Lakewood, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

The Lakewood Municipal Code does not give tattoo parlors their own use category. 180 defines "personal services, restricted" as personal services that may have a potentially offensive effect on surrounding areas and may need to be dispersed to limit their impact, and it lists tattoo and body piercing services alongside check-cashing stores, fortune tellers, palm and card readers, psychics, soup kitchens, and hourly-rental spas and hot tubs. 040's Commercial and Industrial Land Use Table then controls where that category can locate: it is a conditional use, meaning it needs a discretionary conditional use permit rather than being allowed outright, in the C1 and C2 zones only.

" A parcel that instead falls inside the geographically limited Downtown Development Code (LMC Title 18B) or Station District Development Code (LMC Title 18C) overlays is governed by whatever those chapters separately say about personal services, not by this citywide C1/C2 table, so an operator near the Lakewood Towne Center or Sound Transit station area needs to confirm which instrument actually applies to that specific parcel before assuming the C1/C2 rule controls. The conditional use permit itself goes through the City's standard land use permit review process administered by the Department of Planning and Public Works, which can attach site-specific conditions, and the use remains subject to the ordinary business licensing requirements under LMC Title 5 that apply to any business operating in Lakewood.