Dearborn, MI Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

Section 12-137 requires anyone selling goods at a garage, lawn, attic, rummage, or flea market sale (defined in § 12-136) to first obtain a license from the city clerk. " Each license carries its own fee from the Sec. 12-6 schedule: $10 for a first garage sale, $15 for a second, $20 for a third, and $25 for a fourth in the same year, plus an optional $10 fee to list the sale on the City Clerk's online garage-sale map, which displays only the address and date range for up to seven days before the sale ends.

Section 12-140 sets the operating conditions: no sale may run "for a period longer than three days," except the clerk may issue a flea-market license for up to six months to a business operating in an industrially zoned district, subject to revocation for cause; the license itself must be displayed in the front window or another spot clearly visible from the street. Section 12-141 exempts several categories from the whole article, including court-ordered sales, sales conducted by public officials in their official capacity, sales advertising ten or fewer specifically named items, and bona fide charitable, educational, cultural, or governmental organizations, though the organization bears the burden of proving it qualifies.

Article V sets no sign-specific or frequency-specific penalty, so a violation of the four-sale cap or the licensing requirement falls under the Code's general penalty at § 1-9.