Open for Business: WV Eases Burden on Home-Based Businesses

In exciting news out of the Mountain State, West Virginia has enacted sweeping protections for small businesses by adopting the Goldwater Institute’s Home-Based Business Fairness Act. This reform, signed into law by Governor Patrick Morrisey, allows hardworking West Virginians to run a no-impact small business from home without having to first jump through hoops to get a costly, time-consuming permission slip from their local government. 

The law eliminates requirements forcing West Virginia home-based businesses to rezone their homes, install unnecessary sprinklers in single-family residences, or obtain a special license to operate a business. Under the reform, business owners would not be expected to invest money into changing their homes for purposes that are not relevant to their business, so long as the home-based business does not have an impact on its neighbors. 

The role of government at any level is to protect the rights of its citizens, rather than to restrict them. Unfortunately, many local governments miss this goal when it comes to regulating businesses, particularly those found within residential homes. Cities often focus on arbitrary specifications, like the amount of square footage that can be used for business purposes, often even limiting the number of off-site employees that can work at the business. 

Fortunately, at the Goldwater Institute, we’ve crafted a way for state legislators to address this problem in one fell swoop – by enacting the Home-Based Business Fairness Act. This state policy protects people’s right to work from home so long as they aren’t harming their neighbors or disrupting the residential area. And it forces cities to focus on keeping communities safe by policing actual nuisances rather than punishing people who happen to run a business from their living room instead of from an office. 

If a business is contained entirely inside a home, and has no impact on the surrounding areas, there is no reason for local government to place burdensome regulations on entrepreneurs. Home-based businesses provide opportunities for individuals to be their own bosses, contribute to their local economies and generally support their families. In fact, in an Institute for Justice survey of home-based business owners, over two-thirds of respondents said their home-based businesses are important or very important to their households’ financial security. The same respondents also reported that it took over two months to satisfy the regulatory requirements needed to operate a business out of their home.  

“I have been working for two years to get small entrepreneurs a leg up to start their own businesses without the hassle of fees from municipalities,” said Rep. Michael Hornby, who sponsored the legislation in the House. “I look forward to seeing how this may invigorate our small towns with younger, fresher ideas.”   

The Goldwater Institute applauds the West Virginia Legislature and Governor Morrisey for crafting this critical piece of legislation which will invigorate local West Virginia economies by protecting small business owners from runaway localities.  

Taylor Walker is a State Affairs Associate at the Goldwater Institute.