How to Start a Hair Salon in Delaware

Who regulates hair salons in Delaware

The licensing authority is the Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, a board in the Division of Professional Regulation, part of the Delaware Department of State. The board administers Title 24, chapter 51 of the Delaware Code, which licenses cosmetology, barbering, aesthetics, nail technology and electrology, licenses instructors and schools alongside practitioners, and licenses the premises where the work happens. Its fees are set by the Division and printed on the board fee schedule: $128 for a cosmetologist, $101 for an aesthetician, $103 for a nail technician, and $142 for the establishment or shop license a salon holds. Applications and renewals run through DELPROS.

The rest of the setup sits outside the board. The Division of Corporations takes the LLC Certificate of Formation and collects the flat annual tax every Delaware LLC pays. The Division of Revenue issues the state business license every Delaware business needs, runs the statewide trade name registry through Delaware One Stop, and administers the gross receipts tax that replaces a sales tax in this state. The Department of Labor sets the minimum wage and runs unemployment insurance. All shops and salons must comply with the Division of Public Health Cosmetology and Barbering Regulations, and that division investigates sanitation complaints against shops. One boundary deserves emphasis: chapter 51 does not reach permanent makeup, which the board classifies as body art and tattooing under the Division of Public Health, so a salon adding a microblading chair adds a second regulator, covered in the Delaware microblading guide.

Delaware hair salon at a glance

The cosmetologist license, step by step

The cosmetologist license is the full scope credential under chapter 51, and section 5107 sets its terms. The education requirement is 1,500 hours of classroom instruction, or 3,000 hours as an apprentice, and the education floor beneath it is a 10th grade education or its equivalent. On finishing the hours, the candidate passes written and practical examinations that are nationally developed under section 5108; the board fee schedule points candidates to Prometric, which administers the practical examination. The application fee printed on the board schedule for a cosmetologist is $128.

The renewal clock is the detail Delaware stylists get wrong most often, because the cosmetologist is the only personal license on it. A cosmetologist license expires October 31 of even numbered years, while barbers, master barbers, aestheticians, nail technicians, electrologists and instructors all expire March 31 of even numbered years. The safety net is generous on time and strict on practice: an individual may late renew for up to five years after expiration, paying a late fee of 50 percent of the renewal fee, but may not practice at all while the license is expired, and a license lapsed more than five years requires reinstatement, including passing the practical examination again under section 5111. The board requires no continuing education for renewal, which the board FAQ answers in a single word, so the renewal is a filing and a fee rather than a coursework deadline.

Two neighboring notes matter to staffing a salon floor. A licensed cosmetologist may earn a shaving certification through a 35 hour shaving course, which lets a salon offer a traditional shave service without hiring a barber for that one service. And the two specialist licenses layer in beside the cosmetologist rather than replacing her: the aesthetician, at 600 classroom hours or 1,200 apprentice hours and a $101 fee, covers the skin care side of the menu, and the nail technician, at 300 classroom hours or 600 apprentice hours and a $103 fee, covers nails only. A full service salon is therefore built on cosmetologists, with aestheticians and nail technicians added where the menu justifies dedicated chairs.

The establishment or shop license for your premises

Section 5103(d) requires a shop license from the board before operating any premises where cosmetology or barbering services are offered, so the premises license comes before the first paying client, not after a soft opening. The license is the Cosmetology/Barbering Establishment or Shop license, priced at $142 on the board fee schedule, and a mobile salon or shop carries the same $142 fee as its own category. The application names a professional-in-charge, defined in section 5101(15) as a licensee in good standing who is responsible for the shop. That person may serve as professional-in-charge for only one shop at a time and any change of the professional-in-charge must be reported to the board in writing within 10 business days.

Where services may happen is as regulated as who performs them. Section 5103(e) allows services only in a licensed shop or school, with narrow exceptions that include services in hospitals and nursing homes, services for decedents, services to invalid or handicapped persons in their homes, institutions, performers and models, and retail demonstrations. Under section 5118(c) a licensed shop may operate in a home if it fully complies with the applicable health regulations, so a home based salon is a licensed shop that happens to sit in a residence, not an exemption from licensure. Every shop, home based or storefront, must comply with the Division of Public Health Cosmetology and Barbering Regulations, and that division investigates sanitation complaints under section 5112(b). The premises renewal runs on the third Delaware clock: establishment, mobile salon and school licenses expire June 30 of odd numbered years, and the late window is short, 45 days after expiration under section 5111(c), after which a new application is required rather than a late renewal.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most Delaware salons form a limited liability company, and formation is a single filing: a Certificate of Formation submitted to the Division of Corporations for $110, priced on the Division fee schedule revised August 1, 2026. The certificate names the company and its Delaware registered agent; every Delaware LLC must maintain a registered agent in the state, the person or service that receives legal papers for the company.

