Senate Bill 373 Orders Clark County and Its Cities to Build a Multi-Jurisdictional Business License

A contractor with jobs in Henderson, North Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County has historically needed a separate local business license from each of them. Senate Bill 373 of the 83rd (2025) Session, sponsored by Senator Steinbeck, is the Legislature's instruction to stop that pattern from being the permanent default.

SB 373 does not itself issue a single license. What it does is mandatory in a different way: it requires the board of county commissioners in any Nevada county with a population of 700,000 or more, and the governing body of every incorporated city inside that county, to adopt an ordinance establishing a multi-jurisdictional business license and to cooperate on an interlocal agreement putting it into effect. The Legislative Counsel's Digest states that the population threshold currently reaches only Clark County.

The bill took effect October 1, 2025. Below is what it requires, what it deliberately leaves to local governments, and what has not changed at all, including your Nevada State Business License. If you are forming or restructuring an entity that will operate across city lines, this belongs in the same conversation as business formation.

What Senate Bill 373 Requires

SB 373 adds a new section to Chapter 244 of NRS, which governs counties, and a parallel new section to Chapter 268 of NRS, which governs incorporated cities. The two sections mirror each other.

Each covered board of county commissioners and each covered city governing body must adopt an ordinance for the establishment of a multi-jurisdictional business license within the county and each incorporated city located in it. The ordinance must, without limitation:

• Establish a system for issuing the license for the categories of business set forth in the ordinance;
• Include the requirements for obtaining the license;
• Include a revenue-sharing structure for participating jurisdictions; and
• Include any other requirement necessary to establish the issuing system.

Beyond adopting an ordinance, each body must cooperate with the others to enter into an agreement under NRS 277.080 to 277.180, Nevada's interlocal cooperation statutes, establishing the license for any specified category of business. That agreement must set out the purposes, powers, rights, obligations and responsibilities, financial and otherwise, of the county and each city that joins.

How Categories Get Chosen

SB 373 does not name a single industry. It leaves the categories to local negotiation, but it tells the negotiators what to weigh. Before agreeing to create a multi-jurisdictional license for a category, the county and cities must consider whether their existing requirements for businesses in that category:

• Provide for the same or substantially similar fees for an application or a renewal application;
• Establish the same or substantially similar renewal periods; and
• Regulate the business in the same or a substantially similar manner with respect to any time, place or manner requirements.

That test is a sensible filter. Categories where five jurisdictions already do roughly the same thing are easy to merge. Categories where one city imposes distinctive hours, distance or land-use restrictions are harder, and the statute does not force those together.

This is not entirely new ground. Existing law at NRS 244.33501 and NRS 268.0951 already required certain boards and city governing bodies to enter into an agreement establishing a multijurisdictional business license for certain contractors. SB 373 takes that narrow precedent and directs it to be extended by ordinance to categories the jurisdictions agree on.

Which Governments Are Covered

The population trigger of 700,000 or more currently reaches only Clark County. Inside Clark County there are five incorporated cities: Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and Mesquite. Each has its own governing body and each is covered by the new section added to Chapter 268 of NRS.

One local detail worth knowing: much of the Las Vegas Strip is not in the City of Las Vegas. The resort corridor sits in unincorporated Clark County, in the townships of Paradise and Winchester, and businesses there license through the county rather than through the city. That is exactly the kind of jurisdictional seam SB 373 is aimed at. A vendor servicing accounts on the Strip, in downtown Las Vegas and in Henderson currently touches three separate licensing authorities.

Counties below the 700,000 threshold, including Washoe County, are not covered by the mandate. Their existing authority to regulate trades, callings, industries, occupations, professions and businesses under NRS 244.335, NRS 266.355 and NRS 268.095 is untouched.

The State Business Portal Requirement

The provision with the longest reach may be the least discussed. Once an interlocal agreement creates a multi-jurisdictional license, SB 373 requires the county and each city governing body to integrate the application with the state business portal under paragraph (c) of subsection 3 of NRS 75A.100.

NRS 75A.100 directs the Secretary of State to provide for the establishment of a state business portal to facilitate interaction among businesses and governmental agencies in Nevada by allowing businesses to conduct necessary transactions in one place. The statute also directs the Secretary of State to establish common business registration information to be shared among participating agencies for licenses, permits and tax collection.

Issuance must also comply with the existing procedural safeguards for license denial, suspension and revocation found at NRS 244.33506, NRS 244.33507 and NRS 244.33508 for counties, and NRS 266.358, NRS 266.362 and NRS 266.368 for cities. In other words, a combined license does not strip a business of the hearing rights attached to a local license.

What Has Not Changed

Three things are worth stating plainly, because SB 373 has been read more broadly than it reads.

Your Nevada State Business License is separate and still required. Under Chapter 76 of NRS, most businesses operating in Nevada must obtain a state business license from the Secretary of State. The fee is $500 for corporations and foreign corporations and $200 for other applicants, with a $100 penalty for a late renewal under NRS 76.130. SB 373 concerns local licenses only and does nothing to that obligation.

Professional and regulatory licensing is untouched. Contractors, gaming licensees, real estate professionals and regulated trades still answer to their own boards and commissions. A business operating in a regulated industry should read this development alongside its administrative licensing obligations rather than instead of them.

Nothing is automatic yet. SB 373 requires ordinances and an interlocal agreement. Until a given category of business is actually covered by an adopted ordinance and a signed agreement, businesses continue to license jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

What Nevada Businesses Should Do Now

The practical work is preparation, not paperwork. A few steps make sense while the ordinances are being drafted:

• Map your footprint. List every jurisdiction where you hold a local license today, with renewal dates and fees. A lapsed license in a city entered years ago is easy to overlook.
• Check your category. Whether your line of business is a natural candidate depends on how similar the five cities' and the county's rules already are. That is a question worth answering before an ordinance is finalized rather than after.
• Watch the public comment windows. Ordinances and interlocal agreements are adopted in open meetings. Trade associations and individual businesses can be heard on category definitions and on the revenue-sharing structure.
• Align your entity structure. If you operate several jurisdictions through separate entities, a consolidated license may make a simpler structure viable. Entity choice, registered agent obligations and contract assignments all interact with licensing.

Our business law group works with Nevada companies on formation, structure, contracts and licensing compliance. This page describes Nevada law in general terms as of its publication and is not legal advice about any specific business. To discuss how the coming ordinances may affect your operations, call 702-382-2500 or visit 325 South Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas.

Terms you may hear

Multi-jurisdictional business license

A single local license that authorizes a business in a specified category to operate within a county and each incorporated city located in that county, issued under a system established by ordinance and an interlocal agreement.

Interlocal agreement

A cooperative agreement between Nevada public agencies entered into under NRS 277.080 to 277.180. SB 373 requires such an agreement to set out the purposes, powers, rights, obligations and financial responsibilities of each participating jurisdiction.

State business portal

The online system the Secretary of State must provide for under NRS 75A.100 so businesses can conduct transactions with Nevada governmental agencies in one place. SB 373 requires the new license application to be integrated with it.

Revenue-sharing structure

The allocation of license fee revenue among the county and the participating cities. SB 373 makes this a mandatory element of the ordinance rather than an optional term of negotiation.