Spokane County, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Pawnbrokers (2026)

Spokane County Code Chapter 7.04 regulates every pawnbroker doing business outside the cities and towns of Spokane County. SCC 7.04.020 requires a license before operating and denies licensure to any individual, or any association or corporation whose managing agent is, under eighteen. SCC 7.04.030 sets the license fee at fifty dollars, issued by the Spokane County Auditor and expiring December 31st of the year issued regardless of when in the year it was purchased.

Pawnbrokers must keep a permanent, legibly written English-language transaction record under SCC 7.04.040 covering the date, the clerk's name, the customer's name, age, address and physical description, a description of the item pledged (including watch case/works numbers or jewelry markings), the amount loaned, the pawn-ticket number, and government-issued photo identification. Each transaction also requires either a two-megapixel digital photograph of the customer taken within five feet or an inked right-thumb fingerprint. SCC 7.04.050 keeps that record open to inspection by the sheriff or prosecuting authority during business hours and requires retention for three years. SCC 7.04.060 obligates pawnbrokers to transmit a transcript of every transaction to the Spokane County Sheriff's Office by noon the following business day.

Property taken as security cannot be sold until ninety days after the redemption period expires (SCC 7.04.080, 7.04.100). If the Sheriff's Office notifies a pawnbroker that an item is reported stolen, SCC 7.04.095 requires an immediate hold: twenty-one days on verbal notice, one hundred twenty days on written notice, renewable in further 120-day increments.