCI report from Utah Criminal Identification and submit it with the application. Budget for that queue. The fee and the permit term were not stated on either page — confirm both with Business Licensing.

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Provo, Utah

The best-documented city on this page for a manager staffing a summer program, and the one whose code spells out the whole sequence: a same-day answer on a temporary certificate, twenty-five days at most to a decision on the annual one, and the anniversary the annual certificate expires on. Section 6.09.060 is the requirement, in full: “Unless otherwise exempt under this Chapter, any person desiring to engage in door-to-door solicitation within the City, prior to doing so, shall submit a completed application to the Licensing Officer and obtain a certificate.” (Rep&ReEn 2009-50.) The code as published is current through Ordinance 2026-17, passed 9 June 2026.

The money is in the city’s Consolidated Fee Schedule, which lists, under Solicitors, the solicitor at $72.00 per employee and the solicitor’s identification badge at $10.00 per employee — $82 per rep, by addition. The wait is in the code. A temporary certificate is granted or denied “the same business day that a completed application is submitted” (6.09.080), lets the rep “immediately begin door-to-door solicitation,” and lasts until the city decides on the annual certificate or for twenty-five calendar days, whichever is shorter (6.09.100). The catch is the word completed: the application has to include a BCI background check no more than 180 days old, or an equivalent check from the applicant’s home state if the applicant is not a Utah resident. For a team recruited out of state in April, that check is the long pole, not the counter visit. The Provo permit page lists everything else a completed application needs, item by item. (Until 13 September 2026 this paragraph quoted a $76 fee and a two-week temporary license from the city’s old licensing page at provo.org, which no longer loads.)

Two rules to brief the team on. Section 6.09.190: “It shall be unlawful for any person, whether licensed or not, to solicit at a residence before 9:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, unless the solicitor has express prior permission from the resident to do so.” Whether licensed or not — the hours bind an exempt solicitor exactly as hard as a registered one. And under 6.09.110 the city-issued badge is not paperwork for the glovebox: it must be “worn prominently on the solicitor’s person while soliciting in the City,” carrying the city’s name, the rep’s name and contact details, a recent photograph and the expiry date.

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West Valley City, Utah

Utah’s second-largest city, and a separate registration from Salt Lake City next door. Section 17-4-106: “Unless otherwise exempt under this Chapter, all persons desiring to engage in door-to-door solicitation within the City, prior to doing so, shall submit a completed application to the Licensing Officer and obtain a certificate.” (Ord. No. 18-24, enacted 19 June 2018.) Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mountain Time under 17-4-119, and 17-4-111 requires the photo badge to be displayed prominently while soliciting.

The city’s business license page is blunt about the two things a manager most wants to know and does not answer either: “In addition to completing the license application, there are other requirements to meet before the license can be issued. Please contact the Licensing Department directly for further information.” No fee is published. It does say one thing worth quoting to a rep who thinks a Utah badge is a Utah badge: “A Solicitor’s License is only valid within West Valley City.” Licensing is on 801-963-3290; ask for the fee, the term and the processing time in one call.

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St. George, Utah

A small city that matters out of proportion to its size, because it is where a lot of southern-Utah solar and pest work gets sold. Section 3-2B-6: “Unless otherwise exempt under this article, all persons desiring to engage in door to door solicitation within the city, prior to doing so, shall submit a completed application to the licensing officer and obtain a certificate.” Hours under 3-2B-19 are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mountain Time (Ord. 2006-09-003, 7 September 2006).

The document to read before anyone applies is the city’s own Residential Solicitation License Checklist, and it carries the one deadline that will wreck a hiring calendar if you miss it: the application needs an “Original Background Check issued by the Utah Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI), dated no more than 180 days prior to the date of application. Must include the cover page and seal.” A photocopy will not do and a check from last summer will not do. The checklist also wants proof of identity, a written description of what is being sold, a passport-style photograph for the city badge, and the applicant listed in a specific format — “{Your personal name} @ {Company Name}” — which is the kind of detail that sends an application back a week if a recruiter fills in fifteen of them the usual way.

One thing to tell a rep before he signs anything: the checklist states that the city keeps copies of the application, supporting documents, proof of identity and the badge, and that those “will become public records available for inspection on demand at the City offices whether or not a certificate is denied, granted or renewed.” The BCI check itself stays protected. The fee is not published on the licensing pages; the licensing counter is on 435-627-4000.

