Jefferson Parish, LA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)
Key Facts
- Pawnbroker flat license fee
- $1,000 per year
- Retail sales cap before extra license
- $100,000 in gross receipts
- Extra license basis above cap
- gross receipts + 1/3 of money loaned
- Bicycle dealers must
- report every sale to the sheriff
- General secondhand goods dealers
- licensed under standard retail rate, § 35-174
Summary
Jefferson Parish charges pawnbrokers and other secondhand money lenders a flat $1,000 annual occupational license, covering resale of pledged goods up to $100,000 in gross receipts. Secondhand bicycle dealers face a separate duty: reporting every purchase and sale to the sheriff's office.
Sec. 35-179(b). Pawnbrokers and persons lending money on wages or salaries. For each and every pawnbroker, or person keeping a loan office and engaged in lending money on articles pawned or pledged, and for each and every money broker, money lender, or person lending money on, or purchasing time, wages, or salaries of laborers, clerks, or other wage earners or other persons, whether the same be earned or unearned, and whether the business is conducted in an office or otherwise, a license based on a flat fee of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) shall be required. Persons licensed under this category may conduct retail sales, provided that the gross receipts from such sales do not exceed one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00). if the gross receipts from retail sales exceed one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00), a retail license is required.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: Code of Ordinances: Supplement 20 Update 2).
Full Breakdown
Sec. 35-179(b) puts pawnbrokers, loan-office operators, and anyone lending money on pledged articles, wages, or salaries into the parish's flat-fee occupational license category rather than the percentage-of-receipts formula used for ordinary retail merchants under Sec. 35-174. The license costs $1,000 a year regardless of size. Because a pawnshop's business model includes reselling unredeemed pledges, the same license lets the operator run retail sales as long as gross receipts from those sales stay at or under $100,000 a year; once retail sales cross that threshold, the operator must also obtain a standard retail dealer's license under Sec.
35-174, priced on the combined gross receipts from retail sales plus one-third of the total money loaned. Jefferson Parish has no separate, parish-wide "secondhand dealer" or "junk dealer" license category beyond this pawnbroker rule and the standard retail dealer license that applies to any resale business, including used-goods stores, based on gross receipts. The one other secondhand-specific duty in the code targets bicycles: Sec. 36-243 requires anyone in the business of buying or selling new or secondhand bicycles to report every transaction to the sheriff's department, including the counterparty's name and address, the bicycle's make and description, its frame number, and its license plate number if any, a rule that dates to the parish's 1961 Code Sec. 4A-10 and exists to help recover stolen bikes.
Violations & Fines
Operating a pawnshop or loan office without paying the required flat-fee license, or running retail resale above the $100,000 threshold without the additional retail dealer's license, violates Jefferson Parish's occupational license chapter and exposes the business to collection action by the parish's revenue office and denial of further business activity until the fee is paid. A secondhand bicycle dealer who fails to report a purchase or sale to the sheriff's department separately violates Sec. 36-243.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a pawnshop license cost in Jefferson Parish?
Does a pawnshop need a second license to sell unredeemed items?
Do secondhand bicycle dealers have special reporting duties in Jefferson Parish?
Is there a general 'secondhand dealer' license category in Jefferson Parish?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Jefferson Parish
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