Yuba City, 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 — each person soliciting or taking orders house to house for goods or future services registers with the City Clerk before starting (5-13.01), and is fingerprinted and photographed by the Police Department first (5-13.03). Section 5-13.01 is written for solicitation that is interstate commerce; those reps are excused from the business license fee in Chapter 4 of Title 3 but still register. Failing to register is a misdemeanor (5-13.08).
• Where it comes from: The City Clerk takes the registration (5-13.01) on a form prescribed by the Police Chief (5-13.02). The Police Department posts an online Application for Solicitor Permit on its Permits & Registration page.
• Fee: $10 for each registration or renewal (5-13.01), plus $1.50 per person for police fingerprinting and photographs (5-13.03). Those figures are in the code as enacted; the city's current fee resolution was not found. A company not covered by the interstate-commerce rule pays the city business license instead: the Finance page lists a 2026 base service fee of $61 per year plus gross receipts tax by category.
• Hours you may knock: Not published. Chapter 13 sets no knocking hours, and a search of the code for solicitor and peddler found no other hours rule.
• What the rep carries: Chapter 13 names nothing to carry. The business license chapter says any license holder must produce and exhibit the license when asked by an authorized official or by any person being solicited (3-4.22).
• What takes the time: Fingerprint cards go to the FBI and the California Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, and no one may solicit until verification comes back (5-13.04, 5-13.05). Renewal means fingerprinting again (5-13.06). Anyone arrested for a felony or two misdemeanors is barred (5-13.07(a)). The form asks for three Yuba City property owners as character references and an arrest record (5-13.02). No processing time is published.
• Code: Yuba City Municipal Code, Title 5, Chapter 13 — Soliciting and Canvassing (5-13.01 to 5-13.08); business license tax in Title 3, Chapter 4. Municode shows the code codified through Ordinance No. 007-25, adopted March 4, 2025 (Supp. No. 10).
• Worth knowing: Registration renews every January 1 for a rep who keeps working in the city (5-13.01).
• Read it yourself: Yuba City Municipal Code, Title 5, Chapter 13 — Soliciting and Canvassing · Yuba City Municipal Code, Title 3, Chapter 4 — Licensing · Yuba City Municipal Code — landing page · Yuba City Police Department — Permits & Registration · Yuba City Police Department — Application for Solicitor Permit (online form) · Yuba City Finance — Business License · checked 23 September 2026

Ask the clerk, and write the answer down:

• Whether the $10 registration and $1.50 fingerprint fee in 5-13.01 and 5-13.03 are still the amounts charged, or what the current fee is
• What hours door-to-door sales are allowed, and the code section
• Whether a fiber or service sales company counts as interstate commerce under 5-13.01, or needs its own business license too
• How long the FBI and state fingerprint verification usually takes

Clerk’s name ______________ Direct line ______________ Date called ______________