How to Start a Lash Studio in Idaho

Who regulates lash studios in Idaho

Lash studios sit under the Barber and Cosmetology Services Licensing Board, inside the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses at 11341 West Chinden Boulevard, Building 4, in Boise, working under the Barber and Cosmetology Services Act, Idaho Code title 54, chapter 58, and the board's rules at IDAPA 24.28.01. The board licenses the practitioners a lash studio employs, estheticians and cosmetologists, and it licenses the establishment the studio operates in. Section 54-5804 states the premises rule plainly: it is unlawful to practice in an establishment that is not licensed except as the chapter authorizes, and a license holder may not employ or allow an unlicensed person to perform a service the act reserves to licensees.

The definitional position deserves its own paragraph because it decides the whole build. Section 54-5802 defines cosmetology and esthetics around a shared skin paragraph: noninvasive skin care, makeup application, pore extraction, chemical exfoliants, particle exfoliation, class I devices, class II devices only under a health care practitioner's direction or supervision, temporary hair removal, and tinting or perming the eyebrows and eyelashes. Extensions appear in the chapter only as a hair word, inside the natural hair braiding definition, never as an eyelash service. The honest summary is that Idaho's act predates the modern lash menu and never named it: the licensed lash work the statute describes is tinting and perming, carried by two licenses, and extension work runs under those same licenses in a studio whose menu also includes the named services. One service line does sit wholly outside licensing: section 54-5805(12) exempts makeup artistry, so a lash studio's makeup bookings need no license at all.

Idaho lash studio at a glance

The licenses a lash studio is built on

Because the chapter names no lash credential, the practitioner's question is which of the two carrying licenses fits the studio's menu. The esthetician license is the usual answer: section 54-5810 sets it at 600 hours in an approved school or 1,200 hours as an apprentice, and its scope is the skin paragraph itself, skin care, makeup, temporary hair removal and the tinting and perming of brows and lashes, plus the device rules that matter to a modern lash and brow menu. The cosmetologist license, at 1,600 school hours or 3,200 apprentice hours, carries the same paragraph inside the broader hair, skin and nail credential, and it is the right base for a studio that also cuts and colors. Applicants for either license must be at least sixteen and a half years old with at least two years of high school or the equivalent.

The examination follows the license chosen: Rule 100.01 sets the approved examination as the NIC written and practical examinations, and section 54-5810(6) lets a student sit for them after completing 80 percent of the required hours. The fees on the board's schedule effective July 1, 2026 are a $30 application fee and $60 for the original two year license, with endorsement at $90 for a practitioner licensed in another state. Technique training sits on top of the license rather than replacing it: extension certification courses are private businesses, and their certificates are how a licensed esthetician or cosmetologist documents the skill to an employer or an insurer, which in a service the statute does not name is where the paperwork weight actually lands.

Renewal runs on the act's two year clock. Section 54-5821 makes every license biennial, priced at $60 for two years on the current schedule. Licenses are transitioning to expire on the licensee's birthday, fully in place in 2028; renewal opens up to 60 days ahead, and licensees are charged only for whole years during the changeover. Neither the act nor the board's rules impose a continuing education requirement on renewal. An expired license reinstates for a $35 reinstatement fee on top of the renewal.

The establishment license for the studio

The studio is licensed separately from everyone in it. Under Rule 100.03 of IDAPA 24.28.01, an establishment is licensed as primary or contiguous. A standalone lash studio takes the primary form: the applicant must provide proof of compliance with the premises requirements of Rule 200.01, and a primary license will not issue if it includes or overlaps any portion of an establishment license that already exists. A lash room operated as its own business inside a salon or a suite building takes the contiguous form, certified as associated with and operating within the licensed primary. Either license costs $50 for a two year term on the board's current schedule, and the application goes in before the studio operates.

Rule 200.01 writes out what the primary license holder is actually buying responsibility for: clearly defined designated working floor space allowing safe and sanitary practice at every station, a hot and cold running water source and drainage inside the primary's perimeter separate from the restroom facilities, and restrooms accessible from the building and from any contiguous establishments, with the primary holder responsible for safety and disinfection compliance across the whole designated licensed area including the common areas. Rule 200.03 carries the day to day standards a lash studio lives by: instruments cleaned and then disinfected or sterilized after each use, with the single use rules the lash trade runs on, hand washing before services, no animals except service dogs, and the current licenses, safety rules and inspection classification card displayed. The board inspects during business hours under section 54-5818, and Rule 200.05 gives an establishment that draws an unacceptable C classification 30 days to make improvements.

