How to Start a Microblading Business in Indiana

Who regulates microblading in Indiana

Microblading in Indiana is body art, and body art has no licensing board. The framework begins with IC 16-19-3-4.1, enacted in 1997, which directed the state health department to adopt rules for the sanitary operation of tattoo parlors. The rule that followed, 410 IAC 1-5, became law on June 12, 1998 and was readopted most recently on July 15, 2010. The Indiana Department of Health's own FAQ is unusually direct about what the rule does not do: it does not require tattoo or piercing artists or shop owners to register with the department, it does not require the department to perform routine inspections, and it does not require artists to receive training or certification in the tattooing or piercing process. The department instead directs artists and shops to their local county health department for the local laws that govern registration and licensing of facilities.

Permanent makeup sits squarely inside this framework. The health department treats permanent makeup and facial tattooing, expressly including eyebrow tattooing, lip liner, eyeliner and blush, as an invasive procedure and as tattooing, so a microblading studio is a tattoo facility for regulatory purposes whatever its signage says. The beauty boards have no part in it: microblading is not a cosmetology or esthetician service, and neither a cosmetologist license nor a beauty culture salon license authorizes it. Two criminal and safety lines complete the state picture. Tattooing a person under 18 is a Class A misdemeanor unless a parent or legal guardian is present and provides written permission, under IC 35-42-2-7, and scleral tattooing is prohibited outright by IC 25-1-19.

Indiana microblading at a glance

The artist side: training without a license

An Indiana microblading artist holds no state credential, and understanding what the state does require matters more than the absence. The one training mandate in 410 IAC 1-5 is bloodborne pathogens: under 410 IAC 1-5-27, all tattoo artists, body piercers, facility employees and anyone acting for the facility with a reasonably anticipated risk of contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials must complete the training program required by the Indiana occupational safety and health administration's bloodborne pathogen standard, 29 CFR 1910.1030, and the health department's guidance states that tattooists must receive this training yearly. Training in the handling of infectious waste is part of the same section. Beyond that, the state rule expressly declines to require training or certification in the tattooing process itself: there is no state approved microblading course, no state apprenticeship and no state examination.

Private training is therefore a market decision, not a legal one, and it still matters. Clients, landlords, insurers and county health departments all read a training certificate as evidence of competence even though the state does not issue one, and the county layer can convert pieces of training into permit conditions. Howard County, for example, requires an artist permit supported by a hepatitis B vaccination record and a copy of bloodborne pathogen training. Marion County requires each artist or piercer to have received the hepatitis B vaccine or signed a waiver. An artist who works across county lines should expect to satisfy the strictest county file she works in, because no state credential smooths the differences away.

Keep the training records as if they were a license. The yearly bloodborne pathogen renewal, the vaccination record or waiver, and any county artist permit belong in one file at the facility, because those documents are what a county inspector, an insurer or a landlord will ask for in place of the license Indiana does not issue.

The premises side: a state rule and county permits

There is no state establishment license for a tattoo or microblading facility in Indiana. What the state supplies instead is 410 IAC 1-5 itself: a sanitary operations rulebook covering the facility, its equipment, sterilization, infectious waste handling under IC 16-41-16, and the training duties above. The rule binds every facility in the state whether or not the county issues permits, and the health department publishes a guide for sanitary operations of tattoo and body piercing facilities as the practical companion to the rule text. A facility that never hears from its county health department is still obligated to run to 410 IAC 1-5.

The permits live one level down, and the two counties below are labeled examples of how different the local layer can be; neither county's schedule travels across its border. In Marion County, which covers Indianapolis, the county public health department requires a facility license: no person may operate a tattoo or body piercing facility without one, it must be posted conspicuously, it renews annually, and temporary or mobile facilities are prohibited. Patron records are kept for two years, and each artist or piercer must show the hepatitis B vaccine or a signed waiver. In Howard County, which covers Kokomo, the health department requires the establishment to obtain a tattoo parlor permit and pass a pre-opening inspection before opening, and requires each artist to hold an artist permit backed by a hepatitis B vaccination record and bloodborne pathogen training; establishment and artist permits expire on December 31 of each year. Other counties run their own versions, and some are lighter. The county health department's environmental health office is therefore the first call of the whole project, before the lease, because its answer decides your opening sequence.

