Roanoke, VA Home Business: Customer Traffic Restrictions (2026)

Sec. 2-413(e) sets the additional standards for home occupations permitted as accessory uses citywide, layered on top of the general rules in subsection (d). Paragraph (e)(2) is unambiguous: no customer or client shall travel to the dwelling in connection with the home occupation. That flat ban covers the broad category of home occupations, from consulting to online sales fulfillment, and it exists alongside the (e)(1) staffing cap limiting such a business to no more than one non-family employee regardless of how many home occupations operate from the same unit.

Roanoke draws a sharper line for what it separately defines as "personal service home occupations" under Sec. 2-413(f), a category that by its nature involves in-person client contact (such as personal grooming or similar services performed on the customer). Those businesses are allowed to host clients, but subsection (f) confines the arrangement tightly: only family members residing on the premises may work in the business, and only one separate entrance or exit may be added solely to serve the personal service use, and that new entrance cannot be placed on the front facade of the dwelling.

Every home occupation, whichever category, also has to stay subordinate to the residential use under subsection (d): no exterior appearance change, no added parking, no goods visible from the street, and a 250-square-foot cap on the space used. A resident who wants walk-in customers for a general home business, rather than a qualifying personal service use, is not permitted to receive them at the home under this section at all.