Palm Beach Gardens, FL Home Business: Customer Traffic Restrictions (2026)

Note 1 to Table 21, printed at § 78-159(j)(1), is the section that governs how much customer-facing activity a home occupation may generate in Palm Beach Gardens. Subsection d states the core limit directly: a home-based business 'may not conduct retail transactions at a structure other than the residential dwelling,' though 'incidental business uses and activities may be conducted at the residential property,' meaning walk-in retail sales elsewhere are barred but limited client contact at the house itself is allowed. Subsection f ties the practical cap on visits to parking capacity rather than a fixed number of appointments: parking generated by the business 'may not be greater in volume than would normally be expected at a similar residence where no business is conducted,' and any vehicles or trailers connected to the business must sit in legal parking spaces, never in the right-of-way, over a sidewalk, or on an unimproved surface.

Subsection b requires that the use 'shall not change the residential character of the premises as viewed from the street,' which growth management staff read together with the parking rule to limit repeated client parking, idling, or queuing that would visibly mark the house as a business location. The home occupation definition at § 78-751 reinforces the same ceiling, describing a home occupation as a use that 'does not provide external evidence of the nonresidential use.' Because there is no numeric cap on the number of daily client visits in the code, growth management staff apply the parking-volume and street-appearance standards case by case when a complaint or business tax receipt application raises the question, and a home business generating visible, recurring client traffic beyond normal residential parking demand can be found out of compliance without exceeding any stated visitor count.