Dubuque, IA Home Business: Customer Traffic Restrictions (2026)

Section 16-7-1-1(B) makes telephone, mail, fax, e-mail or website contact the default way a home based business deals with customers and clients, keeping foot traffic out of residential neighborhoods. The code carves out an exception for businesses such as tutoring, teaching, childcare or personal services that genuinely can't operate without in-person contact, but even those are folded back into subsection (C)'s appointment-only rule: any services or sales happening on the premises must be scheduled in advance and can't be oriented toward, or attract, customers or clients arriving off the street.

Combined with the separate ban on signage in section 16-7-1-1(A)(9) and the limit on non-resident deliveries to vehicles under two tons in (A)(7), the customer-contact rule is one more piece keeping a home occupation from functioning like a retail storefront. The permitted-use list in section 16-7-1-2 specifically allows tutoring or teaching limited to four persons at a time, which lines up with the personal-contact exception here. A home business that instead courts walk-in customers or runs an open-door, unscheduled operation is no longer meeting the accessory-use conditions and can be pushed into conditional-use review by the zoning board of adjustment under section 16-7-1-4.