PawnSmarts comes pre-configured for Maine — the blended 25%/20% monthly finance charge, the mandatory one-month extension, the no-compounding rule and the 10-day regional transaction report, all from $89/month.
Maine pawnbrokers work under Title 30-A, sections 3960 to 3964-A of the Maine Revised Statutes, and the structure is two-layer. Your operating license is municipal — "the municipal officers of any municipality may grant licenses to persons of good moral character to be pawnbrokers… for one year" (§ 3961) — while the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection handles rate supervision, truth-in-lending and an annual state registration. Maine's finance charge is a genuine blended two-band rate, not a flat percentage, and interest may not be capitalized — two things most multi-state pawn software gets wrong. PawnSmarts ships with the Maine math already right, from Portland and Lewiston to Bangor, South Portland, Auburn, Sanford, Biddeford and Augusta.
Plenty of pawn software vendors price the program low and then make their money on "support" — $200 to $350 a month, every month, whether you use it or not. PawnSmarts doesn't work that way. You pay $89/month for the Essential plan or $129/month for Professional — month to month, no contract, no setup fee, cancel anytime. Prefer to own it outright? Professional is also a $2,995 one-time purchase. And if you run your card processing through us, the software can be free.
30-A M.R.S. § 3963(1): "A pawnbroker may not directly or indirectly receive a finance charge of greater than 25% per month on that part of a loan that is $500 or less, nor more than 20% per month on that part of a loan that is more than $500… Accrued interest may not be incorporated as interest-bearing principal."
Two consequences. First, the maximum charge on a $1,000 loan is not "some percentage of $1,000" — it is $500 × 25% plus $500 × 20%, which is $225.00 per 30-day period. The Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection publishes the arithmetic and a calculation workbook. Second, the effective APR changes with loan size, because the blend shifts.
| Maine finance charge — 30-A M.R.S. § 3963 | PawnSmarts |
|---|---|
| 25% per month on the portion of the loan that is $500 or less | Applied automatically |
| 20% per month on the portion above $500 | Applied automatically |
| Minimum charge of not more than $2.50 (§ 3963(2)) | Applied |
| No fee of any kind in addition to the finance charge (§ 3963(3)) | Fee schedule locked empty |
| Accrued interest may not become interest-bearing principal | No capitalization on renewal |
| BCCP position: loans above $8,000 carry an 18% APR cap | Flagged at origination |
Maine also bars add-on fees outright. Section 3963(3) says a pawnbroker "may not charge a fee in addition to a finance charge allowed under subsections 1 and 2" — no storage, no setup, no ticket fee, no lost-ticket fee, no late fee. The fee schedule for a Maine shop is configured empty and stays that way.
You need both, and they are different animals.
The municipal license comes from the municipal officers — city council or selectboard, usually administered through the City Clerk — runs one year, and carries a fee set locally with no state-set amount and no state bond requirement. Operating unlicensed is a civil violation with a forfeiture of not more than $100.
The state registration goes to the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection: filed before commencing business and annually on or before January 31, with a $20 annual notification fee plus $10 per branch, and a volume fee of $25 per $100,000 (or part) of original unpaid balances from consumer credit transactions entered into in Maine the preceding calendar year. The BCCP application specifically instructs you to enclose a copy of your municipal pawn shop license.
One important structural note: 30-A § 3964-A(1) exempts a municipally licensed pawnbroker from needing a Title 9-A supervised lender's license. If your town does not license pawnbrokers — and many small Maine towns have no pawn ordinance — you fall back to the state supervised lender license instead, which is a materially different regulatory posture. Worth resolving before you sign a lease.
Because licensing is municipal, the operational rules live in the ordinance. Verified examples:
30-A § 3962(1) requires entry of the date, duration, amount, periodic rate of interest and annual percentage rate of every loan; the finance charge, due dates and total payment needed to redeem; an accurate account and description of the property; the terms of redemption including any reduction for early redemption and the extension right; and the name and residence of the consumer. Municipal officers may inspect these records at all reasonable times.
At the time of the transaction the consumer gets a signed, written disclosure complying with Maine's truth-in-lending provisions (Title 9-A, Article 8-A) containing all of that plus the pawnbroker's name and address (§ 3962(2)). Identification must be "reasonable written proof… in the form of a motor vehicle operator's license, military identification card, adult liquor identification card or similar item" (§ 3971(1)).
This changed in 2020 and older guidance is still circulating. Under 30-A § 3962(3), as amended effective July 1, 2020, within 10 days of a transaction a pawnbroker must submit to a regional property and recovery tracking system administered by a regional law enforcement support organization designated by the Department of Public Safety, Bureau of State Police, in a form acceptable to the recipient, a report containing:
The old rule — a monthly summary filed with the local law enforcement agency before the 15th — was replaced. But municipal ordinances still impose their own reporting, and those can be far tighter: Sanford requires daily electronic delivery, Lewiston runs a monthly-by-the-15th alternative for low-value goods. A Maine shop can genuinely owe two different feeds on two different cadences.
