San Mateo County, CA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

San Mateo County's Ordinance Code addresses street food and merchandise vending in Chapter 5.08, Peddlers and Solicitors, first adopted in 1956. Section 5.08.090 states the operative right-of-way ban: no person may erect, place or maintain a stand, vehicle or object on any part of a public highway right-of-way in the county for the purpose of peddling from it. A companion rule, Section 5.08.080, separately bars peddling itself on any portion of a public highway right-of-way. Together the two sections function as a blanket prohibition on setting up a food cart, table, truck or any other sales stand on a county road shoulder, sidewalk strip or right-of-way in the unincorporated areas.

Away from the right-of-way, Section 5.08.030 requires anyone who peddles goods, wares or merchandise, including food, to hold a peddler's License, obtained after fingerprinting under Section 5.08.040 and a Sheriff's background investigation under Section 5.08.050. Section 5.08.120 sets the License term at six months for a $12.00 fee. Licensed peddlers must display a numbered metal badge on an outer garment while working, per Section 5.08.060, and Section 5.08.100 confines peddling and soliciting to the hours between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Section 5.08.110 exempts several categories from the License requirement: farm or ranch owners selling their own produce from a stand on their own property, Food establishments already licensed under Chapter 5.68, wholesale commercial travelers, and charitable organizations; self-employed military veterans are exempt from the fee only. Because that exemption covers fixed food establishments, not a stand placed in the right-of-way, a mobile food seller working the shoulder of a county road still runs into the Section 5.08.090 ban regardless of License status.