Have you ever thought about setting up your own business? For some of these home business ideas, you’ll need specialist equipment, and possibly additional training and qualifications. But for many of these businesses, all you’ll need is a laptop, a smartphone, and a lot of dedication.
In this post we’ll list numerous ideas for businesses you can start from home. We’ll then discuss some of the practical things you’ll need to consider if you want to start a business of your own.
What Do We Mean By a Home-Based Business?
The various businesses we’ll list below all have one thing in common: They can all be run from the comfort of your own home, often with no need to invest in any additional business premises.
This is one of the major benefits of running a business from home. You save a lot of money on the overheads associated with renting or buying dedicated business premises. Also, running a business from home means no commute, and the flexibility can lead to a good work/life balance.
However, some of the businesses we list below will require client visits and certain types of onsite work. Others might require you to convert part of your house to suit your needs. But beyond this, these are all roles that will allow you to treat your home as your base of operations.
Preparing Your Home For Your Business
We’ve got a detailed guide to everything you need to know about running a business from your home. It covers certain practical and legal considerations, as well as some information about the sorts of businesses that are unsuitable for the home environment.
Read our full guide to setting up your home for business use.
25 Businesses You Can Start From Home in 2024
Independent Fashion Business
This might include designing or manufacturing clothing or accessories. You could do this yourself, in your home, or you could outsource some of your processes to third party providers.
Alternatively, you could make a living through reselling clothes – in buying, restoring, and reselling high quality vintage clothing, for example.
Read our full guide to starting a fashion business from home.
Dog Walking Business
Not everyone has the time, or the physical capabilities, to take their dogs for regular walks. With a dog walking business, you can offer this service at a price. You could even offer additional services, such as grooming.
Read our full guide to starting a dog walker business.
Cleaning Business
Cleaning other people’s houses or business premises will obviously require lots of travelling. But you can easily manage all your bookings, admin, and finances from home, with no need to invest in dedicated business premises. You may have to set aside part of your home to store your cleaning supplies, though.
Read our full guide to starting a cleaning business.
Bookkeeper
Self-employed bookkeepers record and process financial transactions for numerous businesses. For this, all you need is a laptop, some dedicated accounting software, and a good head for numbers. This means that you can quite easily start a bookkeeping business from home.
Read our full guide to becoming a self-employed bookkeeper.
Accountant
Like bookkeepers, accountants just need a laptop with some dedicated accounting software, making this a perfectly practical business to run from your home.
Freelance accountants, though, will have to meet with clients from time to time. If you don’t want to convert your home to receive clients, then you can either temporarily rent office space offsite, or else meet clients on their own premises, or in a public space.
Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants provide administrative support services to a number of clients. And as the name implies, they do this “virtually” – that is, from a remote location, such as your own home.
Read our full guide to becoming a virtual assistant.
Recruitment Agency
Recruiters help match the right employees with the right jobs. Beyond excellent communication skills, all they need for this is a phone, a laptop, and some kind of database software. You may occasionally need to meet clients and interview applicants, so you may need to convert part of your home to receive visitors. Alternatively, you can arrange to meet offsite, in a café for example.
Read our full guide to starting a recruitment agency.
Photography
If you have a camera, then you essentially have everything you need to set up a photography business from home. You might need to convert part of your home to develop and print photos, but many freelance photographers outsource this process, which can help to keep the overheads low.
Read our full guide to starting a photography business.
Consultant
Consultants are experienced professionals who use their insights to help other businesses grow. You can consult in almost any field, from finances to IT. And though you’ll need to make occasional client visits, and attend numerous networking events, you can make your home your base of operations.
Read our guide to starting a consulting business.
IT Support
Large businesses have dedicated in-house IT teams. Smaller businesses often outsource their IT support to independent third parties, some of whom operate on a freelance basis.
As a freelance IT support provider, you can easily manage your business from home, though of course you’ll have to make numerous onsite visits to deliver your services.
Marketing Support
You can offer a number of online services remotely, from home.
Home-based marketing support services include:
- Freelance writing.
- Copy-editing and proofreading.
- Graphic design.
- Web design and development.
- SEO consulting.
Going Self-Employed For The First Time – A Step-by-Step Guide
If you’re considering starting a business from your home, then you may need to register as self-employed.
If you’ve never done this before, you might have some questions about what’s involved, and what sort of responsibilities you’ll have as an independent freelancer.
We put together a step-by-step guide to going self-employed for the first time. It covers:
- Questions you should ask yourself to determine if you’re ready.
- How to register your business.
- Your legal responsibilities as a self-employed worker.
- Choosing a name for your business.
- Long-term considerations (such as VAT, for example).
Read our full guide to going self-employed for the first time.
Setting Up A Business From Home – Further Resources
You’ll find numerous guides on our dedicated small business blog to help you set up and run your business from home.
These include:
- A guide to record keeping for the self-employed.
- Self-employed invoice templates for UK businesses.
- A guide to turnover for the self-employed.
- What are allowable expenses for the self-employed?
- The best pensions for self-employed workers.
Finally, if you’re running a business from home, you’ll have to think about your insurance needs. Read our full guide to insurance for self-employed workers.
No Matter What Business You Start From Home, You’ll Need Insurance
At Tapoly, we specialise in giving all types of self-employed tailored insurance cover at an affordable price. You won’t pay for any cover you don’t need, and there are no hidden fees. If you’re considering starting a business from home, get in touch for a free quote in minutes.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss your options, please contact our Tapoly team at [email protected], call our helpline on +44(0)2078 460 108 or try our chat on our website.