The Maine Agenda › Outdoors in Maine

Clam License Rules by Town in Greater Portland, Maine

Published July 30, 2026 · 13 min read

If you live in Portland and you want to dig a bucket of clams, there is no license for you to buy. Not because you are exempt, and not because the city forgot. Portland does not run a municipal shellfish program at all, and neither does South Portland, and neither does Cape Elizabeth.

That is the first thing to understand about clamming here, and almost nothing written about it says so. Maine's Department of Marine Resources keeps a directory of every town that manages its own flats under an approved shellfish conservation ordinance. There are 58 towns in that table. Within 25 minutes of downtown Portland, the ones that appear are Brunswick, Chebeague Island, Cumberland, Falmouth, Freeport, Harpswell, Scarborough, and Yarmouth/North Yarmouth as a joint program. Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth are not there. So the town line does not just change the price. It changes whether a license exists.

And where one does exist, the programs share almost nothing. The resident fee ranges from $16 to $50. The senior waiver starts at 62 in one town and 70 in another. Three towns let a helper dig alongside you and two do not mention helpers at all. Two towns do not publish their prices at all. The license year starts in January in one town, April in another, May in a third and July in a fourth.

Here is what each ordinance actually says. Shellfish is not the only outdoor activity here where the town line decides the answer rather than the price: firearms discharge works the same way, and we read all eleven codes in hunting rules by town.

The state sets the floor, the town sets everything else

Under Title 12, section 6671, a Maine municipality can license shellfish harvesting only through a conservation ordinance that the Commissioner of Marine Resources has approved. That approval is what puts a town in the DMR directory, which is why the absence of Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth is meaningful rather than an oversight: with no approved ordinance there is no municipal license to sell. One honest caveat. Portland's city website is mid-migration and serving empty pages where its licensing information should be, so the negative rests on the state's directory rather than on a page Portland publishes itself. The City Clerk's office is where to confirm it.

No state license is required for recreational harvesting. What the state controls everywhere, license or not, is whether the flats are legally open. DMR closes growing areas for pollution and for biotoxins, and those closures override any license in your pocket. The sanitation and biotoxin hotline is 1-800-232-4733 or 207-624-7727, and DMR publishes a closures map. Check it the morning you go, not the week before.

Statewide minimum sizes apply too: soft-shell clams two inches, quahogs one inch at the hinge, razor clams four inches, American oysters two and a half inches, European oysters three inches.

Freeport: the cheapest license, and a park where you need none

Freeport charges a resident $11 plus a $5 water quality testing fee, which is $16 all in. A non-resident pays $22 plus the same $5, so $27. Residents 65 and over pay only the $5. Nobody under 13 needs a license at all. The license year runs July 1 to June 30, and licenses become available in June.

Then the fact that makes Freeport the answer for most people reading this: you do not need a license to dig up to one peck in the state park areas. Chapter 32 says it twice, once as a general exemption and once naming Wolfe's Neck State Park. That is the only place in Greater Portland where a visitor can legally dig clams without buying anything from a town clerk. The counterweight, also in the ordinance: a portion of the flats at Winslow Park is closed to all shellfish harvesting from May 1 through November 30, to protect the swimming beach.

Freeport caps recreational licenses at 180 for residents and property owners and 20 for non-residents, first come first served in person, no lottery. But the ordinance contains a date that changes the whole calculation for anyone from out of town. From July 1 through September 28, ten percent of the recreational licenses are held in reserve for non-residents. Beginning September 29, any licenses still unsold are issued first come, first served without regard to residency. If you are a non-resident who missed the spring everywhere else, late September in Freeport is the door still open.

Residency here means twelve months, not three, unless you pay property tax in town, and if you already hold a State of Maine shellfish license you are ineligible for the recreational one. One caution before you drive up: the town's own 3-day application link is dead, and the 3-day price is inconsistent across three of the town's own pages, printed as $15 in one and $15 plus the $5 fee in two others. Call the clerk before budgeting on it.

Brunswick: most expensive, most generous seniors, hardest to get late

Brunswick is the priciest annual license in the region at $50 for a resident and $75 for a non-resident, and it is also the most generous to older diggers: free at 62, not 65, and not 70.

The license year is unusual: it begins on the first Monday in April and expires the day before the first Monday of April. The 2026-27 licenses went on sale April 6, 2026.

If you are a non-resident reading this in July, you have already missed it. Brunswick allocates non-resident licenses at a rate of one for every ten sold to residents, and the 2026-27 non-resident lottery application window ran March 30 to April 2, 2026, with the drawing April 6. The town does not notify you of your position; you have to call the clerk to find out where you landed. Once a slot opens you get seven business days to buy before you lose priority.

