Home / Connecticut / Hair Salon / LLC

Forming an LLC for Your Connecticut Hair Salon: The Complete Filing Guide

The parent guide gives you the short version: file the Certificate of Organization, pay $120, and file the $80 annual report every spring. This page is the long version: choosing between an LLC, a sole proprietorship, and a corporation in Connecticut terms, what each filing actually does, the town clerk trade name system that replaces a state DBA, the dissolution by forfeiture trap that waits for owners who skip the annual report, and the tax and payroll accounts that keep a Connecticut salon LLC in good standing.

Researched from Connecticut state sources. Our guides are free. We may earn a commission when you use a partner service, at no additional cost to you.

LLC, sole proprietorship, or corporation for a Connecticut salon

The parent guide gives the short version of this choice. Here is the long one. A sole proprietorship is what you are by default if you open a salon in your own name and file nothing with the Secretary of the State: there is no formation step, and legally there is no business separate from you, which means the salon's debts, lease obligations, and legal claims reach your personal assets. A sole proprietor still files the town clerk trade name certificate covered below if the salon trades under a brand, and that filing creates no shield at all.

A limited liability company creates a separate legal entity between you and the salon. Formed properly and kept separate, it holds the business's debts and claims at the business level instead of following you home. Two limits deserve plain words. The shield covers the business's obligations; it does not protect you from claims about your own work behind the chair, and it weakens if you run the salon's money through your personal accounts, which is why the bank account section below matters. Connecticut follows the federal classification for taxes: under section 34-243v of the General Statutes, an LLC is treated for state tax purposes in accordance with its federal classification, so by default its income passes through to the owners, and an entity level election is a federal tax choice rather than a different Connecticut entity.

A corporation is the third route: a separate entity formed with the Secretary of the State, owned through stock, and run with more formal machinery, directors, officers, and records, than most single salon operations need. It earns its keep for multi location groups and outside investors. For a first salon, the LLC is the structure Connecticut owners usually land on, and it is the one the rest of this page walks through. Whichever you choose, the entity is separate from licensing: Connecticut licenses the practitioners through the Department of Public Health and inspects the premises through the local health department, and neither system cares which entity you picked, as the Connecticut hub lays out.

Filing the Certificate of Organization

You form a Connecticut LLC by filing a Certificate of Organization with the Secretary of the State, online through Business.CT.gov. The filing fee is $120, and the one filing does two jobs: it creates the LLC and appoints the statutory agent the state requires. Work through the pieces in order:

1. Choose the legal name. Section 34-247 requires the certificate to state the company's name, and the name goes on the state record everything else keys off. If the name you want is not ready to file yet, an optional Application for Reservation of Name holds it for $60.
2. Name a statutory agent. The certificate appoints a statutory agent, Connecticut's term for a registered agent, with a Connecticut street and mailing address where legal papers can be delivered. Pick someone who will actually be there and who has agreed to serve, because a missed lawsuit notice is the worst way to learn the agent moved, and losing your agent is itself a forfeiture trigger, covered below.
3. Complete the certificate's required statements. Section 34-247(b) lists them: the principal office's street and mailing address, the agent's name and address, the name and business and residence address of at least one manager or member, the company's valid electronic mail address, and its NAICS code. The email address matters more than it looks: the Secretary of the State sends the forfeiture notices described below to the address on record.
4. File online and pay the $120 fee. Most Connecticut business filings run through a Business.CT.gov account. Filing creates the entity; it does not license the salon, and it does not finish your tax setup.
5. Keep the filing confirmation. Your bank, your landlord, and your payment processor will all ask for proof the LLC exists. Save the confirmation with your lease and licenses.

Two Connecticut features shape everything after formation. Connecticut issues no general state business license on top of the entity filing, so for a salon the state level permissions are the entity, the practitioner licenses, and the tax registrations. And unlike states that run entity anniversaries, Connecticut puts every LLC on the same annual report window, January 1 to March 31, which makes the duty easy to calendar and, as the dissolution section shows, expensive to ignore. The same fee table prices the changes a growing salon eventually files: a certificate of amendment is $120, a change of agent or of business address is $50, and an interim notice of change of manager or member is $20.

