Wyoming, MI Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

Wyoming Zoning Ordinance § 90-208 defines 'home occupation' as any use customarily conducted entirely within the dwelling and carried on by its occupants, and it builds a full set of standards into that single definition rather than a separate permit article. The business must remain clearly incidental and secondary to the dwelling's residential purpose, and it cannot employ anyone besides members of the immediate family who live in the home. It cannot change the residential character of the property or endanger neighbors' health, safety or welfare through noise, noxious odors, unsanitary or unsightly conditions, or fire hazards.

The ordinance carves out single-chair beauty salons, barbershops, and instruction in a craft or fine art as permitted on an individual, case-by-case basis, but it flatly excludes day care centers, tea rooms, veterinarian's offices, tourist homes, animal hospitals and kennels from ever qualifying as home occupations, no matter how small. No article or service may be sold from the premises unless the home occupation itself produced it, ruling out general retail. The use also cannot require alterations, added construction features, equipment, machinery or outdoor storage that residential zoning would not otherwise allow.

Home occupations are listed as a principal permitted use, alongside single-family dwellings, in the city's low-density residential districts, so a resident does not need a special use permit to start one as long as it stays within these limits; exceeding them, by hiring outside staff, opening a storefront, or running a use the ordinance names as excluded, converts the activity into a use the residential district does not allow.