Folsom, California: door-to-door solicitor permit

Partly read: the permit answer is sourced, but the fee or the hours could not be read from the city’s own pages. The clerk questions below cover the gap.

• The answer: Yes — a registration certificate for each rep, a $1,000 surety bond, and a city business license certificate on top. Every person without a fixed place of business or residence in Folsom who sells, solicits or takes orders for goods, wares, merchandise, periodicals, subscriptions or photographs from house to house has to register (9.76.020), and separate registrations must be obtained for each solicitor even when they all work for the same company (9.76.040). Folsom has no peddlers chapter in its business title; the rule sits in Title 9, Public Peace, Morals and Safety, under Consumer Protection. Title 5 is separate and the chapter says so itself.
• Where it comes from: The city clerk takes the application and refers it to the chief of police for approval or disapproval. The clerk issues nothing without the police chief's approval and without the surety bond on file (9.76.030). The clerk may waive the chapter's provisions if the applicant holds a valid, unrevoked county permit for the same solicitations (9.76.090).
• Fee: Two separate money items and only one of them is printed. The registration fee in the code is $.50 a day (9.76.020) — a figure that traces to the prior code and has not been restated since. The surety bond is $1,000, filed with the city clerk to assure full compliance with the chapter and the integrity of the applicant; where a company has more than one solicitor, one bond in that amount may cover all of them (9.76.030, 9.76.040). The business license tax is set annually by council resolution each April and is not published in the code (5.04.320), so call the Finance Department for the current solicitor rate.
• Hours you may knock: Folsom does not publish knocking hours. Chapter 9.76 runs nine sections and names no clock time. There is no peddler or solicitor chapter in Title 5, whose chapters are business licenses, residential garage sales, taxicabs, bingo, cardrooms, adult related businesses, massage, cable, film production, entertainment permits and large family day care. Ask the clerk before you set a knocking window.
• What the rep carries: The certificate of registration, carried on the person at all times while house-to-house solicitation is being made (9.76.070). The business license certificate has its own posting and keeping rule in the business title (5.04.220).
• What takes the time: Fingerprints and a bond are the gate. The chief of police may not approve or disapprove an applicant until the applicant has been fingerprinted (9.76.040), and the clerk may not issue until the $1,000 surety bond is filed (9.76.030). The certificate is issued for a period of not less than 30 days (9.76.070). "Residence" and "fixed place of business" each mean 30 continuous days immediately before the application is filed, so a team that just arrived cannot claim either (9.76.050, 9.76.060).
• Code: Folsom Municipal Code Chapter 9.76, Solicitation (9.76.010 to 9.76.090), which cross-references Title 5, Chapter 5.04, Business Licenses. The 9.76 sections carry prior code citations (§§ 9962 to 9970); Chapter 5.04 derives from Ord. 762 § 2 (part), 1993.
• Worth knowing: Chapter 9.76 says plainly that it is additional to and not in lieu of any other city ordinance on house solicitations (9.76.080), and Title 5 requires a business license certificate of anyone conducting business in the city, including a business located outside the city limits. Title 5 defines a "solicitor" as someone going from residence to residence selling or offering to sell for future delivery, separately from an "itinerant vendor" who sells on the spot — worth knowing because the two carry different license classes. A separate business license certificate is needed for each branch, with a business license tax of $10 for each additional branch or location (5.04.100). A disabled veteran honorably discharged and unable to earn a living by manual labor who engages in itinerant vending or soliciting is exempt from the business license tax (5.04.110(5)).
• Read it yourself: Folsom Municipal Code Chapter 9.76, Solicitation · Folsom Municipal Code Chapter 5.04, Business Licenses · Folsom Municipal Code Title 5, Business Licenses and Regulations · City of Folsom Business License Certificates · checked 20 September 2026

Ask the clerk, and write the answer down:

• What the business license tax comes to for a door-to-door sales company under the current April council resolution
• Whether the $.50 a day registration fee is still what the clerk charges, and how it is billed for a multi-week blitz
• Whether the city enforces any hours for knocking, since the code publishes none

Clerk’s name ______________ Direct line ______________ Date called ______________