How to Start a Barbershop in Alabama

Who licenses barbershops in Alabama

Barbershops answer to the Alabama Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, the merged board that licenses both trades under Title 34 Chapter 7B of the Code of Alabama and Chapter 250-X of the Administrative Code. There is no separate barber board to visit, and the board's licensing page lists the Class 2 barber alongside the cosmetologist, esthetician and manicurist. The board licenses the premises as a shop, inspects it before the license issues, and enforces the practice rules that confine board licensed work to non invasive services on the epidermis.

Two holdovers from the era before the merged board still shape the trade. Section 34-7B-13(8) exempts the Class 1 barber from the chapter entirely, and Section 34-7B-13(7) preserves the position of licensees of county or municipal barber boards that were in existence on August 1, 2013 and never elected to come under the chapter. A barber trained under one of those local boards, or an old timer working under the Class 1 scope, can be entirely lawful in Alabama without ever appearing in the state board's records, which is why this guide treats the class question before the licensing steps. The Department of Revenue appears later on its own track, because the county privilege license prices a barbershop by the chair.

Alabama barbershop at a glance

The Class 2 barber license, step by step

The Class 2 barber license is the credential a working Alabama barbershop is built on. Section 34-7B-17 sets the route: be at least 16, complete 10 grades of education, and finish either 1,000 hours of training at a licensed school or 2,000 hours as an apprentice. The apprentice permit costs $75 on the board's fee schedule, and a change to an apprentice arrangement costs $25. The Class 2 scope is the full barbering trade as the chapter defines it, which is what separates it from the exempt category below.

Examinations run through PSI, which administers the national testing program for the board. The written examination costs $75 and the practical examination costs $130, with the same fees on a reexam, and the passing score is at least 70 percent. Rule 250-X-6-.01 gives the candidate 24 months from the original examination application date to pass everything required; the board's May 2026 amendment removed the older rule that started a two year clock at graduation, so the deadline now runs from the application. The original license costs $50. Renewal is where barbers split from the rest of the board's trades: a Class 2 barber renews at $100 in the licensee's birth month of even numbered years, while cosmetologists, estheticians and manicurists renew in odd numbered years. A renewal postmarked after the birth month adds the $54 late charge, and Section 34-7B-14 allows reinstatement within four years on payment of the lapsed and current renewals plus the late fee, or after four years by re-examining with renewal fees capped at $300. The board publishes no continuing education requirement for renewal.

The Class 1 barber deserves a full paragraph because so much Alabama barbering history runs through it. Chapter 7B does not license the Class 1 barber at all: the board's own summary limits the category to shaving or trimming the beard or trimming the hair, and Section 34-7B-13(8) exempts Class 1 practice from the chapter. A shop whose menu is a haircut and a shave may meet Class 1 practitioners lawfully working without a state license, but the exemption carries no chemical services, no broader scope and no path into the services clients increasingly expect from a barbershop. Anyone building a business, hiring, or signing a lease should build on Class 2 licenses, their own and their barbers'.

The shop license and the inspection

The premises take the board's shop license, the same credential a hair salon holds, because Chapter 7B defines a shop as any place where barbering or cosmetology is practiced. A new shop license costs $200, and Rule 250-X-3-.01 puts two gates in front of it: a member of the board staff must physically inspect and approve the premises, and the applicant must provide proof the location is properly zoned. The statute also provides that only a properly licensed person who is not an apprentice or student may operate a shop, so an investor owner opens with a licensed barber running the floor. Mobile barbering has its own route: mobile salons have been licensable since January 1, 2022 under Section 34-7B-30 and Chapter 250-X-7 of the rules.

Inside the shop, the display rules are the same as a salon's: the shop license at reception, personal licenses at the workstations, and the most recent inspection report posted by the shop license. A shop inside a residence must be separated from the living quarters by a permanent finished partition rising to the ceiling, with a separate entrance and its own toilet facility, and no shop may serve as living, dining or sleeping quarters. Services belong inside licensed premises, with one narrow exception for a client whose illness or incapacitation prevents travel, served by a licensee employed by a licensed shop on an appointment made through the shop. Shop licenses expire September 30 and renew by October 31 of odd numbered years at $150; relocation costs $50, and a name or owner change costs $25, or one $25 fee when both change together.

