Restaurants and food trucks.
Confirm the authority for your exact address. Some cities run their own health division, and building, planning, fire, sewer/grease and business-license approvals are separate even when Bergen County Department of Health Services, Consumer Health Program (acts as the local health agency, performing inspections/plan review for ~30 contracting municipalities); retail food LICENSES are issued by each municipality issues the health permit.
Cities with their own health department: Englewood. Food businesses inside these cities apply to the city health department (with its own fees and rules), not Bergen County. Confirm which authority covers your exact address.
About 2,653 food & drinking establishments operate here, serving a population of about 957,736. (U.S. Census 2023 estimate; County Business Patterns 2022, NAICS 722)
In NJ, retail food licensing is a MUNICIPAL function; the county department of health provides inspection and plan-review services to contracting towns but does not itself sell the operating license; The annual license fee is set by each municipality's ordinance and is not published county-wide; typical NJ municipal retail-food license fees run roughly $100-$500/yr depending on the town and establishment size; Confirm the exact fee with the specific municipality (or the Bergen County Health Dept for towns it serves); Left null; no single county fee exists
Turnaround: Not published; A plan review / pre-operational inspection is generally required before a municipality will issue a new retail-food license
Under State Sanitary Code Chapter 24 (N.J.A.C. 8:24), establishments post a color-coded placard: Satisfactory (white), Conditionally Satisfactory (yellow), or Unsatisfactory (red).
Mobile/food-truck licensing is also municipal in NJ; A mobile vendor typically needs a retail food license from the town where the unit is based plus separate approvals in each additional municipality it operates in, and must work from an approved commissary; Fees vary by town and are not published at the county level; left null
Fees/payment and forms are on the department site; application steps vary by concept — see the checklist below.
U.S. Census 2023 population; County Business Patterns 2022 (NAICS 722).
A code-compliant kitchen in Bergen County needs more than the health permit — these approvals are handled by separate offices. Confirm current requirements with each.
| Building / plans | City of Hackensack – Building, Housing & Land Use Dept (Construction/Building) |
| Fire marshal | Hackensack Fire Department – Bureau of Fire Prevention · 201-646-7800 |
| Zoning / planning | City of Hackensack – Zoning (Building, Housing & Land Use Dept) |
| Sewer / grease | Bergen County Utilities Authority (BCUA) – Industrial Pretreatment (grease/FOG) |
| Business license | City of Hackensack – City Clerk (mercantile / business licensing) |
Health-department plan review looks for specific, code-compliant fixtures. Compare spec-filtered options, then confirm counts and sizes with your local requirements. See the full list in what equipment a commercial kitchen requires.
Permit costs and rules change at the county line — compare Bergen County with its neighbors.
This is a typical sequence — confirm the exact sequence with your authority having jurisdiction.
Official plan-check requirements: plan-check guide →