Portsmouth, VA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Food Truck Permits (2026)

Under City Code Sec. 1-26, anyone responsible for a mobile food facility must obtain a health department permit from the public health department before beginning operation, the permit is non-transferable to another party, and holding it does not excuse the operator from any other applicable city or state requirement. Sec. 1-27 layers on a separate tracking-decal system: all food vendors using push-carts, trailers or mobile trucks must get a tracking decal before they can even obtain a business license from the commissioner of revenue. New vendors must first complete a Commonwealth of Virginia permit application and pay both the permit application fee and, if applicable, a plan review fee.

Permitted vendors must then request a new decal every year, before March 31, and pay an annual administrative tracking fee; a vendor entering the system partway through the year for six months or less still pays the full fee. The decal has to stay visible to the public: mounted on the cart itself for push-cart vendors, or on the front right side of the vehicle's bumper for mobile trucks. Sec. 1-28 further requires every mobile food facility to operate from a commissary, a permitted catering establishment, restaurant, or similar facility, under a signed commissary agreement, and to report there at least daily for cleaning and servicing.

A narrower exception in Sec. 1-29 lets units selling only prepackaged, non-hazardous foods skip the water, sewage, cleaning and sanitizing requirements as long as that cleaning is done at the commissary.