[gamblor956]

Your business's primary place of business is your home (referring specifically to the parent comment, not businesses in general). That you can also carry out the business where ever you physically are does not change that basic fact from a legal or tax perspective.

Zoning compliance is not required for a home office (assuming white collar type work). Many, but not all jurisdictions require business licenses, even for home offices. This does not trigger inspections, because a business license isn't about the workplace, it's about the business itself.

EDIT/FOLLOWUP: Your "place of business" does not need to be your mailing address, because you can use a PO Box. It also doesn't need to be your address for legal service (i.e., for service of lawsuits), since most companies use a registered agent for that. At the most basic level, for a solo entrepreneur, your place of business is simply the one common location to which you have a legal right from which you do at least some of your business. In the absence of an owned or leased/subleased office or other workplace, it defaults to your residence.

[NewJazz]

What if I never do business in my home, but instead operate out of libraries, coffee shops, or client's locations?

Picture a carpet cleaning van parked on the street, for example.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

If you're a sole practitioner (what this article is about) - by definition - your business is you. And you are most often in your home.

It's not that complicated.

You want the benefits of a business while not having to worry about angry customers annoying you at your house.

I don't blame you.

We all want to have cake and eat it, too.

[mattgreenrocks]

> You want the benefits of a business while not having to worry about angry customers annoying you at your house.

What's the alternative here? Pay a couple hundred a year for a forwarding address that is sufficiently real enough for Stripe to accept?

Asking out of personal interest. I'm working on the solopreneur route and looking at what's available for myself. Would prefer to keep it away from my personal address.

[hazmazlaz]

Yes, this is the answer. Pay for a virtual address/agent, it's just part of the cost of doing business.

[drpossum]

This isn't about angry customers knowing where you live. This is about angry government since it's for regulatory purposes.

[NewJazz]

you are most often in your home

Yet another baseless assumption.

You want the benefits of a business while not having to worry about angry customers annoying you at your house

Or one may wish to continue making money to feed themselves even though they cannot afford housing. Have you ever had to apply for apartments on self employment income?

[gamblor956]

Generally in the U.S., this has been a settled question for over a century. If you really have questions, there is guidance about this to govern pretty much every jurisdiction in the continental U.S.

For a solo entrepreneurship business in the U.S., your home is your place of business if you do not have another fixed place of business.

[NewJazz]

Consider the question unsettled. Or at the very least unsettling.

[olliej]

The address here would presumably be the one where you can be physically served a lawsuit.

My concern is that if I had an online business that I worked on at home, I still wouldn’t want my home address to be given out by my payment processor.

[whaleofatw2022]

This is what I was thinking. Trying to do Service on a lawsuit/etc is a huge PITA.

[ghaff]

When I bought my house many many years ago, I think I got something in the sale agreement about being able to operate a business out of my house provided it was just a mail-order business without associated traffic. (The seller was continuing to live next door.)

So I'm not sure about zoning in most places--especially today--but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some restrictions on business-related commercial traffic.

[jjav]

> I think I got something in the sale agreement about being able to operate a business out of my house

I don't understand this. Whatever requirements (if any) that apply to your home business are going to be set by the city/county (and those can change over the years). Your home purchase agreement doesn't have any jurisdiction over that.

[rideontime]

In what jurisdiction does the former owner of a property have any say regarding what the new owner does with the property?

[hiatus]

Any that allows covenants that run with the land. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/covenant_that_runs_with_the_...

[ghaff]

I'm am not a property lawyer but I assume that's the case here. I assume were I to sell my property, the buyer couldn't unilaterally forbid my (now different) neighbor from using my driveway and, if they were to sell, the new neighbor couldn't forbid me from walking down to the river. Fortunately, people are pretty reasonable around where I live.

[hiatus]

In my case I own land where certain parts cannot be logged beyond removing hazards. The deed for the land included the restriction, though my lawyer was at a loss as to who would seek to enforce it.

[ghaff]

I assume that this is also how conservation covenants work. A new owner doesn't get to say "just kidding" and develop land that was turned into a property allowing public use with use restrictions.

[ghaff]

In the jurisdiction where they have to actually agree to sell you the property. They gave me a couple of things (e.g. traverse their land to the river). I gave them a couple of things (like making the business aspect explicit and being able to use my driveway to get to their stable). Perfectly normal to have easements and other restrictions/conditions.

[ceejayoz]

HOAs are a great example.

[friendzis]

Where you do business and where you carry out business operations are quite often very different locations.

[DinaCoder99]

Pragmatically, there's a lot of great reasons to not use your personal address as a business address. I still have unemployment claims and financing offers chasing me for a company I started five years ago and closed four years ago.

[Animats]

For some reason, this doesn't seem to be a problem for me. For over twenty years, I've had a registered fictitious business name, a D&B number, and a registered US trademark tied to my home address. I don't even get junk mail for that.

[rideontime]

> unemployment claims

Can you elaborate?

[anticorporate]

> Zoning compliance is not required for a home office (assuming white collar type work).

Actually, it is in my jurisdiction. I have to have a Home Occupation Permit for any type of business whatsoever registered at my home. This is why my address on file is my registered agent, in a different city in my state that does not have this absurd requirement.