Clovis, CA Home Business: Signage Rules (2026)

Clovis treats home-based business signage as a subset of its residential sign standards in Section 9.34.120, which applies to every district the Development Code designates residential. For a single-family residence, the rule is narrow: one wall-mounted sign, capped at 2 square feet, identifying the home occupation. That is roughly the size of a large house-number plaque, not a business sign meant to attract drive-by customers, consistent with the code's separate residential nameplate exemption in Section 9.34.060(P), which allows a 2-square-foot nameplate showing only the premises name, owner or lessee name, and address, affixed flush to the structure and unilluminated.

The home occupation sign under 9.34.120 is limited to identification rather than advertising copy, hours, logos, or pricing, since the standard only authorizes the sign 'for the identification of a home occupation.' Illumination is restricted citywide for residential signs: Section 9.34.120(A)(3) allows only nonilluminated signs or external illumination of the sign face, so no internally lit or LED home-business sign qualifies. Because the sign must be wall-mounted, a freestanding post sign, an A-frame sandwich board on the sidewalk, or a banner strung across a driveway does not meet the standard and would require a variance under Section 9.34.110 to be considered at all.

Multi-family and planned-unit residential developments fall under different subsections of 9.34.120 with their own monument-sign standards, but those provisions govern the development as a whole, not an individual home occupation within a unit.