How to Start a Braiding Business in Minnesota

Who regulates braiding in Minnesota

Nobody licenses it, and that is a deliberate choice written into law. The Board of Cosmetology administers chapter 155A, and chapter 155A itself carves braiding out: section 155A.28, subdivision 5 provides that the practice of hair braiding is exempt from the requirements of the chapter. Before 2019 the exemption came with a registration and a 30 hour course in health, safety and infection control; the 2019 legislature repealed that system outright, leaving a clean exemption with no Board paperwork attached.

The local layer is closed off as well. Rule 2105.0010 lists hair braiding among the services the Board classifies as unregulated, and the same rule preempts local ordinances that prohibit, regulate or require a license, registration, certificate, course, testing or training for an unregulated service. A city cannot rebuild a braider license under another name. What a city keeps is its general authority: zoning, building and occupancy rules, and business licensing that applies to businesses generally. The exemption is from cosmetology licensing, not from being a lawful business.

Minnesota braiding at a glance

The braiding exemption, and where it ends

The exemption protects a defined practice, and the definition is the working document of a Minnesota braiding business. Under section 155A.23, hair braiding means any of the following for compensation: twisting, weaving, locking or braiding hair by hand or with mechanical devices; the same techniques combined with the use of hair extensions; and customized wig making. A braider working inside that definition needs no permission from the Board of Cosmetology, no hours of school, and no examination. Skill is proven in the chair, not in a classroom the state prescribes.

The definition also draws the boundary, in a list of what hair braiding does not include: penetrating chemical treatments; hair coloring; straightening, including chemical hair straightening and joining agents for attaching extensions; permanent waves; and bleach. Each item on that list is cosmetology, and each requires a licensed practitioner, a cosmetologist at 1,550 hours or a hair technician at 900 hours within the hair scope, working in a licensed salon. The practical consequence shows up at the edges of real braiding work: installing extensions by braiding is exempt, while bonding them with chemical joining agents is not, and a braider who wants to color, relax or cut as part of the appointment is asking for a license, or for a licensed partner in a licensed salon.

Inside a licensed salon, braiding stays unregulated. Rule 2105.0010's unregulated services list is what allows a salon to station a braider without a practitioner license, and it is why braiders commonly rent chairs in cosmetology salons or work as a salon's extension specialist. The salon's license covers the salon's regulated services; the braider's work needs no cover at all. Keep the menu honest either way: the services the business advertises are the services the law sorts, and a braiding business that quietly adds chemical services has left the exemption behind.

Premises: no salon license for braiding only work

Because the exemption removes braiding from chapter 155A, the chapter's salon license requirement does not reach a braiding only business. There is no salon application to file, no Designated Licensed Salon Manager to register, and no Board insurance floor to document, for premises where the only services sold are braiding and the other unregulated services the Board lists. A braiding studio is licensed the way any Minnesota retail or service business is: entity, name, tax registration, and whatever local approvals its city requires of businesses generally.

The mixed business is the case to plan carefully. A studio that braids and also cuts, colors or chemically treats hair is two businesses in one room for licensing purposes: the braiding runs exempt, and the cosmetology runs under practitioner licenses in a licensed salon, which means the $350 salon license, the designated manager structure and the insurance floor from the hair salon guide in this cluster all attach. Many Minnesota braiding businesses resolve this by keeping a licensed cosmetologist on the team and licensing the premises as a cosmetology salon, which covers everything under one roof. Others stay purely in the exemption. Both are lawful; drifting between them without the paperwork is not.

Home based braiding follows the same logic. The exemption means no state salon license stands between a braider and a home studio, and the constraints that remain are local: zoning and any home occupation rules your city applies to businesses generally. The residential salon rules in section 155A.29 that shape the other guides in this cluster govern licensed salons, and a braiding only home business answers to its city instead.

Forming your business entity

Most Minnesota braiding businesses form as a limited liability company under chapter 322C of the Minnesota Statutes, and Minnesota prices the filing by channel in a way that surprises people: Articles of Organization filed by mail cost $135, while the same filing online or in person costs $155. The filing is made with the Secretary of State and takes effect when accepted. Your Articles name the LLC, its registered office and agent, and the organizer, and the name must carry a limited liability company designator.

Every Minnesota LLC then files an Annual Renewal with the Secretary of State each calendar year, due by December 31, and the renewal itself is free: the fee schedule lists it at $0. Free is not the same as optional. An LLC that skips the renewal is administratively terminated, and bringing it back costs a reinstatement fee of $65 by mail or $85 online or in person, and the Secretary of State prints one more limit on the schedule: an entity inactive for more than six years cannot be reinstated online. Put the renewal on the same December calendar as your own year end close, and it never becomes a reinstatement.

Business names and the assumed name certificate

Minnesota's name filing is the Certificate of Assumed Name under chapter 333, and it is filed with the Secretary of State, not at a county office. Under section 333.01, no one may carry on a commercial business under a name that does not set forth the true name of every person interested in the business unless a certificate is on file, so a sole proprietor trading as a braiding brand and an LLC whose storefront name differs from its legal name both file. The certificate costs $30 by mail or $50 online or in person on the Secretary of State's fee schedule, and the name on it may not borrow a designator like corporation or limited liability company unless the filer is authorized to use it.

Then comes the step Minnesota owners miss: publication. Section 333.01 requires the certificate to be published after it has been filed, in a qualified newspaper in the county in which you have your principal or registered office, for two successive issues, and section 333.02 requires the filing and the publication before you commence business under the name. The certificate also has to be kept alive: section 333.055 holds it in effect only while an annual renewal is filed in each calendar year after the filing year. The renewal is free, and an expired certificate can be reinstated at $65 by mail or $85 online. Keep the names consistent across the stack anyway: Secretary of State filings, the tax accounts and your signage should tell one story.