One more state line belongs in every facility's policies: the under 18 rule. Tattooing or piercing a person under 18 is a Class A misdemeanor under IC 35-42-2-7 unless a parent or legal guardian is present and provides written permission. Microblading clients are adults in practice, but the consent file, identification checks and record keeping that counties like Marion County require exist precisely because the criminal line sits behind the paperwork.

Forming your business entity

Most Indiana beauty businesses form as an LLC, and Indiana prices the form near the bottom of the national range. The Articles of Organization, State Form 49459, are filed with the Secretary of State through INBiz and cost $95 online or $100 by mail. The online figure is built into the statute and the Secretary of State's fee schedule: a $75 filing fee under IC 23-0.5-9-19 plus a $20 enhanced access fee. The articles name your registered agent and your principal office, and INBiz issues the certificate that your bank, your landlord and the licensing board will each ask to see.

The filing that keeps the entity alive is the Business Entity Report, and Indiana runs it on a two year cycle rather than the annual cycle most states use. The first report comes due two years after formation, by the end of the month in which the entity was formed, and it costs $32 filed online or $50 on paper. INBiz charges no late fee, but a missed report is not free: the Secretary of State can administratively dissolve an entity that stops filing, and reinstatement means filing every overdue report and paying the reinstatement charges. A studio formed in February owes its first report by the end of February two years later, and every two years after that. None of these filings replaces the licenses above. The Secretary of State registers your entity, and the board licenses your people and your premises, and the two systems do not talk to each other.

Business names and the assumed business name

Indiana calls its trade name filing a certificate of assumed business name, and IC 23-15-1-1 splits the filing office by the kind of business you are. A sole proprietor or a general partnership trading under a name other than the owner's real name files the certificate for record with the county recorder of each county where the business has a place of business or an office, and the recorder charges the recording fee set by IC 36-2-7-10 on the county's schedule. An entity that trades under a name different from the name in its formation documents files the certificate with the Secretary of State instead, on State Form 30353 through INBiz: the fee is $20 for an electronic filing or $30 on paper for a corporation, limited liability company, limited partnership or limited liability partnership. The statute sets no renewal or expiration for the certificate. It stays on file until you file a notice that you have stopped using the name.

Two practical points follow. The assumed name filing is a public notice filing, not a license and not a trademark, and it does not reserve the name against anyone else; a name reservation through INBiz, $10 for 120 days, is the tool that holds a name while you organize. And the name on the certificate, the name on the salon license application and the name on your signage should tell one consistent story, because clients, inspectors and your bank all read them side by side.

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. You need the EIN to open the business bank account, to run payroll once you hire, and to complete the state employer registrations described below, which key on the federal number. A solo artist can technically operate on her Social Security number for some federal purposes, but the studio's bank account, booking platform payouts and employer registrations all run more cleanly on an EIN.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and EIN exist, and run every license fee, product order and rent payment through it. The Department of Revenue registrations, the unemployment wage reports and the biennial entity report all assume the business can show its own books, and a clean account is the cheapest compliance tool in this guide.

Sales tax through the Department of Revenue

Indiana sets its sales tax at a flat 7 percent statewide, and no city or county adds a local sales tax on top of it (IC 6-2.5-2-2). The tax itself is a gross retail tax on retail transactions, which the statute defines around sales of tangible personal property and a specific list of enumerated transactions (IC 6-2.5-2-1 and IC 6-2.5-4-1). Microblading and permanent makeup services are not on that list, so you do not collect sales tax on brow, liner or lip services or any other service receipt. Product is different: aftercare products and anything else you sell off the shelf is a retail sale taxed at 7 percent, so itemize services and products separately at checkout and the tax follows the product lines only.

Any business making retail sales needs a Registered Retail Merchant Certificate before its first retail transaction. Registration runs on the Department of Revenue's Business Tax Application, Form BT-1, filed through INBiz, and the filing fee is $25 per business location under IC 6-2.5-8-1. The certificate is valid for two years and renews automatically while the account stays in good standing, and returns and payments run through INTIME, the Department's e-services portal. Register before you open: the same BT-1 also opens the withholding account you will need the day you hire.

Working inside a salon or suite

Microblading rooms inside hair salons and suite buildings are common, and Indiana's split framework makes the arrangement two separate compliance files sharing one room. The beauty culture salon license that covers the building authorizes cosmetology services; it does not authorize body art, and holding one does not satisfy the body art rule or any county body art permit. Equally, a county body art permit for the room does not extend the salon's authority, and the cosmetology board's licensees may not treat microblading as a salon service. The artist needs her own position under the body art framework: yearly bloodborne pathogen training, 410 IAC 1-5 sanitation for her work area, and the county's artist and facility permits where the county issues them, with the facility permit question answered for the specific room she works in.