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Boise, Idaho

A city license is required. Boise City Code 3-2-6 makes it unlawful for a vendor, solicitor or temporary merchant “to engage in such business or to employ another in such business within the corporate limits of the City without first obtaining a license from the City Clerk’s Office” — note the employ another, which puts it on the manager, not only on the rep.

The hours are the useful part, and they are among the tightest on this page for a residential route. Section 3-2-12(B): “Vendors, solicitors and temporary merchants shall be allowed to engage in their licensed business only between nine o’clock (9:00) A.M. and one hour after sunset, unless located in a commercially zoned area.” A residential neighborhood is not a commercially zoned area, so on a December evening in Boise the knocking day ends before six.

Open that link today and the code site puts a note above 3-2-12: the section “has been AMENDED by new legislation (Ord. 29-26, passed 6-30-2026),” with the new text still to be folded in. Ordinance 29-26 itself was read on 13 September 2026. Apart from a new section title, every change it makes to the solicitor chapter is about selling food. Subsection B, the hours quoted above, is unchanged word for word, and 3-2-6 is not touched. For a rep on a residential route in Boise, nothing moves.

Boise Police tell residents that “all Solicitors operating in Boise must display a current city license,” and describe it as carrying the rep’s picture and the Boise City logo. Residents are being told to look for it, which means your reps should expect to be asked.

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Fort Collins, Colorado

One of the best-documented cards on the page, and the one whose numbers a manager can plan against. From the city’s commercial solicitor permit page: companies must get a City permit before door-to-door sales; the permit fee is $200 for up to four solicitors and $300 for five or more; solicitation hours are 9 a.m. to sunset only; and the company also needs a city sales tax license and must file a list of all its solicitors.

Two restrictions beyond the permit. All solicitation is banned at homes posting “No Trespassing” or “No Solicitation” signs, and commercial solicitation is prohibited at any address on the city’s no-solicitation list. A list is not a sign — your reps cannot see it from the sidewalk, so it has to be handled at the office before the route is cut. The provisions live in Chapter 15, Article IV of the City Code.

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Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee

Two permits, not one. The company holds a permit and every individual carries an ID badge, and the Metro Clerk’s solicitor center prints the costs: “$50 for the company permit,” “$63 check or money order payable to Metro Government” for the badge application and background check, and “the cost of the solicitation ID badge is $20.” Company permits are good for two years.

The display rule is stricter than most and worth reading to a new rep word for word: “A solicitor must conspicuously display his or her identification badge on the front of his/her person at all times while engaged in the act of soliciting.” On the front. Not in a pocket.

Nashville also keeps a no-solicitation list. Metro Code 6.64 defines it as the addresses where residents have asked that door-to-door commercial solicitation be prohibited, and defines a commercial solicitor broadly enough to include a volunteer. Permitted hours were not stated on the clerk’s pages — ask when you apply.

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San Antonio, Texas

Pick the right category or you will pay twice as much as you need to. The city’s peddler application lists “FOOT PEDDLER – $120.00, TRUCK PEDDLER – $180.00, CANVASSER – $60.00.” A rep taking orders for later delivery is a canvasser; a rep selling goods off his person is a peddler. Licenses run one year from the date of purchase.

The lead time is the thing to plan around: “Applicants for license shall file a written sworn application with the San Antonio Police Department at least five (5) days prior to the date of the initial contemplated sale.” The police clear the applicant first; only cleared applicants take the application on to Finance. A separate background-check fee applies. The rules sit in Chapter 16, Article IX.

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Dallas, Texas

Registration is required, and the chapter that requires it is titled Home Solicitations, which tells you how specifically the city has thought about this. Sec. 42-7 makes it an offense to engage in a home solicitation without a valid certificate of registration issued under the chapter. Sec. 42-8 sets the price and the clock: an application “must be accompanied by a nonrefundable registration fee of $50,” and “A certificate of registration expires one year after the date of issuance” (Ord. 29245, eff. 4-22-14). The registrant prominently displays the identification badge on his clothing, keeps the certificate on his person, and produces both on request.

The hours are the strictest on this page, and the holiday list is the part nobody remembers. Sec. 42-13 bars home solicitation “before 9:00 a.m. or after sunset of any day, Monday through Saturday; at any time on a Sunday; or at any time on New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day (Washington’s Birthday), Memorial Day, Independence Day (July 4th), Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, or Christmas Day.” That is a six-day week with ten dead days in it. The same section confines the approach to the front or main entrance, reached by public sidewalks and paved approaches — no side gates, no cutting across the lawn.

