Spotsylvania County, VA Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

The zoning ordinance does not regulate "tattoo parlor" as its own use; instead § 23-2.1.4 folds it into "personal service establishment," defined as "any building wherein the primary occupation is the repair, care of, maintenance or customizing of personal properties that are worn or carried about the person or are a physical component of the person," a list that expressly names "barber shops, beauty parlors, tanning salons, day spas, tattoo parlors, piercing studio, pet grooming establishments" and similar businesses. The same section separately defines "Tattoo parlor" as "a type of personal service establishment involving the placing of designs, letters, scrolls, figures, symbols or any other marks upon or under the skin of any person with ink or any other substance, resulting in the permanent coloration of the skin by the aid of needles or any other instrument designed to touch or puncture the skin."

Because a tattoo studio is a personal service establishment, it is a by-right permitted use, subject to site plan approval, in the county's general business districts, including Commercial 1 (C-1) under § 23-6.17.2, and it appears on similar permitted-use lists in the county's other commercial and office districts. Operating in an agricultural or rural district instead requires the more restrictive "home enterprise" path under division 23-5.4A rather than an ordinary personal-service listing.

A tattoo parlor also must obtain the county's annual business license under Chapter 11.1. County Code § 11.1-2 defines "personal services" for license-tax purposes as services "not specifically classified as financial, real estate or professional service," and § 11.1-10 taxes "repair, personal and business services" at eighteen cents per one hundred dollars of gross receipts, a separate requirement from the zoning approval described above.