Madison
- Permit: Yes. A Solicitor’s Permit from the City Clerk, and it is personal: “Each solicitor or canvasser must secure a personal permit.” It covers going house to house to canvass for orders for goods or “services of any character” (9.14(1), (7)).
- Fee: $110 per applicant, nonrefundable, paid to the City Clerk with the application to cover the investigation; annual renewal is also $110 (9.14(3)(k)). Renewing after December 31 adds a late fee of 25 percent of the license fee (9.14(12)). The Clerk’s fee schedule lists Solicitor at 110.00.
- Hours you may knock: The solicitor’s permit section sets no knocking hours (9.14). The clock rule in the chapter is written for registered transient merchants, who may not call at a dwelling between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. except by appointment (9.17(7)(a)1), and 9.17 excludes house-to-house sellers permitted under 9.14. Ask the Clerk whether the city holds solicitors to the same window.
- Checked: 18 September 2026
Milwaukee
Partly read: the permit answer is sourced, but the fee or the hours could not be read from the city’s own pages.
- Permit: Yes — a Mobile Seller's License from the City Clerk's License Division.
- Fee: $150 for a Mobile Seller's License, good for 12 months, expiring one year from the date of issuance, per the License Division's page. The page lists no separate badge or registration fee; the fee chapter of the code (Chapter 81) was not read.
- Hours you may knock: A Common Council ordinance passed 9/20/2011 (File 110540, effective 10/7/2011) created 95-15-6: no door-to-door in-person solicitation of any residential occupant for any commercial or fundraising purpose between 9:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. That is the ordinance as passed in 2011; the current code text was not read, so confirm it still stands.
- Checked: 19 September 2026
City not on this list? The City Clerk Call Sheet has the eight questions to ask any city.