Then the sign rule, which is the section most likely to cost a team a complaint. Sec. 42-14 puts an affirmative duty on the rep: a home solicitor must examine the premises for a sign reading “NO SOLICITORS OR HANDBILLS,” or comparable language, before entering or leaving anything, and on finding one must leave immediately without disturbing the occupants. Soliciting at a posted address is an offense, and so is defacing the sign. A solicitor who has been let in must leave as soon as he is asked to.

The practical read: in Dallas, “I didn’t see the sign” is not a defense, because looking for it is the rule. Chapter 42 puts issuance in the hands of the chief of police, so the application goes to the police department rather than to a business-licensing counter — the department’s own permit page could not be retrieved on the day this was checked, so confirm the counter, its hours and the processing time with DPD before you promise anyone a start date.

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Fort Worth, Texas

Registration is required and it is free, which is a combination worth knowing before you decide Dallas and Fort Worth are one market. Sec. 20-143, in full: “It shall be unlawful for a door-to-door vendor as defined in § 20-141 of this code to engage in such business within the city without first registering with the city and obtaining a registration certificate. The registration certificate must be carried by the vendor when engaging in vending activities. No registration fee shall be charged for the issuance of a registration certificate.” (Ord. 15245, 9-17-2002; Ord. 21674-03-2015.)

It is filed with Development Services, not the police. The city’s door-to-door permit page says the application “must be completed and registered with the Development Services Department prior to any Door to Door solicitation,” and the city’s own permit checklist adds the two operational facts the code section leaves out: permits “expire 180 days from date of issuance,” and there is no knocking “at any residence before 9:00 a.m. and after 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time and after 8:00 p.m. during Daylight Savings Time, unless at the occupant’s request.” Two cities forty minutes apart, two registrations, two different clocks, and a six-month expiry on one of them that a spring hire will run into in the fall.

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Minneapolis, Minnesota

Registration rather than a paid license. The city’s solicitor licensing page defines a solicitor as someone who “takes orders for goods or services for future delivery” — which is most of what a fiber, solar or pest team does — and says plainly: “We do not charge a fee for a solicitor’s registration.” The city issues an ID card, and “you must carry and display this ID card when you are working.”

Worth knowing that the peddler category next to it is a different license with a different application, so registering the whole team as the wrong one wastes a week.

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Jacksonville, Florida

A permit is required and it does not come from City Hall. The city’s consumer affairs office states: “Section 250.701-711: Residential Soliciting and Peddling – a permit is required (with restrictions),” obtained through the Duval County Tax Collector’s Office. Sending a manager to the wrong counter is the standard Jacksonville mistake. The ordinance sits in Chapter 250, Part 7. Fee, hours and badge rules are in that part and were not confirmed from an official source on the day this was checked.

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Orlando, Florida

The requirement is stated in plainer language than most cities manage. Orlando’s solicitor’s permit page: “Individuals who want to knock on doors to sell, lease or rent consumer goods or services in the City of Orlando must get a permit.” Note individuals — this is a per-rep permit, and it starts with a fingerprinting appointment at the Orlando Police Department on West South Street, by appointment only. The permit is then printed by the applicant, who places his own photograph in the marked area and signs it.

Two things the page does not tell you and one it does. It does not publish the fee — “After your application has been processed, you will receive an invoice to pay the fee” — and it does not state permitted hours; it does say “There is a $10 fee for renewal.” What it does spell out is a conduct list, and two items on it are route rules rather than manners: a solicitor may not “enter private property when a ‘No Solicitors’ sign is posted,” and may not “continue to actively solicit someone after receiving a clear refusal.” The page cites no code section, so ask the City Clerk for one before you rely on any of it in writing.

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Phoenix, Arizona

The largest city on this page, and the only one whose answer is not “get a permit.” Chapter 23, Article XII of the Phoenix City Code regulates door-to-door soliciting without requiring one for it. Sec. 23-140 defines a solicitor as “any person who goes from door to door in a residential neighborhood, without an invitation, seeking to speak with one or more occupants thereof for a commercial purpose” (Ord. No. G-5593, 2011). That is your entire team, by definition, and none of the usual exemptions apply to a commercial rep.

The hours split the year in half. Sec. 23-141: “From April 1 through September 30, inclusive, no person shall solicit between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. of the following day,” and “From October 1 through the following March 31, inclusive, no person shall solicit between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. of the following day.” A summer shift in Phoenix is legal until nine at night; the same shift in November has to be off the street by seven. Anyone building a knock schedule off one season’s habit will get it wrong on 1 October.

