How to Start a Beauty Business in Massachusetts

Massachusetts runs beauty licensing through two boards inside one agency, the Division of Occupational Licensure, and it prices the two halves of the business in opposite directions. The Board of Registration of Cosmetology and Barbering charges $68 for most practitioner licenses and $136 for a salon license, which is cheap. The Board of Registration of Massage Therapy licenses both the therapist and the establishment. The entity underneath is where Massachusetts gets expensive: an LLC costs $500 to form and another $500 every single year. Around those boards sit three more Massachusetts signatures: there is no booth renter license at all, microblading belongs to your local board of health and not to any beauty board, and natural hair braiding is exempt from the cosmetology board's rules by statute. This hub walks every Massachusetts route into the beauty business, with the fees traced to the rule or statute that sets them.

Who regulates beauty businesses in Massachusetts

The Board of Registration of Cosmetology and Barbering licenses cosmetologists, barbers, manicurists, aestheticians and electrologists, along with the salons, barbershops and schools they work in, under M.G.L. c.112, sections 87T to 87KK and the Board's regulations at 240 CMR. It issues exactly three kinds of salon license: Cosmetology Salon, Manicuring Salon and Aesthetics Salon. The Board of Registration of Massage Therapy, under M.G.L. c.112, sections 227 to 235 and 269 CMR, licenses massage therapists and, separately, massage establishments, in two classes named Solo and Multiple. Both boards sit inside the Division of Occupational Licensure, and applications, renewals and reinstatements for both run online through the eLIPSE platform, with a notarized CORI form as part of the applications.

Two beauty trades sit outside those boards entirely. Body art, which is where microblading and permanent cosmetics live in Massachusetts, has no state licensing board: the Department of Public Health publishes model body art regulations, and your city or town board of health adopts them, permits the establishment and licenses the practitioner. The cosmetology board's own policy lists tattooing, permanent makeup and micro-blading as prohibited practices for its licensees. Braiding sits in a third position: the statute defines natural hair braiding and then exempts it from the board's rules altogether. Business level rules sit with two more agencies: the Secretary of the Commonwealth's Corporations Division for entities, and the Department of Revenue for sales tax and employer withholding through MassTaxConnect, with unemployment insurance at the Department of Unemployment Assistance.

Massachusetts at a glance

License or filing	Massachusetts requirement
Cosmetologist	1,000 hours, application $68, renewal $68 every two years on your birthday
Barber	1,000 hours, application $66, renewal $78 every two years, expires December 31 of odd years
Aesthetician	600 hours, application $68, renewal $68 every two years on your birthday
Manicurist	100 hours, application $68, renewal $68 every two years on your birthday
Electrologist	1,100 hours, application $97, renewal $78 every two years
Salon licenses (three types)	$136 application each, $82 renewal every two years, expires December 31 of even years
Barbershop	$130 application, $78 renewal every two years, expires June 30 of even years
Massage therapist	650 hour board approved course, application $225, renewal $150 every year
Massage establishment	Solo $50 a year, Multiple $150 a year, inspection before issuance
Natural hair braiding	No license and no board rules, exempt by statute since January 14, 2021
Microblading	Local board of health body art permits; Boston charges $250 for the establishment and $100 for the practitioner
LLC formation	Certificate of Organization $500
LLC annual report	$500 every year, due on the anniversary of the original filing
Business certificate (DBA)	City or town clerk, four year term; Boston charges $65

Massachusetts traps that catch new owners

The LLC costs $500, then $500 again every year

The Certificate of Organization is $500 and the annual report is another $500, due on or before the anniversary of your original filing, and both figures are written into the LLC statute itself. A Massachusetts LLC carries $500 of state filing cost every year it exists, before a single license fee, which changes the entity math for a one chair business.

There is no booth renter license, and the renter may be your employee anyway

The Board states it plainly: it no longer issues or requires booth renter or booth shop licenses, so renters work inside a licensed salon on their own practitioner licenses. Then the tax and wage side applies its own test. Under M.G.L. c.149, section 148B, a worker is presumed to be an employee unless the service is performed outside the usual course of your business, and chair work is the usual course of a salon's business. Most Massachusetts chair rental arrangements fail that test no matter what the rental agreement says.

