Lansing, MI Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Food Truck Permits (2026)

Section 1250.02.10(a) defines mobile food vending broadly: any pushed, towed, or motorized cart or vehicle equipped to prepare or serve food or drink to the public, whether the food is cooked on-site or beforehand. Subsection (b) then folds every mobile food vending business into the City's general Peddlers, Solicitors and Transient Merchants licensing chapter, Chapter 844, "as amended." That chapter defines a "peddler" to include anyone selling meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, garden trucks or provisions from a wagon, automotive vehicle, or other conveyance, whether traveling place to place or selling from a fixed spot, language broad enough to reach a parked food truck.

Under that chapter, an applicant files a sworn application with the City Clerk (§ 844.03) that includes photographs, fingerprints, and a description of any vehicle used; the Chief of Police and City Treasurer investigate the applicant's business and moral character before the Clerk approves or denies the license (§ 844.04); a license fee set by Council resolution is due at filing (§ 844.05); and the licensee must post a $1,000.00 indemnity bond with the Clerk before beginning business (§ 844.13). A license expires one year from issuance (§ 844.17), and the same chapter's general hours limit, 8:00 p.m. or sunset (whichever is earlier) until 9:00 a.m., applies to licensees under §§ 844.01 to 844.18 (§ 844.12). A denied applicant may appeal to Council within 14 days (§ 844.15).