Bossier Parish, LA Home Business: Signage Rules (2026)

Bossier Parish's zoning code treats a home business sign as a 'nameplate,' not a commercial sign, and caps it hard. Section 126-671 defines a 'home occupation' as work for gain conducted only by family members residing in the dwelling, carried out entirely inside it, using no more than 25 percent of the dwelling's floor area, with no article sold except one produced by the resident family. Section 126-717(b)(1) then lists both the 'home occupation' itself and a 'nameplate, not exceeding one square foot in area' as uses by right in the R-1 one-family residence district, meaning neither needs a special exception or board of adjustment hearing as long as the size cap and floor-area limit are met; the same one-square-foot nameplate limit repeats in the code's other residential district use tables.

One square foot is small, roughly a 12-inch square sign, far below what a commercial business could post in a B-1 or B-2 district. Section 126-819 folds the nameplate into the site-area calculation, stating that a home occupation or nameplate is 'considered as being part of the use to which it is attached' rather than a separate use requiring its own building site area. In practice, a homeowner running a permitted home occupation in unincorporated Bossier Parish can identify the business with a small nameplate but cannot install a larger commercial-style sign, illuminated sign or freestanding sign without exceeding the residential district's use-by-right allowance.