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

80, Home Business, sets the zoning standards for running a business as an accessory use to a principal dwelling in the unincorporated county. B requires the business to remain clearly incidental and secondary to the property's residential use, caps the space used at no more than 1,000 square feet of an accessory structure such as a garage, and bars any exterior alteration that would make the property read as non-residential. C requires the operator to both own and reside on the property, so an absentee owner or a tenant cannot run a home business without meeting that residency test.

D caps outside staffing at no more than three employees who do not live on the premises. A prohibits a fixed list of uses from ever qualifying as a home business, including vehicle repair, appliance repair, restaurants and bars, animal boarding, commercial lodging, adult entertainment, medical offices and clinics, and body branding, piercing, or tattoo work, because those uses are treated as inherently incompatible with a residential accessory use no matter how small. E then layers on the neighborhood-compatibility limits: one business vehicle, a 20-trip-per-day average traffic cap, screened outdoor storage, and a bar on noise, odor, vibration, or light spilling past the lot line.