How to Start a Barbershop in Maine

Who regulates barbershops in Maine

Barbers in Maine are licensed by the same office that licenses cosmetologists: the Barbering and Cosmetology Licensing Program, administered by the Director of the Office of Professional and Occupational Regulation inside the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, under the Barbering and Cosmetology Licensure Act, Title 32, chapter 126. There is no separate barber board and no appointed citizen board at all; the Director issues licenses, sets fees by rule in OPOR Rule Chapter 10, and enforces the chapter. Barbering was folded into this structure by the same 2019 legislation, Public Law 2019, chapter 373, that rebuilt the categories, so a barbershop owner reads one statute and one fee rule for everything from the personal license to the premises.

The rest of a barbershop's government sits where every Maine business finds it. The Secretary of State's Division of Corporations takes the LLC certificate of formation, the annual report and entity assumed name statements. Maine Revenue Services runs the sales tax on retail product and the income tax withholding, and processes the unemployment returns for the Department of Labor. Your city or town controls zoning, signage and occupancy, and its clerk holds the sole proprietor's assumed name certificate. The one regulator a barbershop does not deal with is the Department of Health and Human Services, unless the shop adds tattooing or micropigmentation, which are licensed there and covered in the Maine microblading guide.

Maine barbershop at a glance

The barber hair stylist license, step by step

Section 14227-A sets the credential. The school route is 800 hours in a school licensed under the chapter, completed in not less than 5 months. The trainee route is 1,600 hours over at least 10 months, worked under a trainee license filed with the Director before training begins, naming the supervisor and the type of training; a trainee license may be renewed no more than two times, and trainees practice only under the immediate personal supervision of a licensee inside a licensed establishment. Either route ends at the approved examination the statute requires, administered by the state's testing vendor, Prov, at sites in Auburn, Bangor and Presque Isle or remotely, with the exam charge paid to the vendor, since OPOR's fee rule lists the examination as a third party charge. The 2019 rewrite repealed the age and secondary schooling requirements for initial licensure in all categories, so nothing but hours and examination stands between a candidate and the license.

The license that issues is the barber hair stylist license, $20 for a one year term, renewing every October 31, posted conspicuously at the chair. Its most valuable feature is the title. The statute provides that only a person licensed under section 14227-A may hold themselves out as a barber hair stylist, barber or hair stylist, which means a shop's signage, booking page and advertising are making a licensing claim every time the word barber appears. A cosmetologist, at 1,500 hours, can cut the same hair, but cannot be marketed as the shop's barber. Owners staffing a shop should also know the stopgap: an applicant who qualifies for the examination may hold a temporary license under section 14230 for six months, not renewable, practicing under the direct supervision of a qualified supervisor in a licensed establishment.

The neighboring credential to understand is the hair designer license under section 14226-A, created in the same 2019 act. At 1,200 school hours or 2,000 trainee hours it covers haircutting, styling, chemical hair services, shaving and trimming of the beard and removal of superfluous hair, and scalp, face and neck work, and it expressly excludes aesthetic skin care and nail care. A hair designer is a plausible hire for a cutting focused shop, and costs the same $20 a year, but the license carries no right to the barber title, so a shop that brands itself a barbershop should anchor its chairs with barber hair stylists and treat hair designers as additional cutting capacity rather than as barbers under a shorter name.

The Level 1 establishment license for your shop

The premises license is the Level 1 establishment license under section 14224. The Level 1 licensee is the owner: the owner may also hold a practice license, may employ licensees, and may lease space or a chair or station to a Level 2 establishment owner. Premises where barber hair styling or any other chapter 126 practice is performed may not operate unlicensed, and the license authorizes the establishment only at the location printed on it, so a second shop needs its own Level 1 license even under the same owner and the same LLC. The fee rule prices the license at $20 for a one year term, renewing October 31, and a mobile establishment, the vehicle or structure designed to serve as an establishment at a number of sites, is licensed at the same $20 for the barber who wants a lawful route to rotating locations.