The rental analysis is then mostly contractual and local. Some counties tie the facility license to the premises and its operator, which makes a rented room a conversation with the health department before it is a lease negotiation, and Marion County's prohibition on temporary or mobile facilities forecloses the pop up version of the model there entirely. Whether the artist is an independent contractor or the host's employee, for tax and unemployment purposes, turns on the usual control based tests the IRS and the Department of Workforce Development apply, so paper the arrangement like a tenancy and keep her business registrations, assumed business name and tax accounts separate from the host's.

Hiring employees in Indiana

Your first hire registers you as an employer in two places. The Department of Revenue takes your withholding registration on the same BT-1 application filed through INBiz, covering state and county income tax withholding, with returns filed through INTIME. The Department of Workforce Development runs the unemployment insurance account, and registration happens online through Uplink Employer Self Service in the first quarter your business qualifies as an employer; electronic filing and payment are mandatory, and wage reports come due every quarter whether or not you had payroll. Unemployment premiums are charged on the first $9,500 of each employee's wages per calendar year. A new employer starts at the typical rate of 2.5 percent, which caps the cost at $237.50 per employee per year, and then moves onto merit rates based on the business's own claims history, which run from 0.50 percent to 7.40 percent for employers in good standing under the Department of Workforce Development's Employer Handbook.

The wage floor is $7.25 an hour, where Indiana's minimum wage has stood since July 24, 2009 under the Indiana Minimum Wage Law, matching the federal floor. Artists who regularly receive tips can be paid a cash wage of at least $2.13 an hour if you claim a tip credit, but if tips plus the cash wage fall short of $7.25 in any week, the business makes up the difference dollar for dollar. Overtime runs at one and one half times the regular rate past 40 hours in a work week, and Indiana lets you pay $4.25 an hour to employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive days on the job.

Local rules for an Indiana microblading business

For this business type the local layer is not a footnote; it is the permit system. Start with the county health department's environmental health office and get its body art requirements in writing: whether it licenses the facility, whether it permits artists separately, what inspections precede opening, what records it expects, and when its permits expire. Marion County and Howard County, the two examples in this guide, both permit facilities and both look at the artist, but they run on different cycles and different documents, and counties beyond those two differ again. Zoning sits beside the health layer: a tattoo facility is a distinct use in many local codes, and a space zoned for personal services is not automatically a space zoned for body art.

Sequence the project around the strictest answer you receive. If the county requires a pre-opening inspection, the inspection belongs at the end of the buildout and before the first client, and the lease should be signed only after zoning and the health department have both said yes to the address. County permit fees are set locally, and the official county pages for the two example counties describe their permits without publishing a statewide comparable fee, so price the local layer with the health department directly.

Insurance for an Indiana microblading business

No Indiana rule publishes a required insurance amount for a body art facility, so insurance is a risk decision, a county conversation and a lease decision rather than a state licensing line item. Permanent makeup is an invasive procedure performed on the face, and professional liability written for permanent cosmetics specifically, rather than a generic salon policy, is the practical baseline. In practice, a landlord will name the coverage he expects in the lease, and a business working on clients should carry professional liability for the services themselves, general liability for the premises, and property coverage for equipment and retail stock. If other licensees work inside your premises under your salon license, your policy and theirs should both name the arrangement, because the salon license holder is the name the board and an injured client find first when something goes wrong in any chair, table or room in the building.

Your Indiana renewal calendar

Official sources

• Indiana Department of Health: tattoos and body piercing in Indiana FAQs, the 410 IAC 1-5 framework and what the rule does not require
• 410 IAC 1-5-27: tattoo artist and body piercer minimum training requirements, bloodborne pathogens
• Marion County Public Health Department: tattoo and body piercing facility license FAQ
• Howard County Health Department: tattoo parlor and artist permits
• INBiz: Secretary of State business filings, Articles of Organization and Business Entity Reports
• IC 23-15-1: assumed business names, county recorder and Secretary of State filings and fees
• Indiana Department of Revenue: sales tax, Registered Retail Merchant Certificates and withholding
• Department of Workforce Development: Unemployment Insurance Employer Handbook, rates and wage base
• Indiana Department of Labor: Indiana Minimum Wage Law poster, $7.25 and the $2.13 tip credit wage

Indiana microblading FAQ