Maine sets no state holding period for pawns, and none for general used-goods purchases under § 3971. Holding periods for pledges are purely municipal. Precious metals are the exception: 30-A § 3972(5) bars selling or altering precious metals until they have been in the dealer's possession 15 days after acquisition — reduced to 5 business days for a dealer who determines the metals are not listed in an electronic database designed to catalog stolen property.
Precious-metals buys also require a digital photograph of each item (groups of five or fewer substantially similar items permitted) and a signed statement of ownership on a form provided by the dealer that conspicuously bears the warning that making a false statement is a Class D crime. Those records are kept one year, in date order. Note that Maine's definition of precious metals excludes gold and silver coins and bullion, dental gold, unrefined ore and electronic products.
Maine's definition of "tangible personal property" in § 3960 includes motor vehicles but excludes documents evidencing title to motor vehicles. A Maine pawnbroker can take the vehicle in pawn but cannot run a title-loan product; PawnSmarts gates that off for Maine shops.
Unusually, Gramm-Leach-Bliley privacy compliance is written into the pawn statute itself — 30-A § 3964-A(4) requires pawnbrokers to comply with 15 U.S.C. § 6801 et seq. and the implementing federal privacy regulations where the pawnbroker is a financial institution as defined there. The BCCP publishes a privacy notice form. Privacy-notice generation is a statutory duty in Maine, not just a federal overlay.
If you lend to active-duty service members or their dependents, the federal Military Lending Act caps the Military APR at 36% and requires verification of covered-borrower status through the DoD's MLA database. Given Maine's blended rate runs well above that, the federal cap binds on covered borrowers — PawnSmarts flags them at intake and holds the loan inside it.
The blended 25%/20% band rate, the $2.50 minimum charge, the zero-add-on-fee rule and the mandatory extension right are already built in.
Per-transaction reports go to the regional tracking system within 10 days, and to your municipality on its own cadence where the ordinance requires one.
On Professional, pledgors get three reminders before maturity and can pay from home — fewer forfeitures, more redemptions.
We migrate your data for you for a one-time $395, and PawnSmarts works offline and auto-syncs so you're never down.
Maine uses a blended two-band monthly rate. Under 30-A M.R.S. section 3963(1) a pawnbroker may not receive more than 25% per month on the part of a loan that is $500 or less, nor more than 20% per month on the part above $500. So the maximum charge on a $1,000 loan is $500 times 25% plus $500 times 20%, or $225.00 per 30-day period. A minimum charge of not more than $2.50 is permitted, no other fee of any kind may be charged, and accrued interest may not be incorporated as interest-bearing principal.
The initial redemption or repurchase period may not exceed 60 days. On top of that, 30-A M.R.S. section 3963(5) gives the consumer a statutory right to at least one extension of one month at the same rate of interest, on request in writing or in person, and that right must be disclosed in the contract. Maine repealed its forfeiture and sale-of-pawned-property sections in 1993 and never replaced them, so there is no state forfeiture notice, public sale or surplus requirement.
Maine uses a two-layer model. The operating license is municipal, granted by the municipal officers for one year with a locally set fee and no state bond requirement. Separately, pawnbrokers file an annual registration with the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection before commencing business and by January 31 each year, with a $20 notification fee plus $10 per branch and a volume fee of $25 per $100,000 of prior-year original unpaid balances. A municipally licensed pawnbroker is exempt from needing a Title 9-A supervised lender's license.
Within 10 days of a transaction, to a regional property and recovery tracking system administered by a regional law enforcement support organization designated by the Maine Department of Public Safety, Bureau of State Police. The report includes the pawnbroker's name and address, the date and time, the consumer's name, address, date of birth, telephone number if any, and the unique identifying number from their written proof of identification, plus a description, manufacturer, serial number and amount for every item. Municipal ordinances may add their own reporting on a tighter schedule.
No. Title 30-A section 3960 defines tangible personal property to include motor vehicles but expressly excludes documents evidencing title to motor vehicles. A Maine pawnbroker can take the vehicle itself in pawn but cannot run a non-possessory title-loan product.
Pawn shop software for Maine generally ranges from about $89 per month to $350 or more per month, depending on the vendor and whether support is bundled. PawnSmarts is $89/month for Essential or $129/month for Professional, month to month, no contract, no setup fee, or $2,995 as a one-time purchase, and it can be free with integrated card processing. Every plan ships with the blended 25%/20% band rate, the no-capitalization rule, the mandatory extension right and 10-day regional reporting already configured.
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