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

Sec. 951-401 defines a salvage or scrap metal dealer broadly to include junk shops, junk yards, junk stores, auto wreckers, scrap metal processors, salvage yards, and dealers in junk that buy, sell, or exchange ferrous metal (containing iron or steel) or nonferrous metal (copper, brass, aluminum, bronze, lead, zinc, nickel and their alloys) that has served its original economic purpose. Sec. 951-402 makes it unlawful to engage in that business without a license from the license administrator, and Sec. 951-406 bars transferring the license to anyone other than the person it was issued to.

The annual fee is $568 for each place of business (Sec. 951-404; Sec. 131-501), and the application must include a non-refundable filing fee, proof the applicant is at least 18 or a corporation registered to do business in Indiana, the business address, the name of the person managing the operation, and, for a corporation, its officers, directors, and shareholders owning more than 10 percent of its stock (Sec. 951-403). Licenses run one year and must be renewed with a new application and fee (Sec. 951-405).

Dealers cannot buy from an intoxicated person, a minor, or anyone known or suspected of disposing of property unlawfully, and cannot purchase specific regulated items, including manhole covers, electric light poles, guardrails, traffic signs and signals, funeral markers, historical markers, railroad equipment, or any metal marked with a government, utility, cemetery or railroad name, without a receipt, bill of sale, or other proof the seller owns it or is authorized to sell it (Sec. 951-407). Every purchase must be logged with the seller's name, address, date of birth, ID photo, a photo of the seller's face, and photos of the metal showing any serial numbers, kept for five years and open to inspection by police or the division of construction and business services (Sec. 951-408).