Get a street trading licence

The rules here are for England and Wales.

Find out whether the rules apply where you want to trade

Street trading means selling, or exposing or offering for sale, any article in a street. That includes living things, and it covers a stall, barrow, cart or van as much as someone standing with a tray. A street includes any road, footway, beach or other area the public can enter without paying, and a motorway service area.

A council controls street trading under Schedule 4 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 only if it has resolved to adopt that Schedule. Some councils work under their own local Act instead, which can apply Schedule 4 with changes. Ask the council for the area where you want to trade which rules it uses.

Find out how the council has classed your street

Once it has adopted Schedule 4, a council can designate any street in its area as one of three kinds. The council must publish its intention in a local newspaper first, and allow time for written representations.

• a prohibited street, where no street trading is allowed
• a licence street, where you need a street trading licence
• a consent street, where you need the council's street trading consent

Schedule 4 does not restrict trading on a street the council has not designated. A licence and a consent differ in how easily the council can say no and in how long they last:

Check whether you are outside the rules

These are not street trading under Schedule 4, so you need no street trading licence or consent for them:

• trading in a market or fair whose right to be held comes from a grant (including a presumed grant), an enactment or an order, where the organiser sets your terms
• trading as a pedlar under a pedlar's certificate
• selling newspapers or periodicals without a stall or receptacle, or with one no more than 1 metre long or wide and 2 metres high, covering no more than 0.25 square metres of ground and not standing on the carriageway
• selling as a roundsman
• trading at a petrol filling station, or at a shop or in the street next to it as part of the shop's business

A pedlar must trade on foot and carry their goods, so if you want a pitch you need a street trading licence or consent instead. Ask the market organiser which permission their market trades under before you pay for a pitch.

Apply to the council

Apply in writing to the council for the area where you want to trade.

The council cannot grant a licence or consent to anyone below the minimum age, or for a road covered by a roadside sales control order. Giving false information in an application is an offence.

The council sets a fee it considers reasonable, and the fee can differ by length of licence, street and goods. It can ask for part of the fee as a deposit, repaid if you are refused. For a licence, it can also charge you for services such as collecting refuse and cleaning the street. There is no national fee, and no national waiting time.

What the council can decide

On a licence street the council must grant your application unless one of its listed grounds for refusal applies. It can refuse if:

• there is not enough space in the street for you to trade without undue interference or inconvenience to people using it
• there are already enough traders in the street, from shops or otherwise, selling the goods you want to sell
• you want to trade on fewer days than the minimum the council has set for that street
• you are unsuitable, because of a conviction or for another reason
• you have persistently failed to pay fees or charges for an earlier licence or consent
• you failed without reasonable excuse to make reasonable use of a previous licence

Instead of refusing, the council can grant a licence for fewer days, shorter hours or fewer kinds of goods than you asked for. On a consent street the council can grant a consent if it thinks fit, so it does not have to give you listed grounds.

Before refusing, varying or revoking a licence, the council must write to you giving its grounds. You then have 7 days to ask for a chance to make representations. Employees or helpers can work for you without a licence of their own.

Appeal a licence decision

You can appeal to the magistrates' court within 21 days of being notified if the council refuses or revokes a licence, or varies its main terms, and the only grounds it gave were your unsuitability, unpaid fees or failure to use a previous licence. Refusals because of space or too many traders carry no appeal. A variation or revocation does not take effect until the appeal period ends or the appeal is decided.

If you apply to renew before your licence expires, it stays valid until the council grants the new one or the time for appeal has passed. A consent has no equivalent right of appeal.

Trade within your terms

A licence names the street, the days, the times and the goods you may sell, and sometimes a fixed place in the street. The council can add reasonable conditions, such as the size and type of stall, your name or licence number on the stall, and limits on leaving rubbish. A consent can carry conditions to prevent obstruction, danger, nuisance or annoyance, and the council can vary them at any time. Selling from a van, barrow, cart or stall on a consent street needs the consent to say so.

Trading in a prohibited street, trading without authority in a licence or consent street, and breaking the main terms of a licence are all offences. It is a defence to show you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence.

Other permissions to check

Sell food or drink and you must also register as a food business with your council at least 28 days before you start trading. Registration is free and cannot be refused.