How to Fill Out the North Carolina Mobile Food Unit Application (Field by Field, 2026)

This walks the actual application, field by field. For everything around it — the city layer, zoning, fire and what it all costs — start with your city guide: Charlotte or Raleigh.

Step 1 — Work out which document you are actually filling in

The form depends entirely on your county, not on the state. North Carolina writes the rule and the counties write the paperwork.

Both are plan review. In both counties, approval comes before you build or buy, and the finished unit is then inspected at the commissary before a permit is issued. Building first and applying second is the expensive order.

Step 2 — Decide whether you are a mobile food unit or a pushcart

This is settled by the menu, not by the vehicle, and it changes both your form and your fee.

Under 15A NCAC 18A .2671(a), only hot dogs may be prepared, handled or served from a pushcart — plus food that has been prepared, pre-portioned and individually pre-wrapped at a permitted establishment or commissary. Pushcarts also get exemptions: no toilet facilities, handwashing sink or running water required under .2671(c), no seating, no consumer self-service. Wake County's own comparison puts the practical difference bluntly — a hot dog cart is pulled behind a vehicle, averages four feet by four feet, and costs $700 to $4,000; a food truck is self-propelled, sixteen to twenty-three feet, and costs $35,000 to $150,000.

If anything on your menu goes from raw to cooked in front of the customer, you are a mobile food unit and everything in .2672 applies to you.

Step 3 — Charlotte: the ten-page Mecklenburg packet

The packet is one document, and every page is scored. Here is what each actually asks for.

Page 1 — identity, route and commissary. Unit name, vehicle tag, permit-holder type (LLC / Corporation / Individual / Other), website and social media links, route information, and daily hours for all seven days. The header lists the five things that must be attached: proposed menu, scaled drawing, manufacturer's specification sheets for all equipment, commissary approval form, and the proposed operational schedule. Page 1 also carries the fee statement and your signature.

Page 2 — cold storage, cooking, fire, hot holding, warewashing. The cold-storage box asks for the total number of refrigerators and freezers and total cubic feet — see the warning below. The fire block asks whether a ventilation hood is installed, whether it exhausts continuously to the exterior, whether there is an extinguisher, whether it is ABC or K, and who installed the gas lines. The warewash block asks the number of sink compartments and the size of each in length × width × depth.

Page 3 — hand sink, fresh water, wastewater, water heater. The water sections are arithmetic, not description:

• Fresh tank: length × width × depth in inches × 0.0043 = gallons. Mecklenburg sets a 30-gallon minimum.
• Waste tank: same formula, and it must be 15% larger than the fresh tank — that is state rule .2672(f), not a county preference.
• Waste outlet lower than the water inlet, and a different size and type of connection.
• A valve to drain plumbing lines for winterization.
• Water heater: tankless or storage tank, plus recovery rate, make and model.

The form also warns that custom-built sinks or food pans may not be approved as hand sinks, and that splash guards may be required where there is under twelve inches of separation from food, work or storage areas.

Page 4 — finishes, electrical, dry storage. Floors, walls and ceiling materials. Generator make and model, how refrigeration is maintained during transit, number of outlets, whether lines are shielded and lights shatterproof. Dry storage is split four ways: single-service items, food, chemicals, and employee personal items — list a location for each.

Pages 5–6 — the menu table. One row per food item, including every beverage, with columns for source, thaw, cut/wash/assemble, cook, cooling, cold/hot holding and reheating — each answered how and where, commissary or unit. There is a # of meals served per day box at the top.

Pages 7–8 — the floor plan. Page 7 is a worked example at ¼ inch = 1 foot with sixteen numbered items and a sample 144 sq ft unit carrying 30 gallons fresh and 35 gallons waste. Page 8 is blank for yours.

Pages 9–10 — commissary and shared-facility risk. Page 9 is signed by both you and the commissary owner, and commits the commissary to seven specific things including separate designated and labelled refrigeration, freezer and dry storage and a mechanism to track commissary usage. Page 10 is a four-risk acknowledgement — employee health policy, cross-contamination at shared equipment, contamination of food products, and unplanned loss of commissary access — signed by both parties again. Submit pages 9 and 10 alone when you later change commissary.

Step 4 — Raleigh: the Wake County portal, and the two checklists that come first

Wake publishes no application form. It publishes two preparation documents you complete on paper and then transcribe into the portal, which is why people arrive at the portal unprepared and lose their work.

Before you log in, complete both of these:

1. MFU Customer Application Checklist (March 2023) — three pages of yes/no items, each tied to a rule citation. Every piece of equipment gets the same five questions: make and model provided, shown and labelled on plans, spec sheet provided, ANSI listed or meets NC Food Code 4-1 and 4-2, and manufacturer's intended use met. It runs that gauntlet across hand sink .2672(d), utensil sink .2672(e), drainboards, hood, ventilation, storage, cold holding, prep surfaces, and a catch-all for anything else.
2. MFU Menu Item Attachment (March 2023) — the heavy one. For each ingredient or ingredient group, you name the prep, cook, reheat, transport and up to three temperature-holding pieces of equipment, tick commissary or MFU for each stage, and write a short narrative of how that ingredient is handled from purchase to service.

Then the portal, in six steps. Chrome is the recommended browser, and Wake warns twice: do not press the browser back button — it restarts the application — and use Save Draft only where it appears.

