Chesterfield County, VA Special Events & Permits: Street Fair Rules (2026)

Section 6-1 defines a "vendor event" as a single-location gathering of five or more people selling goods such as crafts, antiques, art, souvenirs, produce, or prepared food, expressly including flea markets, craft shows, trade shows, bazaars, farm markets, art shows, festivals, sporting events and yard sales where vendors are present. Section 6-50(a) puts the licensing duty on whoever organizes, promotes or manages the event, not on the individual vendors. Under subsection (b), if the promoter obtains and pays for the vendor-event license, no participating vendor owes gross-receipts tax or the itinerant-merchant flat fee for sales made at that event; but if the promoter fails to file and pay, every vendor becomes individually subject to whichever license the chapter would otherwise require.

1 regardless of the vendor-event license. Subsection (c) sets the tax at $25 per event per site, or $100 annually for unlimited events at one site, and requires the promoter to give the commissioner of the revenue a list of participating vendors within one week after the event, or quarterly if the license is annual; the commissioner can require the list before the event for promoters based outside the county. Subsection (d) exempts nonprofit promoters from the license entirely, though a nonprofit can choose to buy one anyway, which then covers its vendors the same way a for-profit promoter's license would.