BUSINESS LICENSES AND PERMITS
Finance Department


City Business License:

Anyone doing business in the city limits of Grass Valley, whether it be conducting business from a commercial building or from your home within the city limits and/or anyone coming into the city limits to conduct business is required to have a Business License from the City of Grass Valley. Persons that have no fixed place of business within the city will base their business license tax fee on the number of employees that are working in the city limits irrespectible of the number of hours worked.  The fee is based on the number of employees conducting business with in the city limits. For contractors located outside the city limits there are two options for the business license tax.  See the tax schedule below for details.  All business licenses expire on December 31 of the current year.  All businesses will receive a renewal notice prior to December. Penalties of 10% and interest of 1% per month apply to all renewals received after January 31.

Planning Requirements:

If you are starting a business in the City of Grass Valley, you need to check with the City Building & Planning Departments for any required permits or approvals. 

Downtown Business Association:

If your business is located in the Grass Valley Downtown Area, you may be in the Grass Valley Downtown Assessment District.  Yearly assessment fees are collected by the City of Grass Valley.  For more information call (530) 272-8315 or go to the Grass Valley Downtown Association section of this web site.

Business Tax Rates:

1. Service, Retail, Building Contractors located in the City limits and gross receipts over $10,000 per year:   Prorated Business License Fees are based on the number of months remaining in the year at the date of application ($30.00 minimum).

“Employee”  means all persons engaged in the operation or conduct of a business, whether as an owner, any member of the owner’s family, partner, agent, manager or solicitor and all other persons employed or working in the business eighteen hours or more per week.

Number of Employees	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21-25	26-30	31+ employees
January	63.00	126.00	189.00	252.00	315.00	378.00	12.60 x no. of employees
February	63.00	126.00	189.00	252.00	315.00	378.00	12.60 x no. of employees
March	52.50	105.00	157.50	210.00	262.50	315.00	10.50 x no. of employees
April	47.25	94.50	141.75	189.00	236.25	283.50	9.45 x no. of employees
May	42.00	84.00	126.00	168.00	210.00	252.00	8.40 x no. of employees
June	36.75	73.50	110.25	147.00	183.75	220.50	7.35 x no. of employees
July	31.50	63.00	94.50	126.00	157.50	189.00	6.30 x no. of employees
August	30.00	52.50	78.75	105.00	131.25	157.50	5.25 x no. of employees
September	30.00	42.00	63.00	84.00	105.00	126.00	4.20 x no. of employees
October	30.00	31.50	47.25	63.00	78.75	94.50	3.15 x no. of employees
November	30.00	30.00	31.50	42.00	52.50	63.00	2.10 x no. of employees
December	30.00	30.00	30.00	30.00	30.00	31.50	1.05 x no. of employees