Given the town's central location, many markets were held in Kusel even as far back as the Middle Ages, although these often had to put up with stiff competition from other traditional markets in other nearby places.
Kusel is seat of the town, Verbandsgemeinde and district administration of Kusel, a ﬁnancial ofﬁce, a forestry ofﬁce, a surveying and cadastral ofﬁce and a branch of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit.