Licensing requirements, police reporting formats, state regulations, and loan calculation references — all in one place.
Pawn shop compliance is the set of legal obligations a pawnbroker must meet to operate — obtaining state and local licenses, recording every transaction, reporting transactions to law enforcement (often electronically through systems like LeadsOnline), applying the interest-rate caps and holding periods set by state law, and screening customers against OFAC lists. The specific rules vary by state and county, and meeting them is the shop owner's responsibility. Pawn shop software supports compliance by capturing the required data, generating reports in the correct format, and applying each state's rules automatically — the guides below cover licensing, police reporting, and loan calculations.
What you need to operate legally — US and Canadian pawn licensing requirements by jurisdiction.
Electronic police reporting requirements vary by state and county. PawnSmarts handles the formats automatically.
Reference tables for calculating loan due dates correctly across leap and non-leap years.
PawnSmarts ships pre-configured for 48 states — the correct pawn ticket fields, interest calculation rules, holding periods, and police-reporting formats are set up before you start. You don't research or program state rules manually; they're already loaded. See the full list of states we serve.
For police reporting, most states require electronic submission through LeadsOnline or a similar system. PawnSmarts exports in the correct format for your jurisdiction automatically. For state-specific detail, see our US licensing guide.
Businesses that must report but don't make pawn loans — secondhand dealers, gold buyers, scrap recyclers — can meet the same obligations with Report To Leads, our reporting-only terminal at $49/month: licence-scan customer capture, buy tickets with serials and photos, and automatic LEADS Online submission, without the pawn features.
Yes. Each state's interest tiers, holding periods, and ticket requirements are pre-loaded. You don't configure them manually. If your state's rules change, we update the configuration for you.
PawnSmarts supports LeadsOnline export and the reporting formats required by most state and local jurisdictions. See the police reports overview for details, and state-specific pages (such as Florida and Oklahoma) for jurisdiction-specific requirements.
No. The Professional plan supports multi-location operation with each location running under its own state's rules from a single account. See States We Serve for availability.
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Questions? [email protected] · 800-710-6184