Margate, FL Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Margate's Land Development Code defines a body art studio in § 40.201 as a use that involves the practice of tattooing, branding, scarification, dermal anchors, and/or body piercing. The City Commission then sorts that use district by district. In the B-1 Neighborhood Business district, § 40.520 lists personal care services except massage and adds that body art studios are not permitted, and its prohibited-uses list names body art studio outright. In the B-2 Community Business district, § 40.521 repeats the same limitation on personal care services and lists tattoo parlors, and body art studio as a principal use, among its prohibited uses.

Among those three districts, only the B-3 Liberal Business district lists body art studios as a permitted use, in § 40.523(C)13, and it attaches three conditions. First, no studio can sit within 1,000 feet of any other body art studio. Second, no studio can sit within 1,000 feet of any school or child care facility. Third, the studio needs a separate room for tattooing and piercing, limited to one customer chair, apart from the waiting room and the public, and the room cannot be visible to the general public.

Section 40.523(A) says minimum separation distances are measured in the shortest airline distance between nearest property lines unless the section says otherwise. Section 40.523(E) prohibits any use not specifically listed in the district. Separately, the § 25-11 schedule of local business taxes in the Margate Code lists TATTOO PARLOR at $125.00, so a studio owner carries a business tax line in addition to the zoning approval.