Hartford, Connecticut: 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: It depends on what the rep sells, and the code does not settle it for services. Hartford's Chapter 27 licenses an "Itinerant Vendor": anyone in a temporary or transient business, in one location "or traveling from place to place, selling goods, wares or merchandise" — including "on foot" (27-1). That needs a business license from the Department of Development Services, approved by the chief of police (27-28). But the definition covers goods, wares or merchandise only — it says nothing about services — and the article says it does not apply to "bona fide sales of goods, wares and merchandise by sample for future delivery when full payment is not required at the time of solicitation" (27-26). So a rep who takes an order for fiber, pest or security service and collects nothing up front looks to be outside it; a rep who sells and hands over goods at the door looks to be inside it. The code has no separate solicitor or canvasser chapter. Confirm with the city before you knock — use the City Clerk Call Sheet.
• Where it comes from: Itinerant vendor licenses are issued by the Director of the Department of Development Services or their assign and approved by the chief of police (27-28(a)).
• Fee: If the itinerant vendor license applies: $250.00 per year or portion thereof for the vendor, plus $20.00 for each additional agent working under that vendor (27-30). No fee is published for order-taking for services, because the code has no license for it.
• Hours you may knock: Licensed itinerant vendors may operate between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. (27-33(b)). The code sets no knocking hours for sellers who fall outside Chapter 27.
• What the rep carries: A licensed vendor wears an identification badge on the left breast reading "Licensed Vendor, Hartford, Conn." with the license number and year (27-32), and must be able to present required permits and licenses on request (27-33(a)). Nothing is prescribed for sellers outside Chapter 27.
• What takes the time: Police chief approval of the license (27-28(a)). The code gives no processing time.
• Code: Hartford Code of Ordinances, Part II, Municipal Code, Chapter 27, Itinerant Vendors, Street Vendors, and Food Trucks (27-1, 27-26, 27-28, 27-30, 27-32, 27-33; enacted by Ord. No. 003-21, June 14, 2021, replacing the former peddler chapter); Chapter 21, Licenses and Permits Generally; Chapter 3, Advertising (3-2).
• Worth knowing: Flyers: handbills or other advertising matter may be left at a house only "by placing them inside screen doors, under doors or in the jambs of doors" (3-2). Street Vendor operations are not permitted on residential or neighborhood streets, so do not set up a table or sell from a vehicle there. Chapter 27 points to the state hawkers and peddlers law, Connecticut General Statutes 21-36 and following.
• Read it yourself: Hartford Code of Ordinances, Chapter 27, Itinerant Vendors, Street Vendors, and Food Trucks · Hartford Code of Ordinances, Chapter 21, Licenses and Permits Generally · Hartford Code of Ordinances, Chapter 3, Advertising (3-2 handbills) · Municode search of the Hartford code (solicitor) · checked 19 September 2026

Ask the clerk, and write the answer down: Does a rep going house to house taking orders for a service (internet, pest control, alarm monitoring), with no payment at the door, need the Chapter 27 itinerant vendor license? If a rep sells equipment (solar, security hardware) by sample for later delivery and takes no full payment at the door, does the 27-26 exemption apply? If the license is needed: is it $250.00 for the company plus $20.00 per rep as an agent, or $250.00 per rep? Does the city enforce No Soliciting signs or keep a do-not-knock list? Clerk’s name ______________   Direct line ______________   Date called ______________