Bloomington, IN Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

010 requires any person or corporation engaged in buying, selling, trading or otherwise acquiring used goods, items and merchandise for business purposes to procure a secondhand dealer license from the city controller's office. The chapter exempts dealers primarily in clothes, cars, books, watercraft, farm equipment, CDs or LPs, along with garage sales, estate sales, transient sales lasting no more than twenty-four hours, charitable or political organization sales, occasional buyers whose used-goods purchases stay under $5,000 in a calendar year, and thrift, consignment, antique stores or malls.

020 requires a written application stating the applicant's name and place of business, and for a corporation the name and address of its officers; the license is issued for the calendar year and no fee is charged, a record being kept by the controller. 040 requires every licensee to hold purchased goods for at least seven business days before reselling them, giving stolen-property owners a window to recover items. 050 exempts interstate commerce transactions from the chapter. 060 requires licensees to electronically report each article sold or received to the Bloomington Police Department within two business days, including a description, serial numbers, and the seller's name, signature, address, date of birth and government identification number, transmitted at no charge to the licensee through the department's designated agent.