Doña Ana County, NM Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Chapter 268 defines a secondhand dealer as a person engaged in purchasing, trading, bartering or exchanging secondhand goods, and it treats secondhand dealers as certificate holders alongside pawnbrokers (§ 268-3). Secondhand goods covered include jewelry, gold, silver and other precious metals, precious stones, consumer electronics such as phones, computers, GPS units and cameras, and hand, power and gardening tools; goods a certificate holder buys from another certificate holder who already reported the item are excluded. Section 268-4 requires the business registration fee certificate set out in Chapter 154, Article I.

Section 268-7 requires the same daily transaction report used for pawnbrokers, including item description, serial number, date and time, and the seller's identifying information and photo ID, made available for Sheriff pickup within three days and uploaded daily to LeadsOnline; § 268-10 requires every item to carry a tag matching it to its report. Section 268-9(B) specifically bars a secondhand dealer from selling or disposing of secondhand goods within 15 days of receiving them, a shorter hold than the 90-day pawn hold. Section 268-12 exempts junk dealers, used motor vehicle dealers, antique dealers in items over 50 years old, coin/bullion dealers (for their coin business only), garage sales, nonprofit thrift shops, licensed gun dealers (for their gun business only), and consignment stores from the whole chapter.