As of May 2023, the City of Newport has started requiring business licenses for businesses operating or selling goods within city limits. You will add the City of Newport as an endorsement on your Department of Revenue’s business license. Through this new ordinance, (Ordinance 2111), we will be able to obtain public safety and emergency contact information for existing and new commercial businesses within the City. The cost for this City endorsement is $20.
Follow this Link to apply for your Endorsement: https://dor.wa.gov/manage-business/city-endorsements/newport
Some of the definitions for individuals and businesses needing a license:
- Owning, renting, leasing, maintaining, or having the right to use, or using, tangible personal property, intangible personal property, or real property permanently or temporarily located in the City.
- Soliciting sales
- Making repairs or providing maintenance or service to real or tangible personal property, including warranty work and property maintenance.
- Providing technical assistance or service, including quality control
- Installing, constructing, or supervising the installation or construction of real or tangible personal property.
- Collecting current or delinquent accounts
- Picking up and transporting tangible personal property, solid waste, construction debris, or excavated materials.
- Meeting with customers or potential customers, even when no sales or orders are solicited at the meetings
- Training or recruiting agents, representatives, independent contractors, brokers, or others.
- Pest control services, landscaping, architectural services, security system services, surveying, and real estate services.
- Delivering goods in vehicles owned, rented, leased, used, or maintained by the person or another acting on its behalf.
Businesses that may not need a license if no other activities are performed inside the City:
- Meeting with suppliers of goods and services as a customer
- Meeting with government representatives in their official capacity, other than those performing contracting or purchasing functions.
- Attending meetings, such as board meetings, retreats, seminars, conferences, or other meetings wherein the person does not provide training in connection with personal property sold.
- Renting tangible or intangible property as a customer when the property is not used in the City.
- Conducting advertising through the mail.
Exemptions for the business license fee:
- A governmental entity including public and private elementary, secondary, high schools, and universities
- A person who delivers newspapers or periodicals
- A person soliciting orders from retail establishments for the delivery and sale of goods, wares, and merchandise to retailers for resale unless located within the City
- A person or organization conducting a nonprofit enterprise when the enterprise is operated without private profit, for a public, charitable, educational, literary, fraternal, or religious purpose. (You will have to obtain a business license but you will not be charged for one).
- A person under the age of 18 engaged in business, including but not limited to activities such as babysitting, lawnmowing, or similar activities.
- A person selling his or her own produce
- A person that the City is forbidden to tax by law
- A Landlord
- A person or business whose annual value of products, gross proceeds or sales, or gross income of the business in the City is equal to or less than $2,000 and who does not maintain a place of business within the City. However, a person or business who qualifies for this exemption must still submit a business license registration to the City, the fee for this submission is $0.00.
More definitions can be found in our municipal code found in Chapter 5.05.