National City, CA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Food Truck Permits (2026)

Chapter 9.06 of the National City Municipal Code, Food Vending Vehicles, covers taco trucks, food trucks, mobile food preparation units and ice cream trucks. The permit rule is § 9.06.070. Each driver, and for mobile food preparation units each cook, must obtain a nontransferable permit from the finance department and display it in a conspicuous place in or on the vehicle during business hours. The applicant files two recent photographs, two inches by two inches, one kept on file and one permanently attached to the permit, and pays a nonrefundable fee of thirty dollars. The permit is in addition to the business license required by Title 6.

Vehicle certificate: under § 9.06.060 no one can operate a vehicle that lacks a valid certificate of inspection or does not display on each exterior side, in letters not less than four inches high, the owner's name or fictitious name, business address and telephone number, and the identifying number assigned by the county department of health services. The name must match the operator's city business license. Section 9.06.080 sets inspection at least semi-annually by the health officer, with a certificate valid for six months listing the food products that can be sold. Mobile food preparation units are inspected at least four times per year and receive a certificate valid for three months under § 9.06.110(S), and must bear the state insignia of approval.

Where you can sell: § 9.06.020 bars stopping or parking within five hundred feet of any school property boundary between seven a.m. and four p.m. on regular school days. Section 9.06.030 limits stops on a public thoroughfare to the time needed for an immediate sale, not to exceed ten minutes at that location or any succeeding location within three hundred feet. No sale or giveaway is allowed from a vehicle on public property, and private property stops are limited to sales to the owner, agents, customers or employees.

Operations: prepared food vending vehicles need a service room approved by the health officer under § 9.06.100. Mobile food preparation units must establish a headquarters with a paved parking area and waste dump station under § 9.06.110. Ice cream trucks face separate rules in § 9.06.115: sales only on streets with a speed limit of thirty miles per hour or less, between ten a.m. and seven p.m. or one-half hour after sunset, and biennial inspection by the city engineer with certification from the finance director.