The annual obligation is where Delaware surprises owners formed in other states. Every domestic and foreign LLC pays a flat annual tax of $400, due on or before June 1 for the prior year, and Delaware requires no annual report at all. There is no form to file and nothing to update each year; the tax is the whole obligation. Failure to pay brings a penalty of $200 plus interest of 1.5 percent per month on the tax and penalty, and there is no proration: the tax is assessed if the entity is active on the Division records at any time during the tax year, so forming in December still owes the full $400 for that year.

Registering your salon name

Delaware rebuilt its trade name system recently, and older advice about it is now wrong. Beginning February 2, 2026, the Division of Revenue administers a statewide trade name registry through Delaware One Stop, replacing the county Prothonotary office filings Delaware used for generations. Registration costs a one time charge of $25 per trade name. One registration covers the whole state, there are no per county fees, notarization is no longer required, and all applications are processed online.

Three practical points follow from how the new registry is built. First, order matters: a trade name must be attached to a valid Delaware business license issued by the Division of Revenue, so the business holds its state business license before it can register a name, which puts the business license earlier in the opening sequence than owners expect. Second, the registration never expires and requires no renewal while the underlying business license stays valid, a genuine simplification over the old county system. Third, history is preserved: registrations made with the county Prothonotaries before February 2, 2026 remain valid, and the owner may re-register the name into the Division of Revenue registry at no cost by providing the historic filing number.

Getting your EIN

The Employer Identification Number is the federal tax identity for the business, issued free by the IRS. A salon with employees needs one before the first payroll, because Delaware withholding and unemployment reporting key off it. Apply on the IRS site, keep the number with the LLC records, and use the same legal name on the EIN record, the Division of Corporations filing, the Division of Revenue business license and the board shop license application so the files match.

Sales tax: the tax Delaware does not have

Delaware has no state or local sales tax, and for a salon the first consequence is simple. There is no sales tax permit to obtain for services, no rate to program into the register, and no tax collected on a cut, a color service or a bottle of shampoo sold off the retail shelf. The price on the service menu and the price on the shelf are the amounts the client pays.

In place of a sales tax, the Division of Revenue imposes a gross receipts tax on the seller of goods or the provider of services, falling on total receipts from goods sold and services rendered in Delaware, with no deductions for the cost of labor, materials or other expenses. Beauty businesses sit in the occupations and general services category under Title 30, section 2301, and the Division tax tips list barbers, beauticians, spas and tanning salons among the licensed occupations. That category pays 0.3983 percent on receipts above an exclusion of the first $100,000 of receipts per month, or $300,000 per quarter. The license behind the tax is the state business license: $75 for the first location and $25 for each additional location, renewed annually on or before December 31, and every person or entity conducting a trade or business in Delaware is required to hold one. Two refinements matter to a salon with a retail shelf and a second chair across town. Retail product sales are a separate activity from services, taxed at the retailer rate of 0.7468 percent with its own $100,000 monthly exclusion, and the retailer license carries a $15 retail crime unit fee on top of the $75 license fee. And there is one exclusion per activity across locations: a taxpayer running the same activity at multiple locations aggregates the receipts and takes only one monthly or quarterly exclusion.

Booth rent in Delaware: no renter license

Delaware has no booth rental license and no renter credential of any kind, which sets it apart from states that license the chair separately from the salon. A chair renter in Delaware works inside the shop license the premises already hold, under the professional-in-charge named on that license, and the board issues her nothing for the chair itself. What she must hold is her own personal license, a cosmetologist license if she does hair, current and in good standing like any other practitioner in the building. The shop license structure also means the professional-in-charge remains responsible for the shop the renter works in; the Division of Public Health Cosmetology and Barbering Regulations govern the whole shop, rented chairs included.

Being her own business is where the renter paperwork lives, and it sits with the Division of Revenue rather than the board. A renter who takes her own clients, sets her own prices and collects her own money is conducting her own trade or business in Delaware, so she needs her own Delaware business license from the Division of Revenue, and her own trade name registration through Delaware One Stop if she trades under a name of her own. Whether a chair arrangement is genuinely a rental or is employment in substance turns on the working facts rather than the label on the agreement: who controls the schedule and the manner of the work, whether the stylist serves her own clientele or the salon book, and whose tools, products and payment systems the work runs on. An owner who schedules, prices and directs a stylist like an employee should hire her as an employee and take on the payroll obligations in the next section, while a genuine renter keeps her own book, her own clients and her own business registrations.