The license's hard edge is transfer. Establishment licenses cannot be transferred: a change of location requires a new license application, and a full change in ownership does too, so buying an existing lash studio means applying for a fresh $50 establishment license in the new owner's name at the same address. The single softening rule covers partners: in a multiple ownership establishment, an owner may be removed on a written statement signed by all owners including the one withdrawing. When an establishment closes at its licensed location, Rule 125 requires the owner to notify the board with a signed letter or the license marked out of business.

Forming your business entity

Most Idaho lash studios form as a limited liability company with the Secretary of State. The formation document is a Certificate of Organization, filed online through SOSBiz for $100, or on paper for $120, the extra $20 being the manual processing charge the Secretary of State adds to paper forms; the official form itself states the base fee as $100 plus the $20. The certificate sets out the company's name, its street address and its registered agent, who must be located at a physical address in Idaho.

The upkeep is an annual report that costs nothing to file online, due by the end of the anniversary month of formation, every year. The Secretary of State's scam alert exists because the free filing attracts fraud: the state warns that companies mail notices demanding payment to file the annual report, that the report costs nothing, and that assumed business names file no annual report at all. Missing the free report still matters, because an entity that stops reporting can be administratively dissolved. A sole proprietor skips the certificate and the report entirely, at the price of holding the business's liabilities personally.

Business names and the assumed business name certificate

Idaho handles the name on the door at the state level, in a filing that never comes due again. Under Idaho Code section 30-21-805, anyone who conducts business under a name other than their own legal name files a Certificate of Assumed Business Name with the Secretary of State, before doing business under that name: a sole proprietor trading as anything beyond their full legal name, and an LLC or corporation trading under a name different from the one on its formation documents. The certificate costs $25 filed online through SOSBiz or $45 on paper, one certificate per name, and it must state the true names and business addresses of every person who holds a financial or control interest in the business.

The renewal position is the Idaho difference: there is none. An assumed business name does not expire and is never renewed; it stays active until the owner cancels it, which is free online, and amendments cost $10. The filing discipline moves to changes instead, because an owner whose address or ownership changes amends the certificate rather than renewing it. Clearance remains a search exercise before the name goes on the sign: search the Secretary of State's business records in SOSBiz and the federal trademark database, keep the legal entity name on the establishment license application, the tax accounts and the bank account, and let the brand name ride on top of it.

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 for an EIN is selling a form you can file yourself. The number keys everything that follows in Idaho: the Idaho Business Registration that produces the seller's permit and the withholding account with the State Tax Commission, the Department of Labor employer registration, payroll, and the business bank account.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and the EIN exist, and run every fee, product order, rent payment and payroll deposit through it. For a lash studio the account does a second job: because the headline service sits in a statutory gap, the studio's insurer and its booking platform will ask for documentation a license would normally supply, and clean business records, licenses for every practitioner on the wall and course certificates in the file, are the substitute. The account also draws the line that matters if a room renter's classification is ever questioned: the business's money and any renters' money should never share a ledger.

Sales tax in Idaho: services are not taxed, products are

Idaho's sales tax is a tax on retail sales and a short list of named services, and lash services are not on the list. Under the State Tax Commission's basics guide, Idaho's sales tax rate is 6 percent, and sales and use taxes apply to the sale of goods and services unless an exemption applies, with section 63-3612 defining the taxable sales, which reach retail sales of tangible personal property and enumerated services such as admissions and lodging. Lash extensions, lifts, tints and brow services fall outside those categories, so the service ticket carries no Idaho sales tax. What is taxed is the shelf: retail sales of aftercare kits, cleansers and other tangible goods carry the 6 percent state rate, and the Tax Commission publishes any local rates that apply on top for the seller's location.

Registration runs through the Idaho Business Registration on the Tax Commission's Taxpayer Access Point, the same registration that opens the income tax withholding account for employers. Almost everyone selling goods in Idaho must hold a seller's permit before the first retail sale, and in a lash studio the permit exists for the aftercare shelf, not the bed. Set the point of sale to separate services from retail sales from day one, because the split is the whole compliance question. The mirror image is use tax: products the studio buys for its own use from a seller that did not charge Idaho tax carry the 6 percent use tax, while products bought for resale are bought under the permit's resale position.

Room rent and worker classification

Idaho's two layer establishment system gives room rent a precise licensing answer, and lash studios are where the contiguous license is most often the right one. A lash artist who works as part of the host salon's own business, on the salon's book, prices and flow, practices on their practitioner license inside the salon's primary establishment license, and no second premises license is needed. An artist who operates as their own establishment, own room, own clientele, own business identity, is exactly the operator the contiguous establishment license exists for: under Rule 100.03 the contiguous applicant certifies that the operation is associated with and operates within the licensed primary establishment, the primary holder certifies the premises is equipped to meet the safety and disinfection requirements, and the artist holds their own $50 two year establishment license for their designated area. The salon suite guide works through that license in full.