The trade name certificate: Connecticut files it at town hall

If your salon operates under a name different from your LLC's legal name, Connecticut calls that a trade name, and the filing is the detail out of state guides routinely get wrong: it does not go to the Secretary of the State at all. Section 35-1a of the General Statutes prohibits transacting business under an assumed or fictitious name unless a trade name certificate has been issued, and the certificate is filed with the town clerk of the town where the business is principally transacted, in one town only, even if the salon takes clients in several. The fee is $20, payable to the town clerk, and the application must be hand signed and acknowledged before the town clerk or another notary. An LLC trading under the exact name on its Certificate of Organization needs no certificate; an LLC whose storefront brand differs from its registered name files one like everyone else.

The part of the system that changed under owners' feet is duration. Public Act 24-111 rewrote the trade name law effective January 1, 2025: a certificate is now valid for five years from issuance and must be renewed, and every certificate issued before January 1, 2025 expires on December 31, 2029 unless renewed. The Secretary of the State is building a statewide trade name registry searchable on Business.CT.gov, so the filing at the town counter now feeds a state database. Know what the certificate does not do: it provides public notice of who is behind the name, and it confers no liability protection, no exclusive right to the name, and no substitute for any license or permit. It is practical paperwork all the same: your bank will typically want to see it before opening accounts in the salon's name, and a mismatch between your trade name, your lease, and your bank records is a small thing that stalls bigger things, including the loans on our Connecticut business loans page.

Your EIN from the IRS

Your EIN is the business's federal tax ID, issued by the IRS. You need one to hire employees, to register for the Connecticut tax accounts in the next section, and in practice to open the business bank account, because most banks require it even for a single member LLC. It is free. Apply directly through the IRS and ignore any website that offers to obtain one for a fee; those sites charge for a form the government gives away. Apply early, right after the LLC is formed, so the EIN never becomes the bottleneck when you sign a lease or set up payroll.

Connecticut tax and payroll accounts: DRS and the Department of Labor

Two state systems follow formation, and both key off the EIN. The first is the Department of Revenue Services, reached through its myconneCT system on Form REG-1. The registration that matters at your register is the Sales and Use Tax Permit, with a $100 registration fee. Connecticut taxes services by enumeration under section 12-407, and hair services are not on the list: haircutting, shampooing, coloring, and perming collect no sales tax. Two edges still reach a hair salon. Retail product sales are taxable at 6.35 percent, the whole rate, since Connecticut has no local sales tax, and returns are filed on Form OS-114 electronically, with the permit itself renewing every two years. And scalp treatment services are taxable under the miscellaneous personal services category, so a salon selling scalp treatments as a distinct line should treat that line as taxable. Itemize services and products separately on every ticket so tax is collected only where the statute puts it.

The second system is the Department of Labor, and the first hire opens it. Register for unemployment insurance: for calendar year 2026 the tax applies to the first $27,000 of each employee's wages, a new employer pays 1.9 percent, and a fund solvency tax of 1.0 percent rides on top, with experienced employers' total rates running from 1.1 to 9.9 percent. Register with the CT Paid Leave Authority at the same time: the employer withholds 0.5 percent of each employee's wages, up to the Social Security wage base, and remits it quarterly. The wage floor those payrolls run against is $16.94 an hour from January 1, 2026, rising to $17.48 on January 1, 2027. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist; our Connecticut salon insurance guide covers the mandate, the owner election forms, and the penalties.

The business bank account, and keeping the separation real

Open a business bank account in the LLC's name as soon as the EIN arrives, using your formation confirmation, your EIN letter, and your trade name certificate if you filed one. Then run everything through it: card settlements, booth rent, payroll, product purchases, rent. The liability separation you paid $120 for is only as strong as the separation you actually keep. Money that flows back and forth between the salon and your personal account blurs the line the LLC exists to draw, and it makes your bookkeeping, your sales tax returns, and any future loan application harder than they need to be. Connecticut's compliance calendar is fragmented across birth month license renewals, a January to March annual report window, quarterly payroll filings, and an annual health inspection, and clean separate books are what make it survivable.

Dissolution by forfeiture, and how reinstatement works

Connecticut's enforcement mechanism for the annual report is statutory, and section 34-267g writes it out. When it comes to the Secretary of the State's attention that an LLC is more than one year in default of filing its annual report, the Secretary may notify the LLC by electronic mail, to the address on record, that its rights and powers are prima facie forfeited. If the report is not filed within three months of that notice, the Secretary files a certificate of dissolution by forfeiture, and the LLC is dissolved. The same path applies to an LLC that fails to maintain a statutory agent: notice, three months to appoint one, then forfeiture. A dissolved LLC continues in existence only to wind up its activities and liquidate its assets, or to apply for reinstatement. Voluntary dissolution, when you actually mean to close, is a separate filing: the Certificate of Dissolution on the Secretary of the State's fee schedule costs $0.

