How to Start a Barbershop in Louisiana

Who licenses barbershops in Louisiana

Barbershops answer to the Louisiana Board of Barber Examiners, a separate agency administering Title 37 Chapter 13 of the Revised Statutes, Sections 331 and following. The board certificates barbers, barber instructors and apprentices, registers barber shops, and certificates barber colleges. Louisiana is one of the states in this series that never merged its two beauty boards, so a building that houses both a salon and a barbershop deals with two regulators, two fee schedules and two renewal calendars, and the cosmetology statute plans for exactly that overlap when it requires shared premises to mark the cosmetology and barbering areas with signs in lettering at least four inches tall.

The split matters most in three places this guide returns to. Training runs longer and stranger on the barber side, where the apprenticeship route is a full second door into the trade. Renewals collapse onto a single date, January 31, for every certificate in the chapter, instead of spreading across birthdays the way cosmetology renewals do. And the booth rental permit that organizes chair rent in salons simply does not exist in Chapter 13, so a barbershop's rent arrangements are built from leases and tax law rather than a board filing. Everything else about opening, the entity, the names, the taxes and the parish layer, is the shared Louisiana stack the rest of this cluster uses.

Louisiana barbershop at a glance

The barber certificate, step by step

RS 37:354 sets the qualifications for a barber's certificate of registration: the applicant is at least 18, and qualifies through one of the chapter's training routes before sitting for the board's examination. The college route runs through a board approved barber college, and the board's school standards at LAC Title 46 Part VII Section 1301 set the barber course at not less than 1,500 hours, completed in a nine month period. The apprenticeship route is the long way in and Louisiana keeps it fully legal: 4,000 hours of on the job training completed over at least two years of reasonably continuous work, with a maximum term of two and a half years, plus 288 hours of theory instruction, under a program registered with the Apprenticeship Council of Louisiana Works. An apprentice holds an apprenticeship certificate at $50, issued and renewed on the same RS 37:375 schedule, and finishing the hours does not skip the examination; the apprentice sits for the same board exam as the college graduate.

The fee schedule rewards the local graduate. RS 37:375 prices the examination at $40 for an applicant from this state and $80 for an applicant from another state or country, and RS 37:375(B) waives the examination fee entirely for a Louisiana barber college graduate who holds a certificate of registered student. Reciprocity applicants work under RS 37:369, which sets the out of state applicant age at 17. Once certificated, a barber renews every year for $50, and an instructor's certificate, the credential that lets a barber teach in a college, issues and renews at $70, with instructors required to keep their own barber certificates current.

The renewal discipline is the strictest calendar in this cluster. RS 37:371 expires every certificate of registration at midnight on January 31 of each year, renewable on or before that date. RS 37:375(D) adds the first late step: a renewal paid after January 31 but before March 31 carries an additional $10, and after March 31 an additional $20. The fee table adds the second: late renewal of a barber's certificate is $60 if paid before April 1 and $110 on or after April 1. A certificate expired less than five years can still be restored on the restoration fee, which for an expired journeyman certificate the schedule prices at $50 plus $60 for each expired year, and a duplicate certificate costs $5. Nothing in the chapter spreads these dates out, so a shop owner's January is a single sweep of every certificate in the building.

The barber shop registration

The shop itself registers with the Board of Barber Examiners, and the RS 37:375 schedule prices the premises paperwork as inspections rather than as a license fee. A shop inspection costs $30, and an inspection for a new shop location costs $30, which is the fee that meets you again on any move. The annual renewal of all barber shop registrations is $30, falling on the same January 31 expiry as every other certificate in the chapter. Barber colleges sit at the top of the same schedule, $350 for the initial certificate to operate a college and $80 for its renewal, a useful marker of how modest the shop level fees are by comparison.

Two practical consequences follow. First, budget the shop registration as a January cost alongside every barber's $50 renewal, because the chapter gives the whole building one deadline and two layers of late fees behind it. Second, if the shop shares premises with cosmetology services, plan for the second board from the start: the cosmetology statute requires the areas designated for each trade to be marked with signs in lettering at least four inches tall, the salon side needs its own certificate of registration from the cosmetology board, and the stylists working the salon chairs fall under the cosmetology booth rental system described in the hair salon guide, while the barbers do not.