What a non-resident can get today is the day license, $25, the only Brunswick shellfish license sold online. It is fenced in hard: minimum age 13, no more than ten per license year, not more than one in any seven days, expires 24 hours after purchase, and no credit toward an annual license. A digger 12 or younger has to be with a licensed adult.

Two Brunswick rules catch people out. You may not harvest an intertidal area while it is covered with water, so working a flat from a boat at high tide is out. And the Sunday closure from June 1 to October 1, which residents routinely assume applies to them, applies only to commercial harvesters. Recreational diggers can go on a Sunday in August. Night here runs one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise, timed off the U.S. Navy table for Augusta.

Cumberland: $20, no resident cap, and free at 70

Cumberland is the best value in the region for a resident who wants a full season: $20 resident, $40 non-resident, and no fee at all for a senior license. The catch on that last one is the age. Cumberland's ordinance was amended in October 2023 to define a senior license as one issued to a person at least 70 years old, eight years later than Brunswick's threshold. The same amendment repealed the junior license entirely.

The 2026 allocation, approved by DMR in a letter dated October 29, 2025, is worth reading closely. Resident recreational licenses carry "No Limit Set." Non-resident recreational licenses are capped at 25 or ten percent, whichever is greater. Licenses could be issued from January 1, 2026, and the letter states that after April 1, 2026, any unsold limited-number licenses must be made available without regard to residency. Cumberland licenses expire December 31. A sourcing note, because it is the kind of thing that trips people up: the file name of that approval on the town's website says 2024, but the document inside is dated October 2025 and titled as the 2026 approval. The town reused an old slug.

Residency in Cumberland means 180 days, or paying property tax in the preceding calendar year. One guest may help you dig, but the two of you together may possess no more than the same single peck. Harvest hours run from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset. Cumberland and Chebeague Island residents are eligible in either or both towns, a consequence of the 2007 Act of Separation that made Chebeague its own town. And ten or more hours of Shellfish Conservation Commission volunteer work in a calendar year assures you a license the following year, subject to availability, which is the most straightforward path onto a limited list anywhere nearby.

Scarborough: sold out, and the fees are not published

Scarborough's license year runs May 1 to April 30. Resident licenses, including the 65-and-over class, went on sale first come, first served at 7 a.m. on Monday, April 6, 2026. Non-resident licenses went on sale at 7 a.m. on Monday, April 13. The town's own page currently reads sold out for the 2026 season.

Day licenses are the exception and they are genuinely convenient: online year round, capped at ten resident and ten non-resident per day, purchased for specific dates within a five-day window.

Now the finding, which we report as a finding rather than a gap. Scarborough does not publish its shellfish license fees. Chapter 1002, amended as recently as February 4, 2026, says fees are "as specified in the Schedule of License, Permit and Application Fees established by the Town Council," and that schedule is not posted on the town website. The online portal puts prices behind a sign-in. The only way to learn what Scarborough charges is to call the Town Clerk at 207-730-4020. Figures for a Scarborough day pass do circulate in search results; none trace to a Scarborough document, so we are not repeating them.

One Scarborough rule is better than its neighbors': children 16 or younger may accompany a license holder, though the group shares the one peck. Residency requires twelve months. Digging is prohibited from half an hour after sundown to half an hour before sunrise.

Yarmouth and North Yarmouth: one program, and a two-year-old notice still live

Yarmouth and North Yarmouth run a joint program, and a resident of either town is eligible in both.

The live notice on the town's shellfish page is the 2025-2026 season notice, a document created in April 2025, and it describes the most explicitly rationed program in the region: up to 50 resident recreational licenses issued from May 28, effective July 1; five non-resident licenses awarded by a lottery held May 28, with the waiting list opening May 6; and up to 100 senior resident plus 25 senior non-resident licenses from May 28, complimentary at 65 and over. The fees printed there are $40 for a resident 16 and over, $80 for a non-resident, and $40 for a 3-day license, identical to the previous season's. The block is captioned "Renewal License Fees for 2025," so confirm with the clerk at 207-846-9036 before treating them as current.

Which brings us to the problem. There is no 2026-2027 notice published at all. Worse, the 2024-2025 notice is still live at its own URL and still findable by search, just no longer linked from the department page. A resident looking this up today can land on a page two seasons out of date with no way to tell. This is the third time we have documented Yarmouth serving multiple vintages of one document at once; it did the same with launch pass applications and with mooring applications. The working rule for Yarmouth facts is to check the creation date on the file, not the page you found it on.

Residency for a Yarmouth peck license requires three months, proved in person at the clerk's office.

Falmouth: an ordinance from 1997 and no price anywhere

Falmouth is the strangest case in the region, and we are going to describe it plainly rather than fill the hole with a plausible number.