Three changes carry statutory clocks. A change of ownership requires the new owner to apply for licensure, with notice to the Director within 10 calendar days of the change and the old license valid for 30 calendar days from the transaction date. A change of location is lighter since the 2019 rewrite: notify the Director within 10 calendar days and a license issues for the new location with no new application and no fee. On the death of a co-owner named on the license, notice within 30 calendar days gets the license reissued for its remaining period, and the license stays valid for 60 calendar days after the death of the person in whose name it is licensed. Build those dates into a purchase agreement or a lease move, because the shop's right to operate runs on them.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most Maine barbershops form a limited liability company under the Maine Limited Liability Company Act, Title 31, chapter 21. Formation is a paper filing with the Division of Corporations, UCC and Commissions in the Secretary of State's office: the Certificate of Formation, Form MLLC-6, filed with the $175 fee. The certificate names the company and its registered agent in Maine. There is no online formation filing, so a new shop counts mailing and processing time in its opening plan alongside the establishment license.

The recurring obligation is the annual report, Form MLLC-13, at $85 for a domestic LLC. Under section 1665 the first report is delivered between January 1 and June 1 of the year after the formation year, and every later report falls in the same window each year. A $50 late penalty is added after June 1, and continued failure leads to administrative dissolution, which strips the entity of its good standing until it reinstates. Keep the report current: the Level 1 license, the lease and the shop's bank accounts all sit more comfortably inside an LLC the state still recognizes.

Registering your shop name

Maine splits its assumed name system by entity type. An LLC trading under a name other than its legal name, which describes most barbershops, whose LLC name rarely matches the sign, files a Statement of Intention to Do Business Under an Assumed Name, Form ASUM-5, with the Secretary of State before trading under the name, at $125 for a for profit entity. Section 1510 requires a separate statement for each assumed name and sets no renewal term, so the $125 is a one time filing per name that stands until the company terminates it. The barber who never forms an entity files nothing in Augusta: under Title 31, chapter 1, a sole proprietor deposits a sworn certificate of the business name and the owner's name and residence with the clerk of the city or town where the shop sits, at a fee the municipality sets. Neither filing substitutes for the other, and the shop name on the Level 1 application should match a name you actually hold a filing for.

Getting your EIN

The Employer Identification Number is the business's federal tax identity, issued free by the IRS. A shop with employees needs one before the first payroll because Maine withholding and unemployment reporting key off it, and banks and landlords ask for it on accounts and leases. Apply on the IRS site and keep the legal name on the EIN record identical to the Secretary of State filings and the OPOR establishment application, so the shop's three files agree when anyone compares them.

Sales tax: services untaxed, retail taxed at 5.5 percent

Maine Revenue Services imposes sales tax at 5.5 percent on retail sales of tangible personal property. Barbershop services are outside the base: the state's Business Guide to Sales, Use, and Service Provider Tax enumerates what is taxed, and cuts, shaves and styling are not in it, so the service ticket rings up untaxed. The retail shelf is different: pomade, tonic and grooming products sold to take home are retail sales at 5.5 percent, and a shop making them registers with Maine Revenue Services as a retailer. Maine applies a single statewide rate with no local add on. Products the shop consumes at the chair are bought as the shop's own supplies rather than resale inventory, so keep the two streams separate in the bookkeeping. The narrower service provider tax never reached personal services and was repealed effective January 1, 2026, so no second transaction tax touches the shop.

Chair rent in Maine: the Level 2 establishment license

A Maine barber who rents a chair is not a tenant under the owner's license; he is a Level 2 establishment licensee. Section 14224 defines the category as a licensee who leases space or a chair or station under a written agreement within a licensed Level 1 establishment and provides services separate and apart from the owner. The statute declares the Level 2 licensee is not an employee of the Level 1 licensee, subjects him to licensure, fees and compliance in the same manner as the owner, and prices his license at the same $20 a year, renewing October 31. Two limits define the category: a trainee or temporary license holder cannot hold a Level 2 license, because renters may not be people who still require supervision, and the license exists only inside the written lease, so the chair agreement is a licensing document and not just a rent deal.