A nails and skin shop needs two salon licenses

Massachusetts issues three salon license types, and they do not blend. A shop that offers manicuring and aesthetics but no hair files two applications, one Manicuring Salon and one Aesthetics Salon, at $136 each. Only the Cosmetology Salon license covers all three service families under one license.

Your salon stays closed until the Board says open

A new salon or a relocated salon must remain closed until it is approved for a license after inspection. The salon has to be fully set up first: floor plan approved, stations in place, extra sinks installed outside the bathroom, plumbing and electrical forms signed off. Sign the lease with that sequence in mind, because the license follows the inspection, not the application.

Microblading answers to your town hall, not a beauty board

The cosmetology board lists permanent makeup and micro-blading as prohibited practices for its licensees. Microblading is body art, permitted by your local board of health under regulations modeled on the Department of Public Health's model code, and every town sets its own fees and apprenticeship terms. In Boston the establishment permit is $250 and the practitioner license is $100, and neither is valid one town line away.

Massage renews every year, and the room is licensed too

A massage therapist license renews annually, $150, expiring on the 28th day of your birth month, which is the shortest cycle on either board. The establishment is a second license on top: $50 a year for a solo practice, $150 for a multiple therapist establishment, with an inspection before the license issues and a new application if you move.

Massachusetts guides by business type

Hair salon

The flagship route: the 1,000 hour cosmetologist license at $68, the Type 1 cosmetology salon license at $136 with a closed until inspected opening, and the $500 a year LLC underneath it.

Barbershop

The 1,000 hour barber license, the statutory apprenticeship routes behind it, a $130 shop license that fails inspection without a non shampoo sink with hot and cold water, and a June 30 even year renewal.

Nail salon

The shortest practitioner course on the board: the 100 hour manicurist license at $68, the Type 3 manicuring salon license, and the two license stack a nails and skin shop files.

Lash studio

Massachusetts has no lash license and its scopes never name eyelash extensions. How lash studios actually operate here: licensed aestheticians and cosmetologists, inside licensed salons, with the board's position confirmed in writing.

Esthetics

The 600 hour aesthetician license, the Type 5 aesthetics salon license, a statutory scope limited to minimally invasive methods, and the board policy wall that keeps injectables and microblading out.

Salon suite

No suite license and no booth license exists in Massachusetts, so a suite building is a stack of individual salon licenses, one per space, each inspected and each closed until approved.

Braiding

Natural hair braiding is exempt from the board's rules by statute: no license, no registration, no board rulebook. What the exemption covers, where it stops, and the business filings that still apply.

Microblading

Permanent cosmetics runs through local body art law: a practitioner permit and an establishment permit from your board of health, with Boston's $250 and $100 schedule and its permanent cosmetics apprenticeship as the worked example.

Massage

The 650 hour board course behind a 500 hour statute, the $225 application, the $150 annual renewal, and the establishment license owners miss: $50 solo, $150 multiple, inspected before it issues.

What this Massachusetts cluster covers

Each guide above follows the same structure used across this site: the licensing regulator, the practitioner license step by step, the establishment license, entity formation with the real Massachusetts fees, the business certificate split the way Massachusetts splits it, the EIN, the Department of Revenue tax treatment stated precisely for that trade, booth rent classification, hiring, the city and town layer, insurance, a renewal calendar, and official sources for every figure. The shared business stack appears in every guide because most Massachusetts beauty businesses are opened by the license holder, and the numbers differ by trade: a manicurist is licensed in 100 hours while a cosmetologist needs 1,000 and an electrologist 1,100, a braider needs no license at all, a massage therapist renews every year while everyone on the cosmetology board renews every two, and a microblading artist needs permits that come from a town board of health rather than from any state board.

Massachusetts is the sixteenth state cluster on this site. The national hubs compare the same business type across every researched state, and the remaining states are in production in population order.

Official Massachusetts resources

Massachusetts sources last reviewed: November 3, 2026