How to Open a Lash Studio in Minnesota

Who licenses lash studios in Minnesota

Lash studios answer to the Board of Cosmetology under Minnesota Statutes chapter 155A and Minnesota Rules chapter 2105. The Board defines the eyelash technician in section 155A.23 as a person licensed to perform eyelash extensions, and Rule 2105.0145 spells out who needs the license: an individual who is not a cosmetologist, esthetician or advanced practice esthetician and who performs only eyelash extensions. The flip side is just as clear in the same rule: cosmetologists, estheticians and advanced practice estheticians are not required to hold a separate eyelash technician license, because lash application already sits inside their scopes.

The premises side has its own license type. The Board licenses salons in five types, and the fifth is the eyelash extension salon, created for businesses whose service is lashes. Under section 155A.29, services for compensation may be offered only by a licensee in a licensed salon, so a lash artist working from a spare bedroom or an unlicensed suite is outside the system even with the technician license in hand. The salon license carries the same fee schedule and penalties as every other Minnesota salon type, including the penalty of up to $500 for an expired salon found on inspection.

Minnesota lash studio at a glance

The eyelash technician license, step by step

The route is the fastest professional entry in Minnesota beauty. Rule 2105.0145 requires you to be at least 17 and to complete 14 hours of training in eyelash extension application at a Minnesota licensed school, documented by a course completion certificate. You then pass the same three board approved tests every Minnesota practitioner takes, a general theory test, a written practical test, and a test on Minnesota laws and rules, with passing results no more than one year old when you apply. The initial license costs $195 for three years, a $155 license fee plus a $40 application fee under section 155A.25, and it expires on the last day of your birth month in the year it falls due.

Renewal costs $115 and carries the standard Minnesota continuing education under section 155A.271: four core hours, one hour of state laws and rules and three hours of health, safety and infection control, plus a separate four hour professional practice course, for 8 hours in each three year cycle. The eyelash technician is expressly named in that statute, so the short license does not mean a light renewal. Late renewal adds a $45 fee, and practicing on an expired license carries a penalty of up to $200 when an inspector finds it.

The discipline of this license is its narrowness. Section 155A.23 defines the eyelash technician's practice as eyelash extensions, the application of eyelash extensions to natural lashes as the statute defines the service, and nothing else in the beauty menu. A lash studio whose clients ask for brow services, facials or waxing needs an esthetician on the team, licensed at 600 hours, or a cosmetologist, because the eyelash technician license cannot stretch to cover them. Many Minnesota lash artists take the esthetician license instead of, or after, the technician license for exactly this reason; the technician license is the fast door into the industry, and the esthetician license is the wider room behind it.

The eyelash extension salon license and the designated manager

The studio's own license is the eyelash extension salon license under section 155A.29, priced like every Minnesota salon license: $350 initially, a $250 license fee plus a $100 application fee, and $225 to renew, each for three years, expiring on the last day of the month of initial licensure. The conditions are the standard four: compliance with local and state infection control, health and safety law; appointment of a manager; evidence of workers compensation compliance where it applies; and evidence of continued professional liability insurance of at least $25,000 per claim and $50,000 per policy year for each practitioner.

The manager is the Designated Licensed Salon Manager, appointed by the owner and registered with the Board on the salon license application under a notarized acknowledgment. The Board's structure pairs each salon license with a salon manager license at the same level, so the eyelash extension salon registers a manager holding the matching salon manager license. The owner and the DLSM are responsible for the salon at all times, even when absent, for current licenses, for practitioners working inside their scopes, and for independent contractors as well as employees. If the DLSM leaves, written notice goes to the Board within 10 business days and a replacement registers within 60 days. A solo lash artist solves the structure the way solo owners across this cluster do: take the salon manager license on top of the technician license and register yourself.

One planning note follows from the license types. A studio that opens as an eyelash extension salon and later adds facials is adding a second salon license type, the esthetician salon license, because Minnesota licenses the premises by service category. The Board allows a salon to hold more than one type, so the expansion is an application, not a new business, but it belongs in the budget before the facial bed is ordered.