• Step 1, Locations — search by street number and name only, no street type. If your address is not found, use the closest one.
• Step 2, Type — the truck or cart name goes in the description box.
• Step 3, Contacts.
• Step 4, More Info — every field requires a response. No dashes in the emergency phone number. Pushcart applicants put N/A or 0 where questions do not apply. For water heater type, enter 0 for the type you do not have. For sink compartment size, give the vat only — not the drainboards, not the overall sink. The equipment list is built one Add Row at a time.
• Step 5, Attachments — scaled equipment drawings (top view required, side views recommended), manufacturer specification sheets with the model number identified, and the menu. Wake states that owner's manuals and anything showing a price are not specification sheets.
• Step 6, Review and Submit.

The Commissary Form can be attached here or emailed later to healthandsafety@wake.gov. It is a three-step document: you list your access times for each day of the week, the restaurant owner signs, and then — after the inspector has evaluated the commissary — you obtain the municipality's approval to discharge wastewater into its sanitary sewer and email that documentation back. That third step is easy to miss and it gates the permit.

Step 5 — The numbers both counties check on the unit

These come from the state rule, so they are identical in Charlotte and Raleigh. Wake publishes them as a Construction Evaluation Checklist; Mecklenburg checks the same items at its pre-operational inspection.

Plumbing

• Potable water system under pressure, furnishing hot and cold water to all food prep, utensil cleaning and handwashing — .2672(b)
• Water inlet ¾ inch or smaller with hose connection, protected, and kept capped unless being filled
• Tank vent terminating downward, screened or filtered
• Approved drinking-water hose, labelled for drinking water only
• Waste tank ≥15% larger than the water tank; waste outlet at least 1 inch with a shut-off valve; waste hose a different diameter from the water hose
• Water heater provided — .2672(c)

Sinks

• Handwashing sink with hot and cold water through a combination supply faucet, soap and single-service towels — .2672(d)
• At least a one-compartment sink big enough to submerge, wash, rinse and sanitise utensils, with splashback protection and drainboards — .2672(e). If no food is prepared on the unit and all utensils are cleaned at the commissary, the equipment sink is not required.

Construction

• Exterior weather-resistant; floors, walls and ceilings smooth, durable, easily cleanable and nonabsorbent
• Windows, doors and vents protected by screening or effective use of fans — .2672(a)
• Grease hood and grease catch pans on both internal and external exhaust if you cook
• Equipment elevated or sealed in place

On the day — Wake also checks that a stem thermometer and sanitiser test strips are present and the hand sink is stocked, and the evaluation must happen at the commissary. An inspection conducted anywhere else can be made to happen again.

Step 6 — What you actually pay

Every figure below is from the county's own published schedule or form.

The $120 is statutory, not local: G.S. 130A-248(d) requires DHHS to charge $120 for each permit issued and to reassess it annually for permits that do not expire. Miss it and subsection (d1) adds a $25 late fee after 45 days, permit suspension after 60, and a $150 reinstatement fee. Neither county collects it, so it arrives as a bill you were not expecting.

One more, if you pay Mecklenburg by card: effective 1 July 2026 a 2.5% processing fee is added to all card payments.

Step 7 — The commissary is a rule, not a recommendation

Rule .2670(4) requires every pushcart and mobile food unit to operate in conjunction with a permitted commissary and to report to it at least daily for supplies, cleaning and servicing, with storage for all supplies provided there. Both counties state on the form that a private residence cannot be used.

The two counties differ only in timing. Mecklenburg wants the signed agreement inside the application packet. Wake will take your application without it but will not issue a permit until the form is in and the commissary has been evaluated. If you need one, our commissary letter guide covers what a kitchen owner is actually agreeing to.

Worth knowing before you sign anything: .2670(2) and (3) require you to give the permitting county a list of counties and locations where the unit will operate, and to notify each additional county's health department before you start operating there. That is what makes a Mecklenburg or Wake permit travel — and it is a notification you owe, not a courtesy.

The five that actually get North Carolina applications rejected

1. Using another county's form. There is no statewide form, and Wake has no form at all. A Mecklenburg packet does not get you into the Wake portal.
2. Menu supplied as a menu. The prep table and the Menu Item Attachment are the document being reviewed. A printed food list is not a substitute.
3. Owner's manuals passed off as spec sheets. Wake says so explicitly: manuals and anything showing a price are not manufacturer specification sheets. Every listed item needs one with the model number identified.
4. Tank maths that does not clear 15%. A 30-gallon fresh tank needs at least 34.5 gallons of waste capacity, with the waste connection lower and of a different size.
5. Building the truck first. Both counties review plans before construction, and both inspect the finished unit at the commissary. A retrofit to pass is the most expensive way to get permitted.

Sources: Mecklenburg County Application for a Mobile Food Unit or Pushcart Permit, Rev. 3.6.26 (official) · Mecklenburg County BOCC Environmental Health FY 2026 fee schedule · Mecklenburg County Environmental Health — Plan Review · Wake County MFU Customer Application Checklist, March 2023 · Wake County MFU Menu Item Attachment, March 2023 · Wake County Submittal Guide for Food Truck and Pushcart Permits, 2025 · Wake County MFU Construction Evaluation Checklist, October 2022 · Wake County Plan Review Matrix (fees) · 15A NCAC 18A .2600 Rules Governing the Food Protection and Sanitation of Food Establishments · N.C.G.S. § 130A-248 · Mecklenburg County Environmental Health 980-314-1620 · Wake County Environmental Health & Safety 919-868-9244. Wake's plan review fee table is dated December 2021 and is corroborated by the March 2023 customer checklist; confirm current amounts before you pay. Verified 26 August 2026.