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How to Start a Nail Salon in Georgia: Licenses, Costs & Requirements

A Georgia nail salon runs on the shortest license in the cosmetology law and the easiest renewal date to miss. The State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers licenses your technicians at 525 hours and your salon through the Salon/Shop license, while the Secretary of State, your county clerk, and the Department of Revenue each take a piece of the business setup. This guide walks through all of it with the board's own fees and deadlines.

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

Who licenses nail salons in Georgia

Nail salons answer to the Georgia State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers, administered by the Professional Licensing Boards Division of the Secretary of State under O.C.G.A. Chapter 43-10. The board licenses nail technicians individually and licenses the salon itself through the Salon/Shop establishment license. Applications and renewals run through the Secretary of State's GOALS online licensing system, and every fee in this guide comes from the board's published fee schedule at sos.ga.gov.

Nail licensing is the shortest practitioner route on the board, 525 hours against 1,500 for a master cosmetologist, and it carries the renewal date owners most often get wrong. Estheticians and nail technicians renew by August 31 of odd years, while cosmetologists and barbers renew in even years. A nail salon staffed by career nail technicians runs on the odd year calendar, and a salon that also employs stylists runs on both. Build the calendar into your opening paperwork, not your first late notice.

Georgia nail salon requirements at a glance

The Georgia nail technician license

A nail technician practices nail care as Section 43-10-1 defines it: trimming, filing, and polishing nails, manicures and pedicures, and applying artificial nails and nail enhancements. The school route is 525 credit hours at a board approved school of nail care over at least four months, the shortest course in Chapter 43-10. Applicants must be at least 17, hold a high school diploma, an equivalency diploma, or a college degree, and pass both a written and a practical examination approved by the board. The application for licensure by exam costs $30, plus a $5 processing fee when you apply online.

The same license is available without school through the apprenticeship route: 1,050 credit hours working in a licensed salon or shop under a licensed supervisor, with a $90 apprentice license application. For a salon owner, apprentices are a staffing strategy as much as a licensing path, because a well run shop can grow its own technicians in its own methods.

Renewal is where this license surprises people. Nail technicians renew for $45 by August 31 of odd years, not even years. A late renewal inside 30 days costs $90, and reinstatement after the window costs $200. Renewal requires five hours of continuing education, three of them in a health and safety course, starting at the licensee's second renewal. Technicians licensed in another state apply by endorsement for $75 with an active home state license. And no unlicensed work is allowed while any of this is pending: services by an unlicensed person put both the worker and the salon's establishment license at risk.

The Salon/Shop license for your salon

The salon itself needs the board's Salon/Shop license, the single establishment license for any premises where cosmetology services, including nail services, are practiced. The application fee is $75. The board's how-to guide sets the sequence: a salon or shop may not perform services until it holds an active license, so the application goes in before opening day, not after. You do not need a nail technician license yourself to own the salon; the license belongs to the business and its address.

The Salon/Shop license renews for $75 by June 30 of odd years, the same odd year rhythm as your technicians' licenses but a different date, which makes the summer of odd years this industry's paperwork season in Georgia. A late renewal within six months costs $200 and reinstatement costs $300. A change of name or address costs $45, a change of ownership $75, and a salon that moves must file a change of location application before opening at the new address.

Chapter 240-4 of the board's rules governs the space. Inspectors may enter and inspect during regular business hours, and refusing an inspection can bring sanctions up to revocation. The salon needs a permanent and definite location, floor to ceiling separation from living or other commercial space, and toilet and lavatory facilities on the premises or within 300 feet in the same building. Post the facility license within fifteen feet of the entrance, and post each technician's current license in an open, public area where clients and inspectors can see it. Sanitation is not a suggestion in a nail salon: the board's health and safety rules in the same chapter cover the disinfection discipline your inspectors will check first.

