Boston, MA Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

5's accessory-use provisions. The definition requires the occupation to be carried on in the main building, use only equipment ordinarily incident to a dwelling unit, and it flatly bars two things: requiring nonresident help and trading in merchandise. The code lists sewing, piano lessons and tutoring as examples of uses clearly incidental to the dwelling for dwelling purposes that do not change its residential character. 5(b)'s general limitation of area: any accessory use on a lot, unless separately exempted (electric-vehicle charging, ADUs, accessory parking, transit use, smoking areas and shared parking are the named exemptions, but home occupation is not among them), is capped at no more than twenty-five percent of the floor area of the principal use to which it is accessory.

A second, narrower definition applies only inside the Squares + Streets and Skyline base districts under Article 8's own Table A Definitions: there, a home occupation may involve receiving clients or customers and up to three nonresident employees, a materially looser standard than the citywide Article 2 version that applies to the traditional S, R, H, L, B, M and I districts covering most of the city's residential neighborhoods.