Syracuse, NY Garage & Yard Sales: Frequency, Duration & Permits (2026)

The rule sits in Chapter 9, Article 8 of the city's Revised General Ordinances, which otherwise requires anyone dealing in secondhand goods to hold a license from the commissioner of finance. Section 9-98 carves out an exemption for casual sales: the sale must be held on property occupied as a dwelling by the seller or owner (or leased by a charitable or nonprofit group), the goods offered must be owned by the occupant or seller, no single sale may run longer than 96 consecutive hours, no more than three sales may occur at that address in a twelve-month period, and none of the merchandise can have been bought for resale or taken on consignment for resale.

A sale that satisfies all five conditions needs no license and no fee. A sale that breaks any one of them, whether by running a fourth sale in a year, keeping tables up past the 96-hour mark, or reselling items acquired specifically to flip, converts the operation into a secondhand dealer business under Section 9-99, which requires an annual license from the commissioner of finance (or a one-week limited-duration license), a $250 annual fee or $50 daily fee under Section 9-101, and a Syracuse Police Department criminal background check under Section 9-100.

Secondhand dealer licenses run on the calendar year, expiring December 31 regardless of issue date. The exemption text has been amended repeatedly since 1962, most recently by General Ordinance No. 12-2012, which set the current 96-hour and three-sale caps and the resale-item carve-out.