Scope lines: nail services, lashes and the apprentice route

Georgia draws its scope lines by license, and a nail salon's menu has to respect two of them. The first is the top of the nail scope: nail technicians do nails. Skin care beyond the incidental work of a manicure or pedicure belongs to estheticians and master cosmetologists, and hair services belong to the hair licenses. A nail salon that wants a facial room or a lash menu needs the licenses that cover those services in the chairs, not just on the price list.

The second line runs the other way. A master cosmetologist's scope includes nail technician services, so a licensed cosmetologist can legally take a nail appointment in your salon. That overlap is useful for staffing small salons, where one dual purpose licensee can cover a slow station. What neither license allows is the unlicensed version of the service: Georgia has no certificate or short course substitute for the nail technician license, and a weekend training certificate does not authorize anyone to charge for nail services.

Forming your LLC with the Georgia Secretary of State

Most Georgia beauty businesses organize as a limited liability company, and Georgia makes the filing simple. To form the LLC, file Articles of Organization with the Corporations Division of the Secretary of State, online through the eCorp system. Under the Corporations Division fee schedule effective September 6, 2025, the filing fee is $100 plus a $10 service charge, $110 in total, and the same $110 applies whether you file online or on paper. Older guides still quote $100 or $105; the September 2025 schedule replaced both numbers. Your Articles name the LLC, give its address, and name a registered agent with a Georgia street address who accepts legal papers on the business's behalf.

The filing owners miss is the annual registration. Every Georgia LLC files one with the Secretary of State each year between January 1 and April 1, starting the year after formation. The statutory fee is $50 plus the $10 service charge, $60 in total, and filing after April 1 adds a $25 late penalty. Let it lapse and the Secretary of State can administratively dissolve the LLC, which strips away the liability protection the entity exists to provide. Put the January to April window on your calendar the day you form, not the first spring it surprises you.

An LLC is not the only route. A sole proprietor files nothing with the Corporations Division, but also gets no separation between business and personal debts and claims. A corporation files Articles of Incorporation at the same $110 total and owes the same $60 annual registration. Whatever you choose, the entity does not change the licensing in this guide. The board licenses, the county trade name filing, and the tax accounts below are the same for an LLC, a corporation, and a sole proprietor.

Registering your trade name with the Clerk of Superior Court

Georgia handles business names at the county courthouse, not at the state level. If you do business under a name that does not disclose who owns the business, a storefront name, a brand, or an LLC trading under a shorter name, O.C.G.A. Section 10-1-490 requires you to register that trade name with the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where the business is chiefly carried on. File before you start doing business under the name. The registration statement is verified by affidavit and lists the names and addresses of the owners and the nature of the business being carried on.

Two steps catch people out. First, the filing is not complete until you publish notice of it in the newspaper in which the sheriff's advertisements are printed, once a week for two weeks. Second, there is no statewide fee: the charge is the clerk's fee prescribed by O.C.G.A. Section 15-6-77, so it is set county by county. Wayne County, as one published example, charges $163 to register a trade name. Ask your own clerk for the current schedule before you go in. You file once; a new and amended statement is required only when ownership changes.

A trade name registration does not create your entity and does not give you trademark rights in the name. It is a public disclosure filing, and your bank will usually ask for the filed statement when you open the business account, so complete it before you sign a lease or print signage under the name.

Getting your federal Employer Identification Number

Your Employer Identification Number, or EIN, is the federal tax ID for the business, issued by the IRS. Apply directly on the IRS website and it is free; any site charging you for an EIN is selling you a form you can file yourself in minutes. You need the number before your first hire, and in practice sooner: most banks require one to open a business account for an LLC, and the Department of Revenue and the Department of Labor both want it when you register your tax accounts. Apply right after your entity filing so it never becomes the bottleneck.

Georgia sales tax: services are not taxed, retail products are

Georgia taxes the retail sale of tangible personal property, and the Department of Revenue states the rule plainly: the tax falls on retail sales of goods and a short list of specific services, and most services are exempt. Manicures, pedicures, and nail enhancements are services, and they are not on that taxable list, so you do not charge sales tax on service tickets. The tax lives at your retail shelf: shampoo, conditioner, styling products, and anything else a client pays for and takes home are taxable retail sales.

