How to Start a Beauty Business in Minnesota
Minnesota runs beauty licensing on three year cycles and splits it across more desks than most states in this series. Hair, skin, nails and lashes sit with the Board of Cosmetology under chapter 155A of the Minnesota Statutes, which licenses six practitioner types, including a 900 hour hair technician license created for people who only want to do hair and a 14 hour eyelash technician license, and licenses the salon itself in five flavors, each one required to run under a Designated Licensed Salon Manager who is legally responsible for the room even when they are not in it. Barbers answer to a completely separate board, the Board of Barber Examiners, with its own 1,500 hour registration system on an annual cycle. Braiding is exempt from cosmetology law entirely, and the old registration was repealed in 2019. Body art, including microblading, belongs to the Department of Health under chapter 146B, with a $420 technician license and a $1,500 establishment license, except in the counties and cities the state has delegated to local programs. Massage therapy has no state license at all: it is an unlicensed complementary practice under chapter 146A, yet massage is one of the few services Minnesota taxes. Underneath the trades sits an entity stack with two traps of its own, an LLC filing that costs $135 by mail or $155 online with a free annual renewal that dissolves the company if you skip it, and an assumed name certificate that is not complete until it has been published in a qualified newspaper for two successive issues. This hub walks every Minnesota route into the beauty business, with every figure traced to the statute, rule or schedule that sets it.
Who regulates beauty businesses in Minnesota
The Board of Cosmetology, formally the Board of Cosmetologist Examiners, licenses practitioners and salons under Minnesota Statutes chapter 155A and Minnesota Rules chapter 2105. It issues three year licenses to cosmetologists, hair technicians, estheticians, advanced practice estheticians, nail technicians, eyelash technicians, salon managers and instructors, and it licenses salons in five types: cosmetology salon, nail salon, esthetician salon, advanced practice esthetician salon and eyelash extension salon. Every salon operates under a Designated Licensed Salon Manager registered with the Board, a structure no other state in this series copies exactly. Inspections and enforcement run through the Board, and penalties are written into the fee statute itself.
Three more frameworks cover the rest of the industry. The Board of Barber Examiners registers barbers and barber shops under chapter 154 on an annual cycle. The Department of Health licenses body art technicians and establishments under chapter 146B, and oversees unlicensed complementary and alternative health care practice, which is where massage therapy lives, under chapter 146A. Business level rules sit with the Secretary of State for LLCs and assumed names, the Department of Revenue for sales tax, and the Department of Employment and Economic Development for unemployment insurance, with the Department of Labor and Industry setting the wage floor.
Minnesota at a glance
| License or filing | Minnesota requirement |
|---|---|
| Cosmetologist | 1,550 hours; three board tests; $195 initial and $115 renewal for three years; expires the last day of your birth month |
| Hair Technician | 900 hours of hair only training at a cosmetology school; license first issued July 1, 2024; same three year cycle |
| Barber | Separate Board of Barber Examiners; 1,500 hours; $85 examination and certificate; registration renews every December 31 at $80 |
| Esthetician | 600 hours; $195 initial and $115 renewal for three years |
| Advanced Practice Esthetician | 500 more hours on top of the esthetician license, 1,100 in total; the AP license supersedes the esthetician license |
| Nail Technician | 350 hours; $195 initial and $115 renewal for three years |
| Eyelash Technician | 14 hours of training; a license limited to eyelash extensions only; cosmetologists and estheticians do not need it |
| Salon license | $350 initial and $225 renewal for three years, in five salon types, and every salon names a Designated Licensed Salon Manager |
| Salon manager | An operator license plus the salon manager test; $195 initial and $145 renewal; managers carry the DLSM responsibility |
| Continuing education | 8 hours per three year cycle: 4 core hours of law and safety plus 4 hours of professional practice |
| Braiding | Fully exempt by statute since 2019; no license, no registration, and local licensing ordinances are preempted |
| Body art and microblading | Department of Health: technician $420 for two years after 200 supervised tattoo hours; establishment $1,500 for two years |
| Massage therapy | No state license exists; practice runs under the chapter 146A complementary health framework and its client bill of rights |
| LLC formation | Articles of Organization $135 by mail or $155 online or in person with the Secretary of State |
| LLC annual renewal | Free, $0, but mandatory by December 31 every year; reinstatement after termination costs $65 by mail or $85 online |
| Assumed name | Certificate of Assumed Name $30 by mail or $50 online, then newspaper publication for two successive issues |
| Sales tax | 6.875 percent state rate on retail products; salon and spa services are not taxed, but massages are |
Minnesota traps that catch new owners
Your salon answers to a manager, not just to you
Every Minnesota salon operates under a Designated Licensed Salon Manager, one person per salon, holding a salon manager license at the same level as the salon license. The DLSM and the owner are responsible for the salon at all times, even when the manager is not in the building, and the Board holds the manager to account for every practitioner in the room, employees and independent contractors alike. When a DLSM leaves, the Board gets written notice within 10 business days and the salon has 60 days to register a replacement. Owners arriving from other states budget for a salon license and forget they also have to recruit, or become, a licensed manager.
The assumed name is not finished when you file it
Minnesota's Certificate of Assumed Name has a second step most states dropped generations ago. After filing with the Secretary of State, section 333.01 requires the certificate to be published in a qualified newspaper in the county of your principal or registered office, for two successive issues, and section 333.02 puts the filing and the publication before you commence business under the name. The certificate then survives only while a free annual renewal is filed each year. A name that was filed but never published, or renewed late, is a name problem waiting for a bank or a landlord to find it.
