Whatcom County, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

36 of the Whatcom County Code defines two license categories that are easy to confuse with the pawnbroker license in the same chapter. 010(A) defines "junk dealer" as any person, firm or corporation within Whatcom County, outside any incorporated city, who collects, buys, sells, exchanges or deals in worn-out or discarded materials, loose rubbish and odds-and-ends commonly known as junk, listing old bottles, rags, rope, scrap iron, steel, brass, copper, lead, tin, zinc, glass, lead pipe, wire, castings, metal fittings, tools and used machinery parts purchased for resale rather than for use in the dealer's own business.

010(C) separately defines "secondhand dealer" as anyone who buys and sells secondhand personal property, sells it at auction or private sale for a commission, or takes secondhand property in trade as consideration for merchandise, expressly including dealers who buy or offer for sale secondhand automobile parts, tires, batteries or accessories. 010(A), are expressly exempted from the licensing requirement. A business that both buys scrap metal and resells used goods can fall under both definitions at once, but pays only the single license fee set by the fee schedule.