Forming your business entity

Most Louisiana barbershops form as a limited liability company, filed with the Secretary of State through geauxBIZ, the state's business portal. Since October 1, 2026 the Articles of Organization, form 365, cost $125, filed together with the Initial Report the state requires at formation. Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Session raised the Commercial Division's fees on that date, moving the articles from $100 to $125, so formation guides printed earlier in 2026 quote a price that expired in the fall. A name reservation, form 396, holds a name for 120 days for $25 if you want the name locked before the space is ready.

The recurring obligation is the annual report, and Louisiana ties it to your own history rather than a statewide deadline: under RS 12:1308.1 the report is due on or before the anniversary date of the LLC's organization, each year, filed through geauxBIZ. The fee is $35 since October 1, 2026, up from $30 under the same Act 921 schedule. For a barbershop the anniversary joins a crowded calendar, because every board certificate in the building already expires on January 31, and the annual report is the one Louisiana deadline that moves with the business instead of the state.

Business names: the parish filing and the state registry

Louisiana splits the name question in two, and the half most owners miss is the parish half. RS 51:281 provides that no person shall transact business under an assumed name, or any designation other than the real name of the individual conducting the business, unless that person files a certificate with the clerk of court of the parish or parishes where the business is conducted, or with the register of conveyances in New Orleans. The certificate states the name the business will use, the real full name of the person owning and conducting it, and that person's post office address, and it is executed and acknowledged before a notary public. The filing has teeth: no sheriff and ex officio tax collector, and no other official who issues license receipts, may issue one to an assumed name business without a certificate from the clerk showing the filing is on record. The Secretary of State's office confirms that traditional DBAs live at the parish level, and because forms and fees are set parish by parish, this guide prints no parish fee; the clerk of court in your parish quotes it.

The state level filing is a different instrument with a different job. The Secretary of State's Commercial Division registers trade names on form 309 for $95, the price since October 1, 2026 under Act 921, up from $75, and the registration runs ten years. Entities file their legal names with the Secretary of State at formation, so for an LLC the trade name registration is an optional statewide record of the name on the door, useful against a copycat in another parish, and not a substitute for the parish certificate where RS 51:281 requires one. Read the two filings for what they are: the parish certificate is the compliance filing that unlocks local licensing, and the state registration is a brand record.

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. Louisiana keys its registrations to the federal number: the Department of Revenue opens your sales tax and withholding accounts against it, the Workforce Commission builds your unemployment account on it, and your bank will ask for it alongside the articles of organization and, where the name differs, the parish assumed name certificate.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and the EIN exist, and run every fee, product order, rent payment and tax deposit through it. The January board renewals, the quarterly unemployment reports and the anniversary annual report all assume the shop can show its own books, and a clean, separate account is the cheapest compliance tool in this guide.

Sales tax through the Department of Revenue

Louisiana's sales tax reaches retail sales of tangible personal property, digital products, and only the services the statute enumerates at RS 47:301(14), a list that covers things like lodging, admissions, telecommunications, printing and repairs to tangible personal property. Personal and professional services such as barbering are not on the list, so the cut, the shave and the beard trim are not taxable sales in Louisiana, and you collect no sales tax on the service ticket. The statewide rate is 5 percent, the rate Act 11 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session set effective January 1, 2025, up from 4.45 percent, and the Department of Revenue publishes that the 5 percent rate runs until December 31, 2029.

The retail shelf is the taxable side of the shop. Pomade, clippers sold over the counter and other take home goods are retail sales at the 5 percent state rate plus the parish and municipal taxes at your address, and Louisiana administers the local layer separately from the state: in state sellers register and file the state tax through LaTAP, the department's portal, while parish and municipal sales taxes are collected by local authorities on their own registrations. Buy resale inventory without paying tax under your state account, and expect the mirror rule on your own purchases: the shop supplies you consume and the equipment you use are taxable purchases, because nothing about them is resold. Keep services and products on separate lines at the register so the tax lands only where the statute puts it.

Chair rent in a Louisiana barbershop

Chair rent in a Louisiana barbershop is where the two board system shows its seam. The booth rental permit that organizes salon chair rent, the written agreement with the three statutory terms, the $50 permit and the booth inspection under RS 37:592, RS 37:593 and LAC 46:XXXI.501, sits inside the Cosmetology Act and by its terms covers a registered cosmetologist working in a salon. Chapter 13 gives barbers no equivalent instrument: there is no barber booth permit to apply for, no board form for a barber's chair agreement, and no statutory sentence declaring a renting barber independent of the shop for tax purposes.