Identification is required even though a permit is not. Sec. 23-142 makes it an offense to solicit without a government-issued identification document in your own name, and to “fail to promptly display for inspection to any person on the premises upon request” that document. Sec. 23-143 is the conduct section and it is unusually specific: no opening or passing through a gate that carries a no-soliciting or no-trespassing sign, no making physical contact with a window, and no falsely claiming to hold a business, regulatory or tax license. Violations are a class one misdemeanor under Sec. 23-144.

One honest caveat, because “no permit required” is the easiest thing on a page like this to get wrong. Article XII imposes no permit, and that is what the code says. It could not be confirmed from an official source that no other Phoenix license reaches a commercial door-to-door rep — a citywide business or tax license is a separate question from this article, and Sec. 23-143 itself contemplates reps who hold licenses. Treat “no permit” as true of the soliciting ordinance, and put the licensing question to the City Clerk before you brief a team on it.

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Peoria, Arizona

A Phoenix-metro suburb with a rule broad enough to be worth quoting, and a useful contrast with the city it borders. Sec. 11-82: any person operating as a solicitor, peddler, hawker, salesman or vendor of goods or services “who goes from house to house, or to only one (1) house, in the city, shall register with the police department and obtain a license showing such registration.”

Or to only one house. There is no threshold to fall under and no such thing as a quick unlicensed test of a neighborhood. The section carries Ord. No. 2020-10, effective 18 August 2020. Fee and hours were not confirmed — the city’s own application packet would not load on the day this was checked. Cross the city line from Phoenix into Peoria and the answer changes, which is the whole reason this page is organized by city.

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Las Vegas, Nevada

The only city on this page that needs two documents, and the card is deliberately half empty. LVMC § 6.62.020 requires that no person peddle or solicit in the city without first obtaining and maintaining both “a valid, unexpired peddler/solicitor permit or agent solicitation permit issued pursuant to this Chapter” and “a valid, unexpired work card issued pursuant to LVMC Chapter 6.86.” The work card is a separate application to a separate counter. And the same section puts the duty on the manager as well as the rep: “No principal of a business shall authorize or permit an agent to peddle or solicit on behalf of the business unless the agent has obtained and maintains a valid, unexpired work card and an agent solicitation permit.” (Ord. 5066 § 2 (part), 1998.) The full chapter sits in the Las Vegas Municipal Code.

What could not be read on 6 September 2026: the fee, the permit term and the location restrictions. The mirror that publishes Chapter 6.62 answered for the chapter list and for the section above, then stopped answering. The chapter does contain all three, so call Business Licensing with these section numbers in front of you: 6.62.110 (fee), 6.62.090 (permit term), 6.62.100 (bond — there is a bond section, which is unusual and worth asking about early), and 6.62.120 (location restrictions). Ask about the work card in the same call and confirm whether it has its own fee and its own processing time; assume it does.

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Utah: three of these cities run the same ordinance, and one state statute governs the paperwork

Provo, West Valley City and St. George do not merely resemble each other. They are running the same model ordinance, adopted at three different times: St. George in 2006 (Ord. 2006-09-003), Provo repealed and re-enacted in 2009 (Rep&ReEn 2009-50), West Valley City in 2018 (Ord. No. 18-24). All three run twenty-one sections in the same order under the same titles — purpose, no other city license required, definitions, exemptions, solicitation prohibited, registration, application form, written disclosures, when registration begins, issuance of certificates, form of certificate and identification badge, registry, nontransferability, denial and revocation, appeal, deceptive practices, “No Solicitation” notice, duties of solicitors, time of day, buyer’s right to cancel, penalties.

That is worth real money to a manager opening the Wasatch Front. Read one of them properly and you can read the next in ten minutes, and you can call a clerk already knowing the section number. All three set the same window, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And all three carry the clause that answers the question Phoenix leaves open — Provo 6.09.020(1) and West Valley 17-4-102(1) both read: “Registered solicitors and persons exempt from registration need not apply for, nor obtain, any other license, permit, or registration from the City to engage in door-to-door solicitation.” When a city says that in writing, the certificate is the whole answer and you can stop looking.