Classification is the part the license does not decide. A renter who sets their own prices, hours and client list, collects their own money and carries their own supplies and insurance reads as an independent business; an artist whose schedule, prices, products and clients the studio controls reads as an employee whatever the agreement calls them, with withholding, unemployment insurance and workers compensation following that reading. The Department of Labor draws the coverage line the same way: independent contractors are not covered by unemployment insurance, so the classification, not the contract label, decides who the studio owes UI tax on. Put the arrangement in writing either way.

Hiring employees in Idaho

The first hire registers the studio as an Idaho employer on two tracks. With the Department of Labor, an unemployment insurance account: the new employer rate remains 1.0 percent for 2026, the lowest rate federal conformity allows, and the tax applies to the first $58,300 of each employee's wages, the 2026 taxable wage base. With the State Tax Commission, through the same Idaho Business Registration that carries the seller's permit, the employer registers to withhold Idaho income tax from wages. New hires are reported to the Department of Labor within 20 days of their start date, and quarterly wage reporting follows from the Labor registration.

The wage floor is the federal one. Idaho's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour under Idaho Code section 44-1502, matching the federal minimum, so the pay structures lash studios compete on, hourly, commission and room rent comparisons, are market decisions rather than compliance ones. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist, arranged before the first employee's first shift, and pay structures should be priced against the 1.0 percent new employer UI rate and the $58,300 wage base so the first year's labor cost is not a surprise. Hiring one more check on the list in this trade: verify the practitioner's esthetician or cosmetologist license on the division's license search before the first client, because the studio's establishment license does not cure an unlicensed pair of hands.

Local rules for an Idaho lash studio

The state licenses do not finish the opening. Zoning has to allow a lash studio at the address before any of the state paperwork matters, because none of it answers whether the use may operate there at all, and the establishment license that follows is written to that location, so a zoning failure after filing costs a new application somewhere else. Make the zoning call before the lease is signed. Cities and counties add their own business licensing, building and fire code compliance for the space, signage rules and health requirements, at fees and on forms the locality itself sets.

One boundary belongs in the local conversation because it is so often misdrawn at the front desk: brow and lash work that crosses into the skin, permanent makeup and microblading, is not an esthetics service in Idaho and not a licensed one either, and the microblading guide covers the separate position that work sits in. A lash studio adding it later is adding a different legal category, not a line extension. The state figures above are uniform across Idaho; local charges are set city by city.

Insurance for an Idaho lash studio

Idaho's establishment rules write no insurance minimum into the license: the board's rules as read for this guide set no coverage figure the applicant must prove, which makes the lease the document that usually sets the number. Landlords, and suite landlords in particular, routinely write their own general liability limits and additional insured requirements into the lease, and those contract numbers are the figures to satisfy. In the lash trade the insurer is also the closest thing the headline service has to a scope referee, because the statute does not name extension work: expect the application to ask who performs services, under which licenses, with what training certificates, and price the policy on the real answers.

Professional liability is the core policy for the people working in the room, and eye area work is the exposure to name out loud: allergic reactions, adhesive injuries and infection claims are the claims this trade generates, and the policy should be written with the service menu stated plainly. The room rent structure has to think about the overlap as well: the establishment's policy, each renter's own policy and the rental agreement describe overlapping people in the same space, while the contiguous license holder answers for their own designated area and the primary holder for everything shared. General liability and property coverage for the build out, equipment and retail stock complete the standard stack. Treat any figure quoted to you as a state requirement as a sales line, and price the coverage the lease and the risk actually call for.

Your Idaho renewal calendar

Official sources

• Barber and Cosmetology Services Licensing Board: license types and the fee schedule effective July 1, 2026
• Section 54-5802: the definitions of cosmetology and esthetics, including tinting and perming the eyebrows and eyelashes
• Section 54-5810: qualifications and the 600 hour esthetician and 1,600 hour cosmetologist courses
• Section 54-5805: the exemptions, including makeup artistry
• IDAPA 24.28.01: examinations, establishments, premises standards and fee caps
• Register a Business: entity registration, the free annual report and the Secretary of State scam alert
• Secretary of State: Certificate of Organization and assumed business names through SOSBiz
• State Tax Commission: sales and use tax basics, the 6 percent rate and the seller's permit
• Department of Labor: unemployment insurance tax rates and the 1.0 percent new employer rate
• IRS: apply for an Employer Identification Number online, free

Idaho lash studio FAQ