Nash County, NC Home Business: Customer Traffic Restrictions (2026)

38 governs home occupations in every district where they are allowed: A-1, all residential districts, OI, and all commercial districts. Subsection (B)(1) defines a home occupation as a commercial use conducted entirely within the dwelling or an accessory structure by the occupants, clearly incidental and secondary to the home's residential use, that does not change the character of the residence or create a significant adverse impact on the surrounding neighborhood. Subsection (B)(2) caps outside staffing at one full-time-equivalent employee who is not a resident of the home.

The traffic limit itself is in subsection (B)(3): activities cannot generate traffic, noise, vibration, glare, fumes, odors, or electrical interference beyond what normally occurs in the zoning district, and no home occupation can use electrical or mechanical equipment that would change the structure's fire rating. Because the standard is comparative rather than numeric, the Zoning Administrator measures a complaint against the ordinary traffic level of the surrounding district, for example a residential street, rather than against a fixed trip count. The two client-facing carve-outs in the same section set the closest thing to a numeric visitor cap: music, dance, art or similar instruction is limited to five students at a time, and child or adult day care run as a home occupation is capped at five clients at a time.

The business also cannot exceed 500 combined square feet, or 25 percent of the dwelling's gross floor area, and cannot display goods or store items outdoors, or visibly indoors from the exterior.