Fort Lauderdale, FL Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Article VI of Chapter 15 defines a secondhand dealer as any person dealing for profit in secondhand goods, with or without a fixed place of business, and expressly includes pawnbrokers and dealers who lend money against a pledged secondhand good. The goods list is closed: precious metals, jewelry, diamonds and gems, audio and video electronics, photographic equipment, machinery, tools, items powered by electric motors, calculators, musical instruments, typewriters, firearms, and fishing rods and reels. Section 15-201 exempts registered nonprofit, religious and charitable organizations, garage sales, antique shows with no permanent city location, dealers whose primary business is titled vehicles or boats, trade-ins credited toward new goods of greater value, sales at city-licensed auctions, transactions outside city limits, and goods bought from another licensed secondhand dealer.

Section 15-206(5) also excuses a business with fewer than fifteen secondhand transactions, exchanges or trades per calendar year. Section 15-221 makes operating without a license unlawful. The application goes to the director of the development services department or a designee on a city form, signed and notarized, and lists owners or officers and their residences, years at the current address, prior employment, any felony conviction, the kinds of materials handled, and the premises. The license fee is $250 under Section 15-223, and each license runs one year from October 1 through September 30.

It is numbered, names the licensee and the location, and authorizes business only at that place. Section 15-226 stacks it on top of any other license the law requires. Separately, Section 15-207 bills each pawnbroker and secondhand dealer, except antique dealers, a $250 yearly police inspection fee plus $1.50 per transaction, due on the invoice date. Under Section 15-227, no license issues to anyone convicted within ten years of theft, larceny, embezzlement, fraud, receiving or dealing in stolen property, burglary or a violation of F.S.

812.015, and a licensee cannot employ such a person without restored civil rights. Employee names and addresses go to the police department within ten days of hire.