Hiring stylists: wages, unemployment and withholding

Delaware minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, effective January 1, 2025, under 19 Delaware Code section 902. Commission stylists are employees when the salon controls their schedules, prices and clients; as the booth rent section explains, Delaware gives a chair renter no license of her own to point to, so the independence of a renter rests on the working facts and on her own business registrations, not on a credential.

Hiring triggers three registrations. The business registers with the Division of Unemployment Insurance in the Department of Labor and pays contributions on the first $14,500 of each employee wages in 2026, the taxable wage base for that year; the new employer rate for 2026 is 1.0 percent. The business also registers for Delaware income tax withholding with the Division of Revenue, through Delaware One Stop, the same portal that holds the business license and the trade name. And the EIN from the earlier section must be in hand before payroll runs, because the federal and state employer accounts key off it. A salon with employees also carries workers compensation coverage as an employment obligation, addressed in the insurance section.

The local layer: cities, zoning and premises

The state licenses the salon; the city decides where it can be. Zoning approval for a personal services use, any city or town business license your locality requires, building and signage permits, and occupancy inspections all run through the city or county where the premises sit, on the local calendar rather than the board. Treat the local layer as a set of calls to make in the specific town before signing a lease. The state business license from the Division of Revenue does not replace a city license where the city issues one; the two sit at different levels and a salon can need both.

Premises facts carry state licensing consequences as well. The shop license belongs to the location: it is the license for premises where services are offered, obtained before operating, and tied to the professional-in-charge named for that one shop, so a move, a second location or a change of the person in charge each has a board filing attached, with professional-in-charge changes reported in writing within 10 business days. The home salon rule cuts the same way: a licensed shop may operate in a home when it fully complies with the applicable health regulations, which makes local home occupation zoning the second gate for a home based salon after the shop license itself.

Insurance for a Delaware salon

Nothing in chapter 51 conditions the salon licenses on carrying liability insurance, so coverage is a business judgment rather than a licensing step, with one exception: workers compensation is an employment obligation for a salon with employees. The standard voluntary stack is general liability for the premises, professional liability for the services each license covers, and property coverage for equipment and retail inventory. Owners using the booth rent model should require each renter to carry her own professional liability policy, because the renter is a separate business operating inside premises licensed in your name, under your professional-in-charge, and your policy alone is a thin answer to a claim arising from her chair.

What it costs to open a Delaware hair salon

The state level costs of opening are legible in Delaware because nearly all of them sit in published schedules. On the licensing side: the $142 establishment or shop license for the premises, and the $128 cosmetologist application fee for each practitioner who does not already hold a license, with aestheticians at $101 and nail technicians at $103 where the menu adds those chairs. On the formation side: $110 to file the Certificate of Formation, $25 one time for the trade name if the salon trades under a name different from the company legal name, $75 for the state business license for the first location, and nothing for the EIN. Recurring state costs run on the calendar in the next section: the flat $400 LLC annual tax every June 1, the state business license renewal every December 31, and license renewals on the board three clocks. Everything beyond the schedules is market cost, priced locally.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a Delaware salon year is a June that carries both the shop renewal in odd years and the LLC tax every year, an October in which the cosmetologists renew in even years, and a December 31 business license renewal that closes the year.

Official sources

• Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, fee schedule: the $128 cosmetologist fee, the $101 aesthetician fee, the $103 nail technician fee and the $142 establishment or shop fee.
• Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, FAQs: hours, the lash rule from the 2021 revisions, the 35 hour shaving certification, permanent makeup as body art, and the no continuing education answer.
• Board of Massage and Bodywork, fee schedule: the neighboring board fee schedule in the same Division.
• Division of Public Health, Body Art program: the body art framework salons adding permanent makeup step into.
• Division of Corporations, LLC tax instructions: the flat $400 annual tax, the June 1 due date, the $200 penalty and the no annual report rule.
• Division of Corporations, fee schedule revised August 1, 2026: the $110 Certificate of Formation fee for a domestic LLC.
• Division of Revenue, gross receipts taxes: the gross receipts tax on services, the activity categories and the exclusion structure.
• Delaware One Stop, trade names: the statewide registry, the $25 one time fee and the February 2, 2026 start date.
• Department of Labor, Unemployment Insurance employer services: the 2026 taxable wage base of $14,500 and the 1.0 percent new employer rate.
• IRS, apply for an EIN: the free federal application.

Delaware hair salon FAQ