Horry County, SC Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

A states the ordinance's purpose: letting the home host certain occupations while protecting neighborhood character, minimizing noise and traffic, and blocking businesses that would ordinarily need a commercial or industrial zoning district. B applies to every home occupation regardless of lot size: it must be clearly incidental and secondary to the residential use, can't change the dwelling's residential character, requires the operator to own the property or hold notarized permission from the owner, must keep all parking on site, can't create more noise, dust, smoke, glare or nuisance than is typical for a residential lot without a home occupation, allows one non-illuminated sign up to 2 square feet mounted on the wall, and treats occupations already operating before this ordinance as legal nonconforming, losing that status if the business closes for 12 months after the business license lapses.

C bans an entire list of uses outright regardless of acreage: ambulance, taxi and limousine services, trucking companies, on-site retail sales, trade shops, auto repair, kennels, welding, medical/dental/chiropractic/veterinary offices, health salons and gyms, restaurants and taverns, firearms sales, escort services, adult-oriented businesses, drug/alcohol counseling, tattoo and body piercing, and swimming pool companies. D through G then scale the floor-space and vehicle limits to lot size: on one acre or less, the cap is 35% of dwelling floor space or 1,000 square feet of detached structure, two home occupations per residence, two non-resident employees, and two service vehicles per acre; parcels of one and a half acres or more in AG1, AG2, FA, LFA or CFA get up to 3,500 square feet of detached space, three home occupations, and five service vehicles, and several of the flatly prohibited uses, heavy equipment operations, taxi and limousine service, larger trucking fleets, become allowed exceptions once the parcel reaches five acres.