Register with the Department of Revenue before your first retail sale. Registration runs through the Georgia Tax Center, the Department's online portal, which issues your sales and use tax number and your Certificate of Registration as a dealer. The state rate is 4 percent, and county and city taxes stack on top of it, so the rate you charge is the combined rate for your location from the Department's published rate chart. Inside Atlanta, in Fulton County, that combined rate is 8.9 percent. Charging another county's rate is a common and expensive mistake, because the combined rate follows the place of the sale.

One more rule matters to service businesses. On the products you use up while providing services, your polishes, gels, acrylic systems, and files consumed at the table, you are the end user, and sales or use tax is due on those purchases. Buy your retail inventory under your dealer registration and collect the tax when you sell it; pay the tax on what the business consumes itself. Keep services and products on separate lines in your point of sale, file your returns on the schedule the Department assigns, and remit what you collected. That money was never yours.

Hiring staff: unemployment tax, new hires, wages and classification

Hiring your first employee opens accounts with two agencies. With the Georgia Department of Labor, a business becomes liable for unemployment insurance once it pays $1,500 in wages in a calendar quarter or employs at least one person in each of 20 different weeks in a year, and it establishes its UI tax account with the Employer Status Report, Form DOL-1N. New employers are assigned a beginning rate of 2.70 percent, charged only on the first $9,500 of each employee's wages per year, until the Department computes an experience based rate from your own history. Quarterly tax and wage reports, Form DOL-4N, are due April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. Separately, register for Georgia income tax withholding through the Georgia Tax Center and have each employee complete Form G-4.

Report every new hire, rehire, and return to work to the Georgia New Hire Reporting Program within 10 days, as O.C.G.A. Section 19-11-9.2 requires. On wages, do not plan around Georgia's $5.15 state minimum wage: the state law covers only employers of six or more employees and excludes employment subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act when the federal rate is higher, so nearly every Georgia beauty business must pay at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Workers' compensation insurance becomes mandatory once you regularly employ three or more people. Part-time staff count toward the three, and so do LLC members and corporate officers.

Then there is classification. Georgia has no salon specific statute that blesses booth rental, so a chair renter is an independent contractor only if the relationship actually works like one: the renter sets their own prices and hours, books and collects payment from their own clients, holds their own license and insurance, and pays you rent for the space rather than working to a schedule and price list you control. The more the arrangement looks like employment, the more likely the Department of Labor and the IRS are to call it employment, with back payroll taxes to match. Get the rental agreement in writing before the first client sits down.

The local layer: occupational tax certificates, zoning and Atlanta

Georgia issues no general state business license. The license that lets you operate day to day is local: an occupational tax certificate, called a business license or a business tax certificate in many jurisdictions, issued by your city when the business sits inside city limits or by your county when it does not. Fees and formulas are set locally, commonly from some mix of business type, employee count, and gross receipts, and renewal dates are local too. Zoning has to allow a personal services business at your address before you sign the lease, and buildout work can need building, plumbing, and electrical permits plus a certificate of occupancy. Do the local checks in that order: zoning for the address, the certificate, then buildout permits.

Metro Atlanta stacks the layers highest. A business inside Atlanta needs the city's business license on top of the county process, and the metro area is split across Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett counties, so the county of your actual street address controls your county filings and your combined sales tax rate. Two storefronts a few miles apart can answer to different county offices at different rates. Confirm zoning and the certificate for the exact address before you commit to a space.

Insurance and the costs that keep coming back

Plan on three policies at a minimum. General liability covers injuries in the space, like a client slipping on a wet floor. Professional liability covers claims arising from the services themselves: an infection traced to a pedicure tub, a chemical reaction to a gel system, or a slip on a wet salon floor. Property coverage protects your equipment, furniture, and retail stock, and business interruption coverage can carry the business if a fire or flood closes you for a month. Workers' compensation, covered above, is legally required once you regularly employ three or more people and is priced separately.