The limits of that shortcut, stated plainly. Same shape does not mean same details: the fee is exactly the part each city sets for itself, and it is the part hardest to confirm — Provo publishes $82 per rep in its fee schedule, the other two publish nothing at all. Salt Lake City is not on this model; it runs its own 5.64 series with different section numbers. And three cities is not a state. Lehi, Sandy, Ogden and Orem may or may not run the same text, and nobody should assume it until someone has opened their code and read it.

The Utah notice your contract has to carry, word for word

All three chapters send the seller to the same state statute for the cancel notice, and that statute is worth reading before your paperwork goes to print. Utah Code Title 70C, Chapter 5 is titled Home Solicitation Sales and was amended by Chapter 302 of the 2025 General Session. Section 70C-5-102 gives the buyer the right to cancel “until midnight of the third business day after the day on which the buyer signs an agreement or offer to purchase which complies with this chapter.” Section 70C-5-103 says what complying looks like: the statement of the buyer’s rights must appear “under the conspicuous caption: ‘BUYER’S RIGHT TO CANCEL’” and must read as follows.

“If this agreement was solicited at your residence or place of employment and you do not want the goods or services, you may cancel this agreement by mailing a notice to the seller. The notice must say that you do not want the goods or services and must be mailed before midnight on the third business day after you sign this agreement. The notice must be mailed to: _________________________ (insert name and mailing address of seller).”

Utah Code § 70C-5-103(2)(b), read 6 September 2026

Three consequences to brief a team on. First, the three days run from a signature on a document that complies — and “until the seller has complied with this section the buyer may cancel the home solicitation sale by notifying the seller in any manner and by any means.” Get the caption wrong and the window never closes. Second, once a sale is canceled the seller has ten days to tender back any payments and any note or other evidence of indebtedness (70C-5-104). Third, and this is the one that changes how you think about a fast install: “If the seller has performed any services pursuant to a home solicitation sale prior to its cancellation, the seller is entitled to no compensation” (70C-5-105).

One limit that is easy to read past. Chapter 5 sits inside the Utah Consumer Credit Code, and it defines a home solicitation sale as “a consumer credit sale of goods or services” solicited face to face at the buyer’s residence or place of employment. Financed sales — the ordinary shape of solar and alarm — are squarely inside it. A sale paid in full on the doorstep may not be, and the federal FTC Cooling-Off Rule is a separate three-day rule with its own scope. The statute does say that complying with an FTC notice requirement counts as complying with the Utah wording, but only “if compliance is totally consistent with this title.” Which of the two your contract is built for is a question for your own counsel, and this page cannot answer it.

What this page does not tell you yet

Every unconfirmed field above is a real gap, not a formatting choice. As of 6 September 2026 the fee is unconfirmed for Salt Lake City, Boise, Jacksonville, Peoria, West Valley City, St. George and Las Vegas; Orlando publishes only its renewal fee; and permitted hours are unconfirmed for eight of the sixteen. In each case either the official page did not state it or the page could not be retrieved. Those get filled in as they are verified, and each one arrives with its own source and date.

Some cities were worked on and left off, and it is worth naming them so their absence is not read as permission: Denver, Austin, Charlotte, Houston and Oklahoma City. In each, the primary source either could not be opened or turned out to cover something adjacent — in Austin’s case, charitable contributions rather than commercial sales. A city goes on this page when someone has read its ordinance, and not before.

Nothing here is a substitute for the clerk’s office, and nothing here is legal advice. Ordinances change, fee schedules change every budget year, and a reference checked in September is a reference checked in September. The date is on it for that reason.

How this was built

Every line came from a city’s own page or its published municipal code, opened and read on 4 September 2026; for Dallas, Fort Worth, Orlando and Phoenix on 5 September 2026; and for Provo, West Valley City, St. George and Las Vegas, plus the Utah statute, on 6 September 2026. Where a figure is quoted, it is quoted from the source, not from a summary of one; a number a reader would act on was fetched a second time and asked for word for word before it went on the page. Where a source could not be opened, the card says so. No entry was filled in from a secondary article, a listing site, or an inference from a neighboring city’s rules.

The city layer is only one of three, and the other two do not change when you cross a street: what a resident’s sign or registry entry obliges a rep to do, and the cooling-off rules that let a buyer unwind the sale after everyone has shaken hands. Permits, no-soliciting signs, and the rules nobody tells a new rep walks through all three. It says there that the specifics for your city are the ones that matter. This page is that specificity, for sixteen of them.

What to do with it today

Pull the card for the city you are opening next, call the clerk with the section number in front of you, and write the answer on the territory sheet before the first rep knocks — not after the first complaint.