Washoe County, NV Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

013 defines a "garage and/or yard sale" as the sale of personal property from a residential dwelling unit's property, and exempts sales that do not exceed 72 hours in duration or occur on the same property more than twice in any six-month period from the county's general business license requirement. 015(1)(e) reclassifies the activity as "engaging in business," making a license mandatory. 00 and is valid for no more than 31 days in a calendar year, so a resident who needs a license still must confine the licensed sale window to 31 total days per year, not run continuously.

017. Because the exemption is a built-in safe harbor rather than a permit, no application, fee, or inspection is required for a compliant two-sale, 72-hour-or-less pattern; the county only steps in once a sale exceeds either threshold. Sales structured to dodge the limit, such as back-to-back "72-hour" sales with no real break, can still be cited as unlicensed business activity, since the ordinance measures duration and frequency as independent tests. The rule applies only inside the unincorporated area; Reno and Sparks set their own garage sale rules under their separate municipal codes, so a sale near a city boundary should confirm which jurisdiction's line it falls on before assuming the county threshold applies.