So a barbershop builds chair rent the older way, and the paperwork has to carry the whole weight. Put the arrangement in a written lease that prices the chair, sets the term, and leaves the barber's prices, hours, bookings and client money with the barber, because with no permit to point to, classification with the Department of Revenue and Louisiana Works runs on the facts of control. A barber who rents a chair in a shop that also runs salon chairs should expect the two systems to coexist in one building: the cosmetologists on their permits under the cosmetology board, the barbers on their leases under no board's rental rules, and both sets of certificates expiring on their own boards' calendars.

Hiring employees in Louisiana

Your first hire registers the shop as a Louisiana employer on two tracks. The Department of Revenue takes the withholding registration, and the Louisiana Workforce Commission, which now brands itself Louisiana Works, takes the unemployment insurance registration. Louisiana's unemployment tax applies to the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, the wage base the Commission publishes for 2026. A new employer who has not yet served the eligibility period pays the average rate for employers in its industrial classification under RS 23:1553, rather than a single statewide starter rate, and experienced employer rates run from 0.09 percent to 6.20 percent on the Commission's published schedule. Quarterly wage reports go in on Form LDOL-ES4, and new hires are reported to the Commission.

Louisiana sets no state minimum wage of its own, so the federal floor carries the wage file: $7.25 an hour for employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, with federal overtime and tip credit rules applying as written. Because there is no state wage statute layered on top, federal rules are the whole of the wage and hour compliance picture. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist: confirm your duties with the Workforce Commission and place coverage with a carrier before the first employee's first shift, and keep the certificate with the licenses it sits beside.

Local rules for a Louisiana barbershop

The local layer in Louisiana starts at the parish courthouse, and it is not optional paperwork. The RS 51:281 assumed name certificate described in the names section files with the clerk of court of the parish where the shop operates, or the register of conveyances in New Orleans, and the statute makes the filing a condition precedent to licensing: a tax collector may not issue a license receipt to an assumed name business until the clerk certifies compliance. A shop trading under its owner's exact legal name skips that filing, but a shop trading under a brand name, which is most shops, should treat the courthouse stop as part of the opening sequence, before the local licenses it unlocks.

Beyond the name filing, parishes and municipalities run their own occupational licensing and zoning, and neither price nor process is set by any state publication this guide can quote. Zoning deserves early attention: the board inspects the shop, and a location the parish or city will not let operate as a barbershop wastes the inspection and the lease deposit alike. Get the zoning answer for the specific address in writing before the lease is final, and ask the parish and the city, separately, what each one requires of a new barbershop at that address.

Insurance for a Louisiana barbershop

Chapter 13 does not condition the shop registration on an insurance filing, so the insurance stack for a Louisiana barbershop is set by risk and by contract rather than by the board. Professional liability is the core policy for a room built on straight razors, clippers and hot towels, and it is the coverage a chair rent structure has to think hardest about, because the shop's policy, the renting barber's own policy and the board's inspection record describe overlapping people working in the same room with no permit system to sort out who answers for whom.

General liability for the premises and property coverage for chairs, equipment and the retail stock complete the standard stack. Landlords routinely name their own limits and additional insured requirements in the lease, and those contract numbers, not a statute, are the figures to satisfy. One contrast is worth knowing inside this cluster: massage is the trade where Louisiana writes insurance and establishment conditions into the licensing scheme itself, while the barber board's silence on the subject is a choice, not an oversight to fill with a guessed number.

Your Louisiana renewal calendar

Official sources

• RS 37:375: the Board of Barber Examiners fee schedule
• RS 37:371: barber certificate expiration and renewal
• LAC Title 46 Part VII Section 1301: barber school standards and the 1,500 hour course
• RS 37:592: the cosmetology booth rental conditions that do not extend to barbers
• RS 37:591: shared premises signage where cosmetology and barbering share a building
• Secretary of State: forms and fee schedule, LLC articles, annual reports and trade names
• Act 921 of 2026: the Commercial Division fee increases effective October 1, 2026, digest
• RS 51:281: assumed business names, the parish certificate and the licensing condition
• Department of Revenue: sales tax registration, the 5 percent rate and LaTAP
• Louisiana Works: unemployment insurance tax rates and the $7,000 wage base

Louisiana barbershop FAQ