Brockton, MA Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

Sec. 9-8 of the City Code requires anyone who wants to hold a yard or garage sale to get a license from the city clerk first; the fee is eighteen dollars. Each licensed sale is capped at two consecutive days and must happen on the premises where the licensee actually lives. The ordinance also limits what can be sold: only personal property belonging to the applicant or family members residing at the address, nothing brought in from outside or resold as a business. A resident is allowed only two such sales in any calendar year, so a third attempt without a fresh calendar year is unlicensed.

Applications must reach the city clerk at least twelve hours before the sale date, giving the city time to process the license before the first customer shows up. The Police Department gets notified of every application on file and is charged with enforcing Sec. 9-8, meaning officers, not just code enforcement, can act on an unlicensed or noncompliant sale. Because Sec. 9-8 sits inside the same chapter as Brockton's junk-shop and secondhand-dealer licensing, the twelve-hour advance filing and police notification exist for a similar reason those trades are tracked: to give the department a record of what's changing hands at a given address before it happens.