Forming your business entity

Most Alabama barbershops form as a limited liability company, and Alabama requires a step before the formation filing that most states skip. The Secretary of State requires a Certificate of Name Reservation before formation documents are filed, under Section 10A-1-4.02(f): the name must contain Limited Liability Company or the abbreviation LLC, the reservation fee on the Secretary of State's fee schedule is $25, or $28 requested online, and the Certificate of Formation then files at $200, as the original and one copy. A foreign LLC registering from another state pays $150 with the same name reservation first.

The Alabama LLC files no annual report with the Secretary of State, and its recurring obligation is a tax return instead: the Business Privilege Tax, levied under Section 40-14A-22 on the privilege of being organized under Alabama law or doing business in the state and computed on net worth. The initial return, Form BPT-IN, is due within two and a half months after the entity organizes, with no extension of time to file it, and annual returns on Form PPT follow the federal calendar, with an automatic six month extension to file that does not extend the time to pay. Under Act 2022-252, an entity whose calculated tax is $100 or less is exempt from filing the return for tax years beginning after December 31, 2023, which covers most single shop barbershops, although the Department of Revenue may ask for an exemption affidavit before issuing a Certificate of Compliance, a document that costs $13.30 requested online when a landlord or lender requires one.

Business names and the trade name registry

Alabama has no DBA filing. No statute requires a sole proprietor or an LLC trading under a different name to file an assumed name certificate with the Secretary of State or with any county office, and older advice about a probate court fictitious name form does not describe a filing Alabama law creates. Your shop's trading name is carried by the shop license application, the county privilege license, your tax accounts and your lease, and the practical rule is to keep those records telling the same story.

What the state runs instead is a marks registry. The Secretary of State's Trademarks Division administers trademark, service mark and trade name registrations under the Title 8 Chapter 12 system, in place since 1988. A trade name registration costs $30 with an application and three specimens showing the name in use, runs five years, and renews for another $30 with one specimen. It is a brand record that identifies the business, useful against a copycat shop across town, and it is not a license or a permission to operate. It also protects only a name already in use, because the specimens are the proof of use.

Federal tax ID and business banking

Apply for an Employer Identification Number on IRS.gov. It is free, it issues online in one session, and any site charging you for an EIN is selling you a form you can file yourself. Alabama keys its registrations to the federal number: the Department of Revenue opens your sales tax and Business Privilege Tax accounts against it, the Department of Labor builds your unemployment account on it, and the county probate office records it on the privilege license.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and the EIN exist, and run every fee, product order, rent payment and tax deposit through it. The birth month license renewals, the October shop and privilege license deadlines, the quarterly unemployment reports and the annual privilege tax return all assume the shop can show its own books, and a clean, separate account is the cheapest compliance tool in this guide.

Sales tax through the Department of Revenue

Alabama's sales tax falls on retail sales of tangible personal property and a list of specifically taxed categories, and barbering is not one of them. A haircut, shave or beard trim is not a taxable sale in Alabama, so you collect no sales tax on the service ticket. The statewide general rate is 4 percent, and county and city taxes ride on top of taxable sales at rates that vary by address, so this guide prints the state rate and sends you to the Department of Revenue's rate lookup for the combined figure at your door.

The retail shelf is the taxable side of the shop. Pomade, shaving products and other take home goods you sell are retail sales at the 4 percent state rate plus the local taxes at your address, and selling them means registering for a sales tax account through My Alabama Taxes before the first taxable sale. Buy resale inventory without paying tax under that account, and expect the mirror rule on your own purchases: clippers, shop supplies and the products you consume at the chair are taxable purchases, because nothing about them is resold. Keep services and products on separate lines at the register so the tax lands only where the statute puts it.

Chair rent in an Alabama barbershop

Alabama creates no booth or chair renter license. Chapter 7B and the board's rules never address chair rental, and the word booth appears in the board's book only for school work areas. A barber renting a chair in your shop needs one board credential, their own Class 2 barber license, and they work inside your shop license, your premises and your inspection record. Your compliance file should carry every renter's license number and birth month renewal date, because the shop's inspection covers the chairs your renters work from, and a renter whose license lapses is working in your licensed shop.

