What permits do you need to open a food truck in Salt Lake City?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 10 records listed for a food truck in Salt Lake City, UT, 6 apply to every business of this type and 4 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

4 of the 10 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 3 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

General Business Licence: A base Commercial licence fee of $193/year (risen from $187 before September 2025), plus $28/year for every full- or part-time employee once the business has more than one. Several specific trades owe a further named-category fee on top — see the individual industry records below.

Mobile Food Business Licence: Standard mobile food business: $103/year per vehicle, in addition to the base Commercial licence and employee fees. Reciprocal mobile food business (a truck or trailer already licensed by another Utah city under the state's reciprocal mobile-vending framework): $103/year per vehicle, with no base licence fee required.

Mobile Food Service (Food Truck) Permit: Food Truck Permit Tier 1: $350/year; Tier 2: $500/year. A new or remodeled mobile unit separately owes a $755 plan review fee (Mobile Food Cart, Truck, Trailer). A separate Food Cart Permit (for carts and shaved-ice stands rather than trucks/trailers) is priced by risk level instead: Risk Level 1 $230, Level 2 $275, Level 3 $385.

Food Handler Card: Fee set by the training provider and the local health department — not independently confirmed here

Permits for a food truck in Salt Lake City, UT come from 5 separate offices: City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing Division, Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau), Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Utah State Tax Commission, Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, Regulatory Services Division. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing DivisionIssues 2 permits on this page: General Business Licence, Mobile Food Business Licence451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-6644www.slc.gov/Finance/business-licensing
• Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau)Issues 1 permit on this page: Mobile Food Service (Food Truck) Permit788 East Woodoak Lane (5380 South), Murray, UT 84107 · (385) 468-3845www.saltlakecounty.gov/health/food-protection
• Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial CodeIssues 4 permits on this page: General Business Licence (not required by Utah), Certificate of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Renewal160 East 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 530-4849corporations.utah.gov
• Utah State Tax CommissionIssues 1 permit on this page: Sales and Use Tax Licence210 North 1950 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84134 · (801) 297-2200tax.utah.gov
• Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, Regulatory Services DivisionIssues 2 permits on this page: Food Service Establishment Permit (local, not state), Food Handler Card4315 South 2700 West, Taylorsville, UT 84129 · (385) 332-1499ag.utah.gov/regulatory-services/retail-food-regulatory-program

Mandatory for anyone conducting business — even temporarily — within Salt Lake City's corporate limits, per the Finance Department's own description; the licensing review itself is what confirms zoning, fire-code and building-code compliance rather than a separate stand-alone certificate. A commonly repeated '$100 non-refundable application fee' appears on several third-party small-business sites but does not match the city's own Consolidated Fee Schedule, which is used here instead.

A background check on the owner/driver and a certificate of insurance are both required. Operation is limited to specific zoning districts (M-1, M-2, D-1 through D-4, and G-MU) within the public right-of-way, capped at two hours per location unless a Transportation Division permit extends it. This is the city's licence to operate the vehicle as a business; the Salt Lake County Health Department's own separate Food Truck Permit (recorded below) additionally licenses the food-safety side and is required on top of this one.

Requires attending a Mobile Food Service Class, a signed Commissary Agreement (a residential kitchen is not allowed), and a Restroom Agreement, all completed before the plan review stage. This is the food-safety half of Salt Lake City's food-truck requirements; the city's own separate Mobile Food Business licence (recorded above, from the Finance Department) additionally licenses the vehicle as a business and is required on top of this county permit.

No fee, because Utah's state-level structure is entity registration rather than business licensing — the Division of Corporations frames the question as whether another unit of government requires registration, not as a licence the state itself grants for the right to operate. A city or county licence is the thing that actually functions as a general business licence for most Utah businesses.

Fifty-nine dollars, the same figure whether the entity is domestic or registering in from out of state. A corporation costs the identical $59 to form.

The same $59 as an LLC, and a nonprofit corporation costs the same again.

Eighteen dollars a year, the same figure for an LLC or a corporation, due in the entity's own anniversary month rather than a single date shared statewide. Missing it is not immediately fatal: the statute gives sixty days from the division's notice to cure before administrative dissolution follows, and reinstating after dissolution costs $54 for an LLC or a corporation. A dissolved entity's name, and any assumed names filed under it, cannot be reused by anyone else for two years afterward.

No fee — the state's own combined business and tax registration form lists a line for the sales and use tax licence alongside every other tax account a business might need, and nowhere on the form does a dollar amount attach to it. Once registered, a business is assigned a filing cycle, monthly, quarterly or annual, and must file on that cycle even in a period with no sales.

No state fee, because a food establishment engaged primarily in service for immediate consumption is placed by the state agriculture department's own published guidance under the jurisdiction of the local health department where it operates, not under the state's own retail food registration. Utah has thirteen local health department jurisdictions, each setting its own fee under a shared statewide minimum sanitation standard. Confirm the figure with the specific local health department rather than assuming a statewide number, because none exists.

A food handler card is required, and it must come from a provider on the state's own approved list — the agriculture department publishes that list directly and states plainly that a card from an unapproved source will not be accepted by a local health department. What is not recorded here as confirmed fact is a specific dollar figure or validity period: both a roughly $15 fee and a three-year term are widely repeated online, but neither could be verified against the rule's own text, so no number is asserted here. Confirm the current fee and term with a specific approved provider or the local health department before budgeting for it.