Indianapolis, IN Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Chapter 961 of the Code of Indianapolis & Marion County licenses retail sales of food, frozen food, flowers and merchandise from carts and stands on public ways. Sec. 961-102(a) makes it unlawful to sell any of those items from a cart on city property without a vendor's cart license, and subsection (b) requires a separate license for every individual cart; subsection (c) clarifies a cart vendor doesn't also need a transient-merchant license. The license administrator issues three license types under Sec. 961-201: franchise zone licenses, commercial transaction zone licenses, and special event licenses, each accompanied by an application fee set in Sec.

131-501, with $50 of a denied application retained for processing costs under Sec. 961-204. Sec. 961-211 layers on detailed operating rules: carts can't hawk or cry out sales, can't use sound-amplifying devices outside commercial transaction zones, and can't sell to anyone in a vehicle. Placement is tightly restricted: no cart in a public park or plaza without written authorization from the agency that controls it, none within 50 feet of a restaurant's front door on the same side of the street, none in a street, median or alley, and none within 20 feet of a bus stop, taxi stand, crosswalk, driveway or intersection, or within 6 feet of a building entrance or window.

Carts must sit on a sidewalk at least 14 feet wide from curb to property line, be staffed by no more than three people, and never be left unattended or permanently affixed to anything.