Forming your business entity

Most Minnesota lash studio 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 studio 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 salon license, the sales tax account 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, renewals and Board fees all assume the studio 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, and personal services performed in a salon are not on the list. The Department of Revenue's Personal Services guidance treats barber shop and salon services as not taxable, and nothing in the guidance names eyelash services among the taxable services; the service ticket for a lash set or a fill carries no sales tax. That is the treatment to build the price list on, and it matches how the rest of the Minnesota salon menu is taxed.

The retail shelf is the opposite. Beauty and cosmetic product sales are taxable: lash cleansers, aftercare kits and anything else you sell for home use are retail sales at the 6.875 percent state rate plus the local taxes that apply at your address. Buy that inventory without paying tax by giving your supplier a completed Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption, claiming the resale exemption, and owe the tax only when you sell. The mirror image catches new owners: the supplies you consume while providing services, adhesives, lashes, eye pads and sanitizers used on clients, and your tools and equipment, are taxable purchases because they are not resold; the Department of Revenue's guidance lists cosmetics and similar service consumables as taxable to the business. Register for a Minnesota tax ID before your first taxable sale; the same registration opens your withholding account when you hire.

Room rent in a Minnesota lash studio

Room rent inside a licensed studio runs inside the salon license rather than beside it. A lash artist renting a room or a bed in your eyelash extension salon works in a licensed salon, so no second salon license attaches to the room and the renter files no premises paperwork of their own. What they need is a license that covers lashes: their own eyelash technician license, or an esthetician or cosmetologist license, active and displayed. Your side of the arrangement is defined by Rule 2105.0390: the owner and the DLSM must ensure that all practitioners, including nonemployees, comply with chapter 155A and the rules, and the salon keeps the work time records of each licensed practitioner on the premises as section 177.30 requires.

The boundary is the same one that runs through this whole cluster. A renter whose operation the public experiences as its own studio, separate suite, separate door, separate name, is running a salon in Minnesota's structure and needs its own eyelash extension salon license and its own designated manager, which is the subject of the salon suite guide in this cluster. The tax classification question is separate and runs on control, not on the label in the lease: paper a real tenancy like a tenancy, with written terms, set rent, and the renter's own clients, products and booking.

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, and for a licensed salon it is a licensing document as well: section 155A.29 asks for evidence of compliance with the workers compensation law where it applies.

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 lash artists 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 lash studio

The local layer sits underneath every state filing in this guide. Zoning controls whether a lash studio can operate at the address you choose, and cities add occupancy approvals, sign rules and, in many places, a local business license on top of the state layer. Two state rules shape the site search itself: a salon may not be located in a room used for residential purposes, and a salon in the practitioner's residence must be completely partitioned off from the living quarters, under section 155A.29. A mobile salon is possible but carries its own conditions, a permanent business address and advance notice to the Board of its locations and schedule of operation.

Get the zoning answer in writing before the lease is signed. The salon license belongs to the location and the owner named on the application, so a change of address or ownership means a new application rather than an edit, and the sales tax account, the insurance evidence and the DLSM registration all have to describe the same room. Rent on a space the city will not clear for salon use is the most expensive mistake in this guide.

Insurance for a Minnesota lash studio

Minnesota writes an insurance floor into the salon license itself. Section 155A.29 makes evidence of continued professional liability insurance a condition of the salon license: at least $25,000 for each claim and $50,000 total coverage for each policy year, for each practitioner. That floor covers everyone working under the license, employees and room renters alike, which is one more reason the salon's policy and its roster of practitioners need to match on paper.

Treat the statutory floor as a floor, not a target. Work performed millimeters from a client's eyes, with adhesives and removers in use all day, is the risk professional liability is priced for in this trade, and most landlords will name higher limits in the lease than the statute names. General liability for the premises and property coverage for beds, equipment and retail stock complete the standard stack.

Your Minnesota renewal calendar

Official sources

• Board of Cosmetology: licensing, salon applications and license lookup
• Minnesota Rules 2105.0145: eyelash technician training, tests and who needs the license
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.23: definitions, including the eyelash technician
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.25: license fees, penalties and expiration dates
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.29: salon licensing conditions and the eyelash extension salon type
• Minnesota Statutes 155A.271: continuing education, including for eyelash technicians
• 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 lash studio FAQ