Gilroy, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Gilroy's zoning code treats a tattoo or piercing business as a 'personal service' use, the same category that covers barber and beauty shops, nail salons, tanning salons, dry cleaners and massage parlors. Footnote 7 to the commercial use table, Gilroy City Code § 30.19.10, lists tattoo and piercing parlors among personal services allowed in the PO, C1, C3, HC and CM commercial districts, except where expressly prohibited under footnote 8. Footnote 8 then draws the actual line: uses offering massage, tattoo, and/or piercing as the primary personal service are prohibited wherever the use table flags a district with that footnote.

A studio whose main business is inking or piercing customers cannot locate in a district carrying the footnote 8 flag; a shop offering tattooing only as a minor add-on to another personal-service business is not caught by the ban. The Community Development Department applies this table when it reviews a business license application, a tenant improvement permit or a certificate of occupancy for a proposed studio, and the planning commission decides any request to treat an unlisted use as similar in character to tattoo or piercing services.

Unlike massage establishments, which need a police-chief-issued massage establishment permit under Chapter 13, Article VI, Gilroy's code contains no separate license, permit or operator-qualification chapter for tattoo or piercing studios; the zoning use table is the only citywide provision naming them. Every business, tattoo studios included, must still hold the general business license required by Gilroy City Code § 13.2 before opening. Operating in a district where the use table bars a primary tattoo or piercing use is a zoning violation, enforceable the same as any other unpermitted use.