For the shop owner the duties are practical. Verify each renter's personal license and Level 2 license before the first client, keep copies with the lease, and calendar October 31 for the whole building, since an expired renter license is a compliance problem inside your licensed premises even though the renewal is his filing to make. For the renting barber, the Level 2 license is also the cleanest evidence of independent status Maine offers: a separate establishment, separately licensed, paying its own fee and carrying its own compliance, which is the posture the lease, the tax filings and the insurance should all match.

Hiring barbers: wages, unemployment and withholding

A barbershop that employs its barbers works under Maine's wage floor: $15.10 an hour from January 1, 2026, under the Department of Labor's annual adjustment, with a service employee wage of $7.55 an hour available where the barber earns more than $191 a month in tips and the employer can show the barber receives at least $15.10 an hour combining wage and tips at week's end. Commission arrangements do not change the analysis; a barber whose schedule, prices and clients the shop controls is an employee whatever the agreement calls him, and the genuinely independent route in Maine is the Level 2 license described above.

Employment registrations run through two agencies that share the work. Unemployment insurance is reported through the Department of Labor's ReEmployME system on the first $12,000 of each employee's wages per year; the 2026 schedule is Schedule A, the lowest under the law, and a new employer's combined rate is 2.54 percent, the 2.23 percent base rate plus the 0.14 percent and 0.17 percent assessments on the state's 2026 UC-1 form. Maine Revenue Services processes those unemployment returns and also runs income tax withholding, reported quarterly on Form 941ME. File new hire reports as barbers start, and keep the quarterly filings on their own calendar, separate from the October 31 license renewals and the spring LLC report.

The local layer: towns, zoning and premises

The town controls where the shop can be and how it presents itself: zoning approval for the use, sign permits, building and occupancy approvals, and any local business registration the municipality requires. Portland applies its own ordinances on top of state law in areas including a local minimum wage set above the state's, so a Portland shop reads the city code with the state figures. The sole proprietor's assumed name certificate at the town or city clerk, described in the names section, is the filing most owners meet at this layer. On the premises side, licensed practice outside an establishment is limited to the exceptions in section 14203(2), which include clients' residences, hotels and special events such as weddings, covering the occasional house call or wedding party without covering a business model built on unlicensed locations; the barber who wants a regular route between sites looks to the mobile establishment license instead.

Insurance for a Maine barbershop

Chapter 126 does not condition a barbershop's licenses on insurance, so coverage is a business decision. The working stack is general liability for the premises, professional liability matched to barbering services including straight razor work, and property coverage for chairs, tools and retail stock, with the landlord named as an additional insured where the lease asks. Owners renting chairs should require each Level 2 renter to carry his own professional liability policy, because the statute makes him a separate establishment while his client is still injured, if it comes to that, inside your four walls. A shop with employees carries workers' compensation as an employment obligation through Maine's private market.

Renewal and filing calendar

A Maine barbershop year is a spring annual report, quarterly payroll filings through the year, and an October 31 when every license in the shop comes due together.

Official sources

• Title 32, section 14224: Level 1 and Level 2 establishments, location rules, change of ownership and location.
• Barbering and Cosmetology Licensing Program, laws and rules: OPOR's page for chapter 126, including the official synopsis of the 2019 act that created the barber hair stylist and hair designer licenses.
• OPOR testing information: the testing vendor and the Auburn, Bangor and Presque Isle testing sites.
• Title 31, section 1665: the LLC annual report and its January 1 to June 1 window.
• Title 31, section 1510: assumed and fictitious names for limited liability companies.
• Secretary of State: Form MLLC-6 at $175, Form MLLC-13 at $85 and Form ASUM-5 at $125 on the Division of Corporations forms pages.
• Maine Revenue Services: the Business Guide to Sales, Use, and Service Provider Tax and the published 5.5 percent rate.
• Maine Department of Labor: the $15.10 minimum wage release and the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation's Schedule A and $12,000 wage base.
• IRS, apply for an EIN: the free federal application.

Maine barbershop FAQ