Vallejo, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Auto Repair on Residential Property (2026)

05, Exclusions, lists activities that can never qualify as a Vallejo home-based business regardless of scale, and Subsection (E) covers vehicles: on-site vehicle-related uses such as, but not limited to, storing of either operational or non-operational vehicles, cleaning, dismantling, embellishing, installing, manufacturing, repairing or servicing, selling, leasing or renting, and towing, driving schools, dispatching of vehicles, boat towing, scrap yards, parts sales or any storage of autos. The exclusion is not absolute for every vehicle-adjacent business model, however: the same subsection carves out an off-site path, allowing a home-based operator who relies exclusively on off-site suppliers and off-site customers, with all articles received, stored, and sold directly to customers away from the home, and nothing stored or kept in the public right-of-way.

In practice, that means a mobile mechanic who dispatches from a home office but performs every repair, and stores every part, at a shop or the customer's location elsewhere can still register as a home-based business; a mechanic who wants to work on cars in the driveway or garage cannot, no matter how small the operation. 05 may become a home-based business subject to the director's final determination, so the vehicle exclusion is the specific bar removing auto repair from that general allowance.