Norfolk, VA Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

Section 38-111 of the Norfolk Code sets a flat three-consecutive-day cap on any single yard or garage sale, with no exception based on the type of goods sold or the number of participants. Section 38-113, added by Ordinance No. 47,402 in 2018 when the city repealed its older permit-based system, separately caps how often a property can host sales at all: no more than four yard or garage sales per calendar year, running January 1 through December 31, regardless of who is conducting them. The two limits stack, so a household could run four separate three-day sales across a year but could not exceed either cap individually.

These frequency rules sit alongside Sec. 38-107, which bars any yard or garage sale from starting before 12:00 noon on a Sunday, though display of sale items before that time is not itself prohibited. Section 38-108 further blocks more than two people from different addresses from combining to hold a joint sale at one residential-zone site, and Sec. 38-109 bars fraternal or civic organizations from holding sales in residential zones at all. Places of worship are exempt from the whole article for sales held no more often than once every sixty days under Sec.

38-106, and the Article VI exemption list elsewhere in Chapter 38 separately excuses any garage-sale operator holding fewer than ten sale weekends a year from the secondhand-dealer permit rules.