Guides by beauty business type
Most startup advice treats "a salon" as one thing. Your state board does not. Each of these business types carries its own practitioner license, its own training hours and its own establishment rules, and the differences change from state to state.
Hair salon
Cosmetology operator licensing, salon establishment licenses, booth rent vs. employment, and the retail tax split, starting with Texas.
Texas guide liveBarbershop
A separate barber license and board history in many states, merged into one regulator in others. Texas first, under TDLR's Class A Barber license.
Texas guide liveNail salon
Manicurist licensing hours vary more by state than almost any other beauty trade, from 180 to 600 hours in the states researched so far.
Texas guide liveLash studio
The newest specialty license in beauty. Texas has a dedicated lash license at 320 hours; other states register lash artists or place lashes inside other licenses.
Texas guide liveEsthetics studio
Esthetician licensing from 220 to 1,000 hours across the researched states, with license scopes checked against the board's own text.
Texas guide liveSalon suite
An operating model with its own licensing hooks in Texas, where the $70 Mini-Establishment license fits a single suite room.
Texas guide liveBraiding
Texas deregulated braiding in 2015, so this guide is about boundaries: what needs no license, where weaving starts, and the business setup.
Texas guide liveMicroblading
In Texas this is tattooing, licensed as a studio by the Department of State Health Services. Here is the full setup.
Texas guide liveMassage therapy
A TDLR program of its own: the 500 hour therapist license and the massage establishment license, explained end to end.
License requirements by state, compared
Planning a move, or choosing where to train? The national guides compare practitioner license names, training hours and regulators state by state, researched from official board sources, with unfinished states marked as not yet researched rather than filled from directories.
Hair salon requirements by state
Cosmetology license names and hours across the United States, from 1,000 to 1,500 hours in the researched states.
Comparison liveBarbershop requirements by state
Barber licenses, separate barber boards and merged regulators, compared state by state.
Comparison liveNail salon requirements by state
Manicurist hours from 180 to 600 in the researched states, with the license name each state actually uses.
Comparison liveLash studio requirements by state
Which states issue a dedicated lash license, which register lash artists, and which have no separate lash credential.
Comparison liveEsthetics requirements by state
Esthetician hours from 220 to 1,000 in the researched states, license names and regulators compared.
How each guide is built
- Start with the regulator. Every guide names the state board that licenses the business, links its official pages, and works from the statute or code chapter the board enforces.
- Verify the numbers. Training hours, application fees, exam rules and renewal terms are taken from the board and state agency pages, and each guide carries a "state sources last reviewed" date.
- Show the free route first. Every paid formation or insurance option sits next to the official do-it-yourself route, with the state's own filing fee stated plainly. Paid help is optional, and we say so.
- Cover the whole setup. Practitioner license, establishment license, LLC and DBA, EIN, sales tax, employment rules, insurance, startup costs and a renewal calendar, in the order you actually have to do them.
From the blog
Booth rent vs. salon suite vs. your own salon: how beauty pros choose
Three ways to work under your own name, compared on control, cost structure, licensing and risk, using the Texas and Florida rules published on this site.
Licensing basicsBeauty business licenses explained: the practitioner license vs. the establishment license
Almost every beauty business needs two different licenses, one for the person and one for the place. Here is how the two layers work.
PlanningHow to write a salon business plan that a landlord or lender will actually read
Build the plan around the reader's questions, with your state's real fees, licensing timeline and cost arithmetic inside.
Start with Texas or Florida
Texas is our launch state because one regulator, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, covers hair, barbering, esthetics, nails and lashes under a single code chapter. One state's research done properly compounds across five business types. Florida is live now too, under its two DBPR boards, with specialist registrations for the shorter trades and no standalone lash license. California is live now too, under its Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, county body art permits and voluntary massage certification. Georgia is live now too, under its combined State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers, with the longest training hours in the researched set and county body art permits for microblading. North Carolina is live now too, under two boards, the Cosmetic Art Examiners and the Barber and Electrolysis Examiners, with posted sanitation grades in every shop and a $200 LLC annual report. Arizona and New York are next.