The only Falmouth shellfish ordinance available from a primary source is the certified copy DMR hosts. That document was amended in its entirety by an ordinance of September 22, 1997, and renewed for three years in September 2000. Nothing later appears on it. The town's Licenses and Permits page lists ten forms and does not include a shellfish license at all. The old online application URL now returns a 404. Section 9-61 says fees are set by a Town Council fee schedule, and the only fee schedule published on the town site is a code enforcement schedule from 2002 with no shellfish line in it.

So: Falmouth has a shellfish program, it appears in the DMR directory, the Town Council approved a 2025 license allocation according to the town's own newsletter, and there is no published price. Numbers for a Falmouth clam license do circulate. They trace to a dead page and to search-engine summaries, not to a town document, so they are not in this article. Call the Town Clerk at 207-699-5305.

What the ordinance does say is unusually interesting. Falmouth accepts applications commencing on the first business day of December, the only December-anchored cycle in the region. There is no lottery and no waiting list: four categories, all first come first served, applicants in person. One guest may help, sharing the one peck. Residency means 180 days, and taxpayers qualify. Harvest hours are half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, there is no reciprocal agreement with any other town, and Falmouth counts only soft-shell clams and quahogs as shellfish, so the razor clams and oysters a Brunswick license covers are not part of the deal.

The most telling Falmouth fact is a management choice. The town's Shellfish Conservation Committee reported that DMR survey results confirmed the town is issuing the right number of recreational licenses and appropriately keeping the flats closed to commercial digging, to hold the stock for recreational diggers. Falmouth's flats are, deliberately, an amateur's resource.

What we would actually do

If you want to dig clams in the next month and you do not hold a license, go to Wolfe's Neck State Park in Freeport. No license, one peck, legal today, costs nothing. Check the DMR closure map first.

If you want a season license and you live in a town that sells one, buy it in the spring, not the summer. Every rationed program here opens in a narrow window between late March and late May, and two are already closed for 2026. If you are a non-resident, your realistic route this year is Freeport after September 29, when residency stops mattering, or a Brunswick or Scarborough day license.

And if you are trying to compare prices, know that two of the eight towns do not publish theirs. That is not a research failure on your part. It is the actual state of the record.

For related town-by-town rules on getting to the water, see our guides to public boat launches and town landings and mooring waitlists and fees. If you would rather buy your clams than dig them, we cover where to buy fresh seafood and lobster. And if what you actually want is a saltwater rod, that is a separate state process covered in our Maine fishing license guide.

FAQ

Do you need a license to dig clams in Portland, Maine?

No, because Portland has no municipal shellfish program to license you. Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth do not appear in Maine DMR's directory of the 58 towns with an approved shellfish conservation ordinance, and under Title 12 section 6671 a town can only license harvesting through such an ordinance. State size limits and DMR growing-area closures still apply everywhere.

Where can you dig clams near Portland without a license?

Wolfe's Neck State Park in Freeport. Freeport's Chapter 32 states that a recreational license is not required to dig and take up to one peck in the state park areas. It is the only license-free legal option we have found in Greater Portland, and it is still subject to DMR closures and to statewide minimum shell sizes.

How much is a recreational clam license in Greater Portland?

It depends on the town and two towns do not say. Freeport is $16 all in for a resident and $27 for a non-resident, including a $5 water quality fee. Cumberland is $20 resident and $40 non-resident. Brunswick is $50 and $75. Yarmouth's most recent published notice lists $40 and $80. Scarborough and Falmouth publish no shellfish fees at all.

At what age is a Maine clam license free?

The age differs by town, which surprises people. Brunswick waives the fee at 62. Freeport, Scarborough and Yarmouth use 65. Cumberland's ordinance, amended in October 2023, defines a senior license as one issued to a person at least 70 years of age. Freeport seniors still owe the $5 water quality testing fee.

Can a non-resident still get a clam license for the 2026 season?

Realistically, only in Freeport or by the day. Scarborough's page reads sold out for 2026, and Brunswick's non-resident lottery window closed April 2, 2026. Freeport's ordinance releases any unsold licenses without regard to residency beginning September 29 each year. Brunswick and Scarborough both sell day licenses online.

Can someone dig with you on your recreational license?

In three towns, within limits. Falmouth and Cumberland each allow one guest to help, but the license holder and guest together may possess no more than the same single peck. Scarborough allows children 16 or younger to accompany a holder under the same shared limit. Freeport's and Brunswick's ordinances contain no guest provision at all.

How much is one peck of clams?

A peck is the standard daily recreational limit across every program in the region, and Brunswick's ordinance puts it at roughly 12 pounds. Brunswick measures it per any 24-hour period rather than per calendar day, which is stricter than it sounds if you dig two consecutive evening tides.