Garage/Basement shop and residential/municiple requirements

[jjkage84]

Hello all,

Firstly, I apologize if this has been gone over many times previously, but I'm not even sure how to word this in the search function.

Basic question is, and I understand every municipality is going to vary, how hard was it to get a business permit to set up a shop in your garage or basement?  I'm right on the cusp of going public, as I do some in house work for friends and simple word of mouth, but I want to go public and actually open a shop. 

Just curious what others have done and their success or roadblocks. 

Thank you,
jjkage84

[Frog]

Hello all,

Firstly, I apologize if this has been gone over many times previously, but I'm not even sure how to word this in the search function.

Basic question is, and I understand every municipality is going to vary, how hard was it to get a business permit to set up a shop in your garage or basement?  I'm right on the cusp of going public, as I do some in house work for friends and simple word of mouth, but I want to go public and actually open a shop. 

Just curious what others have done and their success or roadblocks. 

Thank you,
jjkage84

Like you said, every city will be different but I bet that all nowadays have the information accessible online.
My operation is on my residential property, and my city pretty much expects home-based businesses to not muck up the feel of the residential neighborhood.
No signage or other visible clues as to what goes on behind closed doors. In my town, no employees. I know that is different in, for instance, San Diego.

Fact is, the cities can really use the license fees and at less than $100 they are no sweat for me. (I'm categorized as manufacturing which uses only 50% of the gross as the basis to figure license cost)
btw, after flying under the radar for a few years, it was a great feeling to know that I was legit in their eyes.

[jjkage84]

Awesome info Frog!

Yeah, I've been kind of flying under the radar for couple of months, but nothing major as I haven't done any sort of advertisement.  I run my own online American Made Apparel company that I had been running since basically last November, and people just came to me like "Hey, you can print shirts right?"

Excited to go legit and start advertising though.