Charlottesville, VA Soliciting & Door-to-Door: Solicitor Permits (2026)

City Code § 14-17(d), Subclassification C of the Class II retail-merchant license, defines a peddler broadly: anyone who carries goods from place to place and sells or offers to sell them to retail customers, anyone who sells from a vacant lot or other place without a regular business location, and even a merchant with a regular store who personally or through agents sells and delivers goods away from that store. Every peddler operating in the city must obtain and maintain a current city business license and pay an annual license tax of $125, separate from the general BPOL gross-receipts rates that apply to a fixed retail store.

Every vehicle used in peddling must conspicuously display the peddler's name, street address, city and state of residence. The ordinance exempts peddlers of wood, meat, milk, butter, eggs, poultry, fish, oysters, game, vegetables, fruit or other perishable family supplies that the peddler grew or produced personally, and it exempts wholesale merchants delivering to retail merchants they are already licensed to supply. Perishable-goods peddlers claiming that exemption must still file an annual certificate under oath with the Commissioner of the Revenue describing where the goods are grown and carry a stamped copy while peddling.

Vendors at the official city market instead obtain a producer's certificate from the Department of Parks and Recreation under § 14-17(d) rather than a peddler's license.