The free LLC renewal is the one that dissolves companies
Minnesota charges $0 for the LLC annual renewal, due by December 31 every year, and that zero is exactly why owners forget it. An LLC that misses the renewal is administratively terminated by the Secretary of State, and reinstatement costs $65 by mail or $85 online or in person, with entities inactive more than six years locked out of online reinstatement entirely. The formation filing itself inverts the usual pricing pattern too: $135 by mail, and $155 online or in person, so the convenient channel costs more than the envelope.
Individual licenses expire in your birth month
Minnesota runs every practitioner license on a three year cycle keyed to the person rather than the calendar: your license expires on the last day of your birth month in the year it falls due, while salon licenses expire on the last day of the month of initial licensure. A salon's wall of licenses therefore expires on a dozen different dates, and the statute prices the failure to notice: an expired salon found on inspection draws a penalty of up to $500, an expired practitioner $200, and late renewal fees of $45 for practitioners and $50 for salons sit underneath. Renewal also requires 8 hours of continuing education per cycle, split between a 4 hour core and 4 hours of professional practice.
Massage needs no license, and massage is taxed
Minnesota is the only state in this series where the massage guide and the tax guide contradict the pattern twice. There is no massage therapist license: massage is an unlicensed complementary and alternative health care practice under chapter 146A, governed by prohibited conduct rules and a client bill of rights the practitioner must hand over, with cities free to license on their own, as Minneapolis does for establishments. Then the Department of Revenue taxes massages as one of the few taxable services in section 297A.61, while hair, nail and spa services stay untaxed. A massage business that plans like a salon gets both halves wrong.
The health department does not cover the whole map
Body art licensing looks statewide until you read the fine print. The Department of Health licenses technicians and establishments under chapter 146B, but it does not regulate facilities in Anoka, Hennepin or Steele counties or in the cities of Minneapolis, Maplewood, Brooklyn Park, Bloomington and Edina, where delegated local programs license instead. The Twin Cities metro is largely local territory, so a studio's permitting authority depends on which side of a county line its door sits on, and the $1,500 establishment fee goes to a different office in those places.
Minnesota guides by business type
Hair salon
The flagship route: the 1,550 hour cosmetologist license, the cosmetology salon license at $350, the Designated Licensed Salon Manager, and the statutory insurance floor of $25,000 per claim.
Barbershop
A different board entirely: the registered barber certificate at 1,500 hours and $85, shop registration at $85, and an annual renewal calendar with a December date for barbers and a June date for shops.
Nail salon
The 350 hour nail technician license, the nail salon license type, and why performing cosmetology services in a nail salon is a penalty line in the fee statute.
Lash studio
The smallest license in the series: a dedicated eyelash technician credential at 14 hours of training, an eyelash extension salon license type, and the three base licenses that cover lashes without it.
Esthetics
The 600 hour esthetician license and the 500 hour advanced practice tier behind it: 1,100 hours in total, AP salon licenses, and the line between the two scopes.
Salon suite
Minnesota decides suites with the salon license itself: rent inside a licensed salon under its DLSM, or license your own room as its own salon with your own manager.
Braiding
Fully exempt since 2019: no license, no registration, no course, and state law preempts cities from licensing braiders, with the chemical services line that ends the exemption.
Microblading
Microblading is cosmetic tattooing under chapter 146B: a Department of Health technician license after 200 supervised hours, a $1,500 establishment license, and the delegated counties where MDH does not regulate.
Massage
No state license at all: the chapter 146A complementary practice framework, the client bill of rights, taxable massage services, and Minneapolis's establishment license as the labeled city example.
What this Minnesota cluster covers
Each guide above follows the same structure used across this site: the licensing regulator, the practitioner credential step by step, the salon or establishment license or the reason there is none, entity formation with the real Secretary of State fees including the free annual renewal and what skipping it costs, the assumed name certificate with its newspaper publication step stated exactly, the EIN, the Department of Revenue's tax treatment stated precisely for that trade, booth and room rent classification under the salon supervision rules, hiring, the local layer, insurance, a renewal calendar, and official sources for every figure. The shared business stack appears in every guide because most Minnesota beauty businesses are opened by the license holder, and the numbers differ by trade: a cosmetologist trains 1,550 hours while an eyelash technician trains 14, a barber renews every year while a cosmetologist renews every three, a braider files nothing at all, and a massage therapist holds no license to renew.
Minnesota is the twenty-second 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. Two naming notes for readers comparing sources: Minnesota calls its cosmetology regulator the Board of Cosmetology or the Board of Cosmetologist Examiners, the same agency under chapter 155A; and barbers in Minnesota are registered, not licensed, by their own board, a distinction the barbershop guide keeps because the statute does.
Official Minnesota resources
- Board of Cosmetology: licensing, salon applications and license lookup
- Minnesota Statutes 155A.25: cosmetology fees, penalties and license expiration dates
- Minnesota Statutes 155A.29: salon licensing, the manager appointment and the insurance floor
- Minnesota Rules 2105.0145: training hours and applicant requirements for every license type
- Board of Barber Examiners: registered barbers, shop registration and annual renewals
- Department of Health: body art technician licensing, supervised hours and guest artists
- Minnesota Statutes 146B.10: body art fees for technicians and establishments
- Secretary of State: business filing and certification fee schedule
- Minnesota Statutes 333.01: the assumed name certificate and its publication requirement
- Department of Employment and Economic Development: unemployment insurance tax rates and the wage base
- Department of Labor and Industry: the 2026 minimum wage for state, Minneapolis and St. Paul
Minnesota sources last reviewed: November 3, 2026