Santa Rosa, CA Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

040 treats garage sales as an exempt temporary activity: because they are short-term and low-impact, the City does not require a Temporary Use Permit for them at all, unlike car washes, pop-up retail, seasonal sales lots, or temporary auto sales, which all need one. That exemption comes with a hard frequency cap written directly into the exemption itself. " Two limits operate together: a duration cap (no more than three consecutive days per sale) and a frequency cap (no more than three separate sales in any rolling 12-month window at that address).

The exemption is tied to the property being residentially zoned and to the goods being owned by the household that lives there, so a sale of goods brought in from elsewhere, or a sale run out of a business or a home occupation, falls outside this exemption and would instead need to qualify under the Temporary Use Permit standards in Subsection D or be treated as an unpermitted commercial activity. Because a garage sale under these terms is exempt rather than permitted, there is no application fee, no Director sign-off, and no posted notice requirement tied to this specific provision; the tradeoff for that convenience is the strict cap on how often and how long the sale can run.

Residents who want to sell more frequently, for more consecutive days, or as part of a larger neighborhood or commercial event need to look at the broader temporary-use and events provisions in the same chapter, several of which (rummage sales, secondhand sales, and swap meets) are covered separately and carry their own day and permit limits when conducted on non-residential property.