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

Tallahassee's Land Development Code does not ban tattoo parlors citywide; instead it strikes the use out of the by-right personal-service classification in a handful of specific zoning districts. In the All Saints Neighborhood's ASN-B infill/moderate intensity district and the Mahan Corridor Node along Mahan Drive, the code's own permitted-use tables carve tattoo parlors (and, in one district, massage parlors) out of the "Personal Services" categories that otherwise cover barbershops, dry cleaners and day spas as allowed uses.

LDC Sec. 10-202, the ASN-B All Saints Neighborhood infill/moderate intensity district table, lists as principal use item 35: "Miscellaneous Personal Services (the following are prohibited: steam baths, tattoo parlors, Turkish baths, & valet parking)." ASN-B covers the district's historic industrial buildings, including the former Wahnish Cigar Factory and Coca-Cola Bottling Plant sites, redeveloped for moderate-intensity infill at 16 to 50 dwelling units per acre; the tattoo-parlor carve-out sits inside the same personal-services line that otherwise clears salons and laundromats without a special exception.

LDC Sec. 10-269, the MCN Mahan Corridor Node District, lists as principal use item 30: "Personal services excluding tattoo and massage parlors." The MCN district sits at the Mahan Drive intersections with Dempsey Mayo Road, Edenfield Road/Highland Drive, and Thornton Road, and caps non-residential floor area at 8,000 square feet per acre (12,000 with incentives), limiting non-residential uses to office, non-automotive retail, services, and community facilities.

Neither table offers a special-exception path for tattoo parlors in these two districts; the use is simply absent from what a personal-services business may operate as. A shop proposing to open there would need a different classification or a rezoning, not a conditional-use permit.