Reinstatement is built to be used. Under section 34-267b an LLC may be reinstated at any time after its dissolution. It takes the written consent of a majority in interest of the members, a certificate of reinstatement filed with the Secretary of the State, payment of all penalties and forfeitures incurred plus the reinstatement fee of $120 set by section 34-243u, an annual report for the current year, and an appointment of a statutory agent. If the old name is no longer available, it is changed by amendment at the same time. On reinstatement, the company resumes carrying on its activities as if the dissolution had never occurred. Read those two sections together and the strategy writes itself: the $80 spring filing is the cheapest insurance your entity carries, because forfeiture interrupts everything from your bank account to a loan closing while you paper your way back.

Your Connecticut LLC annual duties calendar

• January 1 to March 31, every year: the LLC annual report to the Secretary of the State, filed online, $80. The first report is due in this window in the year after formation. More than a year in default starts the section 34-267g forfeiture path.
• Every five years: renew the town clerk trade name certificate, $20, if your salon trades under a name different from the LLC's legal name. Certificates issued before January 1, 2025 expire December 31, 2029 unless renewed.
• Every two years: Department of Public Health practitioner license renewals, $100, expiring on the section 19a-88 birth month cycle, and the Sales and Use Tax Permit renewal with the Department of Revenue Services.
• On the Department of Revenue Services schedule: sales and use tax returns on Form OS-114, filed electronically through myconneCT, covering the 6.35 percent collected on retail product sales.
• Quarterly: unemployment insurance contributions to the Department of Labor at your assigned rate, and CT Paid Leave withholding of 0.5 percent remitted to the CT Paid Leave Authority.
• Every year: the local health department's salon inspection under section 19a-231, on the town or district's schedule, fee capped at $250.
• As things change: keep the statutory agent and addresses current with the Secretary of the State ($50 for an agent or business address change, $20 for an interim notice of change of manager or member, $120 for a certificate of amendment), and keep the trade name matched to the name on your storefront, lease, and bank account.
• Not on your calendar: a separate annual franchise tax report to the Secretary of the State. Connecticut's recurring entity filing is the annual report above; the LLC's tax treatment follows its federal classification under section 34-243v.

That calendar is the whole recurring burden of a Connecticut salon LLC at the state level. The expensive mistakes are not the fees. They are the skipped $80 report in a busy spring, discovered a year later inside a forfeiture notice, and the personal card swiped for salon expenses until the entity and the owner are the same pile of money again.

This page is general information researched from official Connecticut and federal sources, not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Requirements, fees and forms change; verify the current rules with the agency or regulator linked above before you file, sign or spend.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to form an LLC in Connecticut?

The Certificate of Organization costs $120, filed online with the Secretary of the State through Business.CT.gov, and the fee includes the appointment of your statutory agent. Keeping the LLC current costs $80 a year for the annual report. An optional name reservation before you file costs $60.

Does a Connecticut LLC file an annual report?

Yes. Every Connecticut LLC files an annual report online between January 1 and March 31, and the fee is $80. The first report is due in that window in the year after formation. Missing it is the most common way a Connecticut LLC gets into trouble: an LLC more than one year in default can be dissolved by forfeiture under section 34-267g.

Where do I file a DBA for a salon in Connecticut?

At town hall, not with the state. Connecticut's version of a DBA is the trade name certificate under section 35-1a, filed with the town clerk of the town where the business is principally transacted, for $20. The application is hand signed and acknowledged, and since January 1, 2025 a certificate lasts five years and must be renewed. An LLC trading under its exact legal name needs no certificate.

What happens if my Connecticut LLC is dissolved by forfeiture, and can I fix it?

A dissolved LLC continues to exist only to wind up. Reinstatement is available at any time under section 34-267b: file a certificate of reinstatement, pay the $120 reinstatement fee plus any penalties owed, file an annual report for the current year, and appoint a statutory agent. On reinstatement the company resumes as if the dissolution had never occurred.

Do I need an EIN for a single member salon LLC in Connecticut?

In practice, yes. You need an EIN to hire employees and to register for Connecticut tax accounts through myconneCT, and most banks require one to open the business account in the LLC's name. It is free from the IRS, so apply right after formation and ignore any website that offers to get one for a fee.