Hawaii County, HI Home Business: Signage Rules (2026)

Section 25-4-13(b) sets the conditions every home occupation must meet to operate in a residential district without commercial zoning, and subsection (b)(2) governs signage specifically: no exterior signs, symbols, displays, or advertisements relating to the home occupation may be displayed, and interior signs are barred too if they are visible from public view. The rule sits alongside (b)(1), which requires the occupation to be conducted entirely inside the dwelling or, if any part happens outside, screened from public view, and (b)(3), which requires materials, supplies, or products stored outside a fully enclosed building to be screened.

Together these standards are what let the code call the whole activity 'incidental and subordinate' to the residential use under subsection (a): the home occupation is not supposed to change the dwelling's external appearance in any way, and a sign is the most visible way that could happen. The no-signage rule applies regardless of how the business otherwise complies: even an operation that files the frequent-visitor declaration required under subsection (c) or that carries a special permit for a rural or agricultural building site under subsection (d) still cannot post exterior advertising.

Article sales are separately restricted under subsection (b)(4) to items produced by the home occupation itself, instructional materials, or the operation's own services, so a sign advertising resale goods would fail both the signage ban and the article-sales limit at once. Any home occupation existing before December 7, 1996, that involved frequent visits, deliveries, outside storage, outside activity, or group instruction had until September 30, 1997, to file a declaration or be considered illegal; that grandfather window has been closed for decades, so every current operator runs on the ordinary standards in (b) with no separate signage exemption.