Kent, WA Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

KCC 15.08.205 sets the city's temporary use regulations, and subsection (A) lists the specific temporary uses the city allows without going through the standard land use review process, including model homes, construction offices, seasonal sales lots, and, under subsection (A)(12), garage sales, moving sales, and similar activities for the sale of personal belongings. The frequency limit is explicit: a sale cannot run for more than three days in the same week, and the same property cannot host more than two such sales in the same calendar year. Subsection (A)(12) states plainly that no permit is required for a garage sale that stays within those limits.

That permit exemption sits inside the broader temporary-use framework in KCC 15.08.205(D), which otherwise requires an application to the planning department and a zoning permit before most temporary uses commence; garage sales are one of the few uses in subsection (A) exempted from that process entirely, alongside fund-raising carwashes under (A)(13). A garage sale is also permitted to post temporary directional signage without a sign permit under the related rule in subsection (A)(11), capped at two signs, 32 square feet each, and eight feet in height, for the duration of the sale. The temporary use regulations were most recently amended by Ordinance No. 4373 in 2020.