Boone County, IN Home Business: Signage Rules (2026)

Section 157.035(B)(9) bars a home occupation from displaying goods or any other external evidence that the property houses a business, carving out one exception: signage that complies with § 157.038, the county's separate sign ordinance. That cross-reference matters because it caps what a home-based operator can put up. Table 11, Sign Regulations sets the regulations-for-all-other-signs maximum area at 2 square feet in the AG, R1, R2 and R3, R4, MF residential districts, the districts where home occupations are actually permitted, compared with 10 square feet in the county's Local Business district.

A freestanding sign in those same residential districts is capped separately at a maximum combined area of 6 square feet and a maximum height of 5 feet. Any sign a home occupation puts up needs an improvement location permit unless it qualifies for one of the no-permit categories in Table 11, and it must still respect the underlying rule that the business cannot otherwise announce itself through displayed goods, exterior alterations or additional entrances under the rest of § 157.035(B). Combined, the two sections mean a home-based operator gets a small, tightly capped identification sign and nothing else in the way of outward advertising.