The renter's own annual filing sits in the tax system rather than the board's. Section 40-12-124 charges a person engaging in the business of hairdressing or administering facial treatments on a self employed basis inside a shop licensed under Section 40-12-61 a license tax of $7.50 plus the $1 issuance fee, $8.50 a year at the county probate office. Because a haircut only barbershop is licensed under Section 40-12-58 rather than Section 61, a chair renter in a barbershop should confirm with the probate office which section the county applies to the arrangement before the first October 31 passes; employees are covered by the shop's own license either way. The classification question runs on control rather than labels in both cases: a renter who sets prices, books clients and pays a set rent reads as a tenant, and the paperwork should be written like the tenancy it claims to be. A barber who instead wants a door and a business of their own is opening a shop, and the salon suite guide in this cluster covers that license.

Hiring employees in Alabama

Your first hire registers the shop as an Alabama employer on two tracks. The Department of Revenue takes the withholding registration through My Alabama Taxes, and the Department of Labor, through Workforce Alabama, takes the unemployment insurance registration. Newly liable employers pay unemployment tax at 2.70 percent on the first $8,000 of each employee's wages, and later rates are experience rated on the shop's own claims history, so the first year rate is a starting point rather than a fixture.

Alabama sets no state minimum wage at all. The United States Department of Labor's state wage table records Alabama as having no state minimum wage law, so employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act pay the federal floor: $7.25 an hour, with the federal tipped cash wage of $2.13 an hour where tips bring the total to $7.25. Commission and chair percentage arrangements still have to clear that federal floor across the pay period, which is the calculation that matters in a shop mixing employees and renters. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist: confirm your duties with the Department of Labor and place coverage with a carrier before the first employee's first shift, and keep the certificate with the licenses it sits beside.

Local rules for an Alabama barbershop

The local layer for a barbershop is the state and county privilege license, bought at the county probate judge or county revenue office where the shop sits, with the county levy collected at 50 percent of the state amount under Section 40-12-2(e) and a $1 issuance fee on top. Section 40-12-58 prices the barbershop by the chair: $3.75 for the first chair, $3.75 for each additional chair. The Department of Revenue's Handbook of Privilege and Store Licenses adds the interpretation that decides menus: a Section 58 barbershop is limited to facilities providing haircuts, and a barber who gives perms, manicures or facial treatments must be licensed under Section 40-12-61, the beauty parlor section, at $15 for the owner plus $9 or $6 per additional operator depending on city population. The license renews every year by October 31, and a 15 percent penalty plus interest applies after that date.

Zoning and the municipal layer sit underneath the county license. The board requires proof the shop location is properly zoned as part of the shop license itself, and a municipal business license, where your city levies one, is separate and additional at a price the city sets. The older local layer appears in one more place: the county and municipal barber boards preserved by Section 34-7B-13(7) are a licensure question for individual barbers in a few places, not a shop license, and a new shop should not expect one to substitute for the state board's shop license. A shop that moves restarts its clocks: the board's $50 relocation, a new privilege license for the new place of business, and the city license for the new address.

Insurance for an Alabama barbershop

Chapter 7B does not condition the shop license on an insurance filing, so a barbershop's insurance stack is set by risk and by contract rather than by the board. Professional liability is the core policy for a room built on razors, clippers and hot towels, and it is the coverage a chair rent structure has to think hardest about, because the shop's policy, the renter's own policy and the shop's inspection record describe overlapping people working in the same room.

General liability for the premises and property coverage for chairs, equipment and the retail stock complete the standard stack. Landlords routinely name their own limits and additional insured requirements in the lease, and those contract numbers, not a statute, are the figures to satisfy. Keep the certificates filed with the licenses they sit beside, so an inspector, a landlord or a new manager can see the whole compliance picture in one folder.

Your Alabama renewal calendar

Official sources

• Board of Cosmetology and Barbering: license types, training hours and routes
• Board of Cosmetology and Barbering: the fee schedule, exams, licenses and shops
• Board of Cosmetology and Barbering: Title 34 Chapter 7B, including the Class 1 and local board exemptions at Section 34-7B-13
• Secretary of State: LLC formation, name reservation and filing fees
• Secretary of State: trade name registration through the Trademarks Division
• Department of Revenue: Business Privilege Tax forms, deadlines and the $100 exemption
• Department of Revenue: Handbook of Privilege and Store Licenses, Sections 40-12-58, 40-12-61 and 40-12-124
• Department of Revenue: state sales and use tax rates
• Workforce Alabama: employer unemployment tax basics
• United States Department of Labor: state minimum wage laws, Alabama entry

Alabama barbershop FAQ