RIDGELAND, Miss. – The Mississippi House of Representatives has adopted the Home-based Opportunity Freedom Act of 2022, designed to protect entrepreneurs right to earn a living from their homes.

House Bill 917, authored by Rep. Jansen Owen, cleared the House today and heads to the Mississippi Senate for consideration.

“Credit to Rep. Jansen Owen and his Senate counterpart, Daniel Sparks, for working to modernize Mississippi’s economy. Home-based entrepreneurs are changing the business landscape across the country, creating new opportunities, new services, and new products that make people’s lives better. We need to welcome that change, not fight it under a web of arbitrary regulation,” said Russ Latino, President of Empower Mississippi. “This is a great example of the legislature working to strengthen the environment for business growth and make Mississippi more job-friendly. By eliminating burdensome regulations that exist throughout the state, the state will provide entrepreneurs with assurances that they can follow their dreams by launching and growing their own business.”

The proposal prevents local governments from enforcing a variety of regulations, including the amount of square footage your business can occupy in your house, hours of operations, what type of equipment you can have in your house, or who can work with you.

This does not impact current ordinances on issues surrounding noise, signage, or excessive parking.

There are roughly 15 million home-based businesses in the United States, which makes up about half of all small businesses. Sixty-nine percent of startups are home-based, and 58 percent are women-owned.