Woodbury, MN Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Section 24-263(e) enumerates eight categories of home business Woodbury prohibits regardless of how the operator otherwise complies with the home-business standards in subsections (a) through (d). Tattoo and body piercing operations sit in item (7) together with beauty salons, barber shops and nail salons, treated by the city as personal-service uses that draw walk-in client traffic, require specialized equipment and sanitation infrastructure, and are incompatible with a residential dwelling regardless of scale. Unlike retail sales, manufacturing, or personal vehicle sales elsewhere in subsection (e), which carry a stated exception for zoning-administrator approval or a numeric cap, tattoo and piercing businesses have no such carve-out; the prohibition is absolute.

This means a resident cannot obtain a home-occupation approval, interim conditional use permit, or variance to operate a tattoo studio from a house, garage or accessory structure anywhere in the city. Anyone wanting to open a tattoo or body-piercing business in Woodbury must instead locate on a commercially or industrially zoned property, where chapter 24's home-business restrictions in § 24-263 do not apply and the use would instead be evaluated, licensed, and inspected under whatever commercial-use and business-licensing standards apply to that zoning district and use classification.