Premiums vary by city, services, and claims history, so get quotes from brokers who write beauty industry policies and compare the exclusions, not just the price. Then add the recurring state stack to the same budget: practitioner renewals on their staggered dates, the establishment renewal, the $60 LLC annual registration every spring, and your local certificate renewal. None is large on its own. Together they are a real line in the budget, and calendaring them in advance is how owners avoid late renewal fees and reinstatement charges.

Dates to put on your calendar

• August 31, odd years: nail technician renewals, $45, with five hours of continuing education complete.
• June 30, odd years: Salon/Shop license renewal, $75.
• January 1 to April 1, every year: LLC annual registration with the Secretary of State, $60 total.
• April 30, July 31, October 31, January 31: quarterly unemployment tax and wage reports to the Department of Labor, if you have employees.
• Within 10 days of each hire: new hire report to the Georgia New Hire Reporting Program.
• On the Department of Revenue's schedule: sales and use tax returns for your retail product sales.
• Every year: renew your city or county occupational tax certificate on the local schedule.

Official Georgia sources for this guide

• Georgia State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers: applications, renewals, how-to guides and board news
• Board fee schedule (GSBCB Rev 03/22): every board fee and renewal date in this guide
• O.C.G.A. Section 43-10-9: training hours, apprenticeships and examinations for each license
• Board rules, Chapter 240-4: facility requirements, license posting and health and safety rules
• Corporations Division filing fees (effective September 6, 2025): Articles of Organization and annual registration fees
• Department of Revenue, What is Subject to Sales and Use Tax?: the services versus retail split
• Department of Labor, File Tax and Wage Reports: unemployment tax accounts, the $9,500 wage base and quarterly due dates
• State Board of Workers' Compensation, insurance FAQs: the three employee threshold for coverage

This guide is general information researched from official Georgia sources, not legal or tax advice. Requirements, fees and forms change; verify the current rules with the agencies linked above before you file, sign or spend.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours of school does a Georgia nail technician need?

A nail technician completes 525 credit hours at a board approved school over at least four months, or a 1,050 credit hour apprenticeship in a licensed salon or shop, under O.C.G.A. Section 43-10-9. Applicants must be at least 17, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, and pass written and practical examinations. It is the shortest licensing course in Georgia cosmetology law.

When do Georgia nail technician licenses renew?

By August 31 of odd years, for $45, under the board's fee schedule. That odd year cycle is the trap: cosmetologists and barbers renew in even years, so mixed salons run two calendars. A late renewal within 30 days costs $90 and reinstatement costs $200. Renewal also requires five hours of continuing education, three in health and safety, starting at the second renewal.

Does my nail salon need its own license, separate from my technicians?

Yes. The premises need the board's Salon/Shop license, $75 to apply and $75 to renew by June 30 of odd years, and the salon may not perform services until the license is active. Each technician also holds an individual nail technician or master cosmetologist license. A change of ownership costs $75 because the establishment license does not simply transfer to a buyer.

Can a cosmetologist do nails in my Georgia salon?

Yes. The master cosmetologist scope in O.C.G.A. Section 43-10-1 includes performing the services of a nail technician, so a licensed master cosmetologist can take nail appointments. The reverse is not true: a nail technician's license covers nail care only, and facials, lashes, or hair services need the license that covers them.

Are nail services subject to sales tax in Georgia?

No. Georgia taxes retail sales of tangible personal property and a short list of specific services, and nail services are not on that list, so manicures and pedicures carry no sales tax. Retail products are taxable: polish and home care products a client takes home are charged the 4 percent state rate plus county and city taxes. Register through the Georgia Tax Center before your first retail sale.

Can I hire a nail tech who only has a training certificate?

No. Georgia has no certificate route to paid nail work. Anyone performing nail services for compensation needs a nail technician or master cosmetologist license from the board, earned through the 525 hour course or the apprenticeship route and the state exams. Working unlicensed puts the worker and your Salon/Shop license at risk of board discipline.