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. Minnesota keys its registrations to the federal number: the Department of Revenue issues your Minnesota tax ID when you register the business for sales tax and withholding, and your unemployment insurance employer account with the Department of Employment and Economic Development runs on the same identity.

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 quarterly unemployment wage reports, sales tax returns and Secretary of State renewals all assume the business 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

Minnesota taxes retail sales and a short statutory list of services. The Department of Revenue's Personal Services guidance treats salon services as not taxable, listing services such as cutting, styling and extending and restoring hair, and nothing in the guidance names braiding among taxable services. A braiding appointment, booked in a studio, a salon or a home business, is a service ticket with no sales tax collected.

The retail side matters more to braiders than to most beauty businesses, because the product is half the offer. Beauty and cosmetic product sales are taxable at the 6.875 percent state rate plus local taxes, and the Department of Revenue's guidance names wigs and hair pieces among the taxable items a salon sells, when separately stated on the invoice. The customized wigs the braiding definition expressly includes are exempt to make and taxable to sell: the labor is a service, the finished wig is a retail product. Buy hair and product inventory without paying tax by giving your supplier a completed Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption, claiming the resale exemption, and collect the tax when you sell. The supplies you consume providing services, and your tools and equipment, are taxable purchases because they are not resold. Register for a Minnesota tax ID before your first taxable sale; the same registration opens your withholding account when you hire.

Renting a chair as a Minnesota braider

Chair rent is where the exemption does quiet work. A braider renting a chair in a licensed cosmetology salon needs no practitioner license, because braiding is unregulated, and the salon's license does not need to stretch to cover the braider's services. The arrangement still has to be real: a written rental, a set rent, the braider's own clients and booking. The salon side carries its own rule for its licensed staff, and a careful host keeps the braider's services visibly inside the braiding definition, so no chemical work happens at the exempt chair.

The reverse arrangement is just as clean. A braiding studio that rents space to others is renting commercial space, not chairs in a licensed salon, because no salon license exists on the premises to begin with. A renter who brings regulated services into that space changes the premises analysis for their own work: their cosmetology services need a licensed salon, which the braiding studio is not. Rent to braiders freely; rent to a colorist only with the salon license question answered first. The tax classification question runs on control, not labels, in both directions.

Hiring employees in Minnesota

Your first hire makes you a Minnesota employer on several tracks at once. Register with the Department of Revenue for wage withholding, and with the unemployment insurance program administered by the Department of Employment and Economic Development. New employers are assigned a tax rate based on the average for their industry; for 2026 the published new employer rates run from 1 percent up to the 8.9 percent maximum, paid quarterly on each employee's wages up to the 2026 taxable wage base of $44,000. The 2026 rate stack adds a 0.40 percent base tax rate and a 14 percent additional assessment on the tax due, and the quarterly wage detail report is due whether or not any tax is owed. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same checklist for any business with employees; the cosmetology salon insurance floor does not apply to a braiding business, but the workers compensation obligation does.

Minnesota sets its own wage floor and allows no tip credit against it. From January 1, 2026, the state minimum wage is $11.41 an hour for every employer, and tipped staff are owed the full rate before tips. A training wage of $9.31 an hour may be paid to employees under 20 for their first 90 consecutive days of employment. Cities layer on top where they have set their own rates: Minneapolis requires $16.37 an hour in 2026 for all employers, and St. Paul phases by employer size, with small employers reaching $16.37 on July 1, 2026, so the wage floor is a property of the address where the work happens.

Local rules for a Minnesota braiding business

The local layer for a braiding business is thinner than for any other guide in this cluster, and it is worth being precise about why. Rule 2105.0010 preempts local ordinances that license, register, certify, test or require courses or training for braiders. A city may not condition braiding on a local braiding permit, a sanitation course the city designs, or an examination. What remains is the general business layer every Minnesota business answers to: zoning for the address, building and fire occupancy, signage rules, and a general business license where the city requires one of all businesses.

That distinction decides real disputes. If a city office asks for a braiding license, the answer is the rule citation, politely, in writing. If the same office asks for a zoning confirmation or a general business license, the answer is the application. Get the zoning answer in writing before the lease is signed either way, because a braiding studio that cannot lawfully occupy its space has a landlord problem no exemption solves.

Insurance for a Minnesota braiding business

No state insurance mandate attaches to a braiding business: the $25,000 per claim professional liability floor in section 155A.29 is a condition of the cosmetology salon license, and a braiding only business holds no salon license. Treat insurance as a risk and contract decision instead. Landlords commonly require general liability in the lease, suite buildings require it of tenants, and a business whose work involves hours of hands on work on a client's own hair carries the ordinary case for professional liability on its own merits.

The mixed business rule from the premises section applies here too. The day the business takes a salon license to add regulated services, the statutory insurance floor attaches with it, per practitioner, and the policy that was optional becomes a licensing document. Owners planning that expansion should price the insurance into the same budget line as the salon license itself.

Your Minnesota renewal calendar

Official sources

• Minnesota Statutes 155A.28, subdivision 5: the hair braiding exemption
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.23: the definition of hair braiding and what it excludes
• Minnesota Rules 2105.0010: unregulated services and the preemption of local braiding rules
• Board of Cosmetology: resources, including unregulated services guidance
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.29: the salon license that attaches when regulated services are added
• Secretary of State: business filing and certification fee schedule
• Minnesota Statutes 333.01 and 333.02: the assumed name certificate and publication
• Department of Employment and Economic Development: unemployment tax rates for 2026
• Department of Labor and Industry: 2026 minimum wage, state and city rates

Minnesota braiding FAQ