Kendall County, IL Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Section 36-874(3) of the Kendall County Code folds tattoo parlors and permanent body art establishments into a defined list of nine adult regulated uses that also includes adult bookstores, adult motion picture theaters and adult massage parlors, and it confines all of them to the M-1 Limited Manufacturing District, reachable only through a special use permit under Article II of Chapter 36; the Code goes further and states that no regulated use, permitted or special, shall be considered to be a retail business, service business, recreational or social facility, school, accessory use, or general land use for zoning purposes, which forecloses locating a tattoo studio in any B-1 through B-6 business district or any residential district in unincorporated Kendall County.

The location buffers are numeric and layered: a regulated use cannot sit within 1,000 feet of the area being rezoned for it, within 1,000 feet of any A-1 special-use PUD, residential, or business zoning district, or within 1,000 feet of any land inside a municipality (Oswego, Yorkville, Plano, Montgomery, Plainfield, Joliet, Minooka and the rest) that is zoned residential, business, commercial office, or office-research. 5's distance requirements from schools, day care facilities, cemeteries, parks, forest preserves, public housing and places of worship, and states that whichever rule is more restrictive controls.