Whatcom County, WA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Whatcom County zones its unincorporated rural service centers under WCC Chapter 20.61, the Small Town Commercial (STC) District. Section 20.61.050 lists the uses permitted there, and subsection .053(1), under 'Restaurant/lodging type uses,' names 'eating and/or drinking establishments including restaurants and taverns, with or without on-site brewing facilities, and mobile food carts, including establishments with drive through facilities.' That sentence is what actually authorizes a mobile food cart to set up on an STC-zoned parcel: it is grouped with, not separated from, brick-and-mortar restaurants and taverns as a restaurant/lodging use.

The permitted-use status carries the same qualifier that governs every use on the § 20.61.050 list: in a rural community designation, a nonresidential use is only permitted if a use of the same type already existed in that same designation on July 1, 1990, per WCC § 20.80.100(1); new development there is limited to what is consistent with the area's character on that date in building size, scale, use or intensity. In a rural business designation, by contrast, all listed uses, mobile food carts included, are permitted without that grandfathering test. Outside STC-zoned rural community and business areas, and outside the separate public-market pathway that requires administrative approval for seasonal vendor stalls under § 20.61.050(.051)(8), the zoning title does not list mobile food carts as a permitted use, so vending on a Rural-zoned parcel or in another commercial district falls outside this specific authorization.