Run a business from home

• The property where you’re planning a home business must have a house on it that is occupied by at least one person who is an employee in the home business and lives on the site as their principal place of residence.
• No more than four people in total may work in the home business at any one time and the maximum number of people on site associated with the home business must not exceed 10 people.
• You can’t use more than a third of the total floor area of any buildings on site for the home business activities.
• You can’t create any dust nuisance on site.
• The home business can’t involve the use of trucks or other heavy vehicles.
• The home business can’t include the repair, alteration, restoration or maintenance of motor vehicles or internal combustion engines or spray painting of motor vehicles.
• You must screen any external storage of materials of the home business so they are not visible from outside the site
• You can’t conduct retailing on the site except;
• goods retailed online and do not result in customer visits to the site, or
• goods ancillary and related to a service provided by the home business

Criteria for signs advertising work-from-home activities in residential areas

You can advertise your work from home activity on your house or your fence as long as you meet all these conditions:

• The maximum combined area of permanent signs can’t exceed 5 square metres.
• Signs must not be higher than 2 metres off the ground.
• Sign content must only contain the name, character or purpose of the activity on the site.
• If you want to illuminate the sign, it can’t flash or be so bright that it annoys your neighbours.
• The sign must not hide windows or architectural features.
• The sign mustn’t project above the parapet level or the highest part of the building it’s attached to.

Any signage that does not meet the criteria needs a resource consent.

There may be different rules for signage if you live in a heritage area or have a heritage-listed property.

• The property where you’re planning a home business must have a house on it that is occupied by at least one person who is an employee in the home business and lives on the site as their principal place of residence.
• No more than four people in total may work in the home business at any one time and the maximum number of people on site associated with the home business must not exceed 10 people.
• You can’t use more than a third of the total floor area of any buildings on site for the home business activities.
• You can’t create any dust nuisance on site.
• The home business can’t involve the use of trucks or other heavy vehicles.
• The home business can’t include the repair, alteration, restoration or maintenance of motor vehicles or internal combustion engines or spray painting of motor vehicles.
• You must screen any external storage of materials of the home business so they are not visible from outside the site
• You can’t conduct retailing on the site except;
• Goods retailed online and do not result in customer visits to the site, or
• Goods ancillary and related to a service provided by the home business

Criteria for signs advertising work-from-home activities in rural areas

The rules are the same as if you were in a residential area above, except:

• the maximum signage area must not exceed 1 square metre.
• only one sign can be displayed on any site.

Any signage that does not meet the criteria needs a resource consent.

There may be different rules for signage if you live in a heritage area or have a heritage-listed property.

If your business doesn't meet the criteria

If you don't meet the criteria above, you'll need to apply for resource consent to run your business out of your home. This is because your business may have an effect on your neighbours – for example, through noise or parking.

Resource consents

If you're turning an entire residential property into a business — for example, turning a house into a daycare centre or doctor's office — you'll also need to apply for a change of use.

Changing the use of a building

When you apply for resource consent, we may need:

• an acoustic engineer’s report if the business will generate noise
• a parking survey from a traffic engineer, to show the parking demand in the area
• landscaping plans, for example to demonstrate how car parking areas can be screened from view.