Framingham, MA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Food Truck Permits (2026)

Framingham City Code Chapter 409 requires anyone selling goods from a vehicle or door to door to get a license from the Board of License Commissioners, but § 409-2D(3) carves out a specific exemption: a food truck does not need that transient vendor license so long as it has been duly licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Standards under MGL c. 101 and by the Framingham Board of Health. The exemption is narrower than it sounds: § 409-2E defines a food truck as a motor vehicle truck from which the operator sells prepared or packaged food or beverages, and it expressly excludes ice cream trucks (governed separately under MGL c.

270, § 25 and 520 CMR 15.02) except when an ice cream truck is a prearranged, stationary vendor at a fixed event such as a farmers market or festival. So a mobile food unit's paper trail in Framingham runs through the state Division of Standards and the local Board of Health, not the Board of License Commissioners, and an operator who cannot produce both of those licenses is not covered by the exemption and falls back under the general § 409-1 license requirement. Chapter 409 is otherwise the general peddler and hawker ordinance: it also requires badges, vehicle number plates, and inspected weighing devices for other transient sellers, none of which apply once a truck qualifies as an exempt, state-and-Board-of-Health-licensed food truck.