How to Start a Microblading Business in Minnesota

Who licenses microblading in Minnesota

The Department of Health licenses body art under Minnesota Statutes chapter 146B, and chapter 146B's definition of tattooing includes micropigmentation and cosmetic tattooing. Microblading, a manual cosmetic tattooing technique for eyebrows, sits inside that definition, and local ordinances in the state say so expressly; the City of West St. Paul's body art ordinance, for example, names micropigmentation and microblading as cosmetic tattooing. The Board of Cosmetology is equally clear from its side: its rules list eyebrow microblading among the unregulated services for cosmetology, which means a cosmetologist or esthetician license neither covers microblading nor substitutes for the technician license.

One structural fact shapes the whole market: Minnesota licenses both the person and the place, statewide, but delegates the program in part of the metro. The Department of Health states that it does not regulate body art facilities in Anoka, Hennepin and Steele counties and in the cities of Minneapolis, Maplewood, Brooklyn Park, Bloomington and Edina; those jurisdictions run their own licensing programs under the same chapter. The fees and rules in this guide are the state program's. An artist or establishment in a delegated jurisdiction applies there instead, on that authority's forms.

Minnesota microblading at a glance

The body art technician license, step by step

The technician license is earned inside a working establishment. Section 146B.03 sets the qualifications: you must be at least 18, and for the tattooing license you document 200 hours of supervised tattooing experience. Minnesota runs the supervised period through the temporary technician license under section 146B.10: $240, valid for one year, renewable up to twice per license type, issued so a trainee can work under the direct supervision of a licensed technician at a licensed establishment while completing the hours. The trainee keeps a log book of the hours worked under the supervisor, and finishes with an affidavit from the supervisor documenting them. Bloodborne pathogen training is part of the application package, five hours of training under the statute, with current certification within the last year.

The full license application is $420, and the biennial renewal application is also $420, so body art runs on a two year cycle at a higher fee than any cosmetology license in this cluster. A late renewal costs $150. Technicians visiting from out of state use the guest artist license at $140, which covers up to 30 days in a calendar year and requires sponsorship by a licensed Minnesota technician working at a licensed establishment. The license belongs to the technician type: tattooing and piercing are licensed separately, and a dual license is priced as its own application at $420.

The training economics deserve a plain statement. There is no school based shortcut in the state program: the 200 hours are supervised practice hours, which means a new microblading artist needs a licensed supervisor willing to oversee the work and an establishment willing to host it, before independent practice is possible. Artists who trained out of state should expect the Department to measure their documented experience against the same 200 hour supervised standard, and anyone planning a studio should secure the supervision arrangement before signing a lease, because the establishment license alone does not make an unlicensed artist lawful.

The body art establishment license

The premises license is the body art establishment license under section 146B.10, and it is the largest single fee in this cluster: a provisional establishment license is $1,500, the initial establishment license is $1,500, and the renewal, on a cycle of up to two years, is $1,500. A temporary establishment permit for an event costs $200. The establishment license is what makes a room a lawful place for tattooing: body art procedures may be performed only in a licensed establishment, by licensed technicians, and the provisional license is the mechanism the state uses for a new location working toward its full license.

Notice what is absent from the structure: no manager license, no salon style designated manager, and no per practitioner insurance floor written into the fee statute. The establishment answers for the premises, the technicians answer for their licenses, and both answer to the Department of Health or, in the delegated jurisdictions, to the local health authority that runs the program there. An expired establishment found operating is the expensive mistake in this trade: a late establishment renewal costs $300, double the technician late fee, before any enforcement consequences.

For a microblading only studio, the practical sequence is entity first, then the establishment application for the address, with technician licensing arranged in parallel, because the two licenses unlock together: a licensed establishment with no licensed technician cannot perform procedures, and a licensed technician with no licensed establishment has nowhere lawful to perform them. Cosmetology tenants should also note the boundary in reverse: a body art establishment license does not authorize cosmetology services in the same room, which need their own salon license, and a salon license does not authorize body art.

Forming your business entity

Most Minnesota microblading 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 establishment 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 Department 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 set out in section 297A.61, and body art procedures are not on that list. The Department of Revenue's Personal Services guidance, which works through the beauty industry service by service, does not name tattooing or microblading among taxable services, so the service ticket for a microblading procedure carries no sales tax. Aftercare products and any jewelry or retail goods you sell are the opposite: retail sales, taxable at the 6.875 percent state rate plus the local taxes that apply at your address.

Buy resale 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 supplies you consume performing procedures, inks, needles, barriers and disposables, and your equipment, are taxable purchases because they are not resold. Register the business with the Department of Revenue for a Minnesota tax ID before your first taxable sale; the same registration opens your withholding account when you hire.

Working inside a licensed establishment

Minnesota's booth rent question for body art answers itself from the licensing structure: procedures happen in licensed establishments, performed by licensed technicians. A technician renting space inside an already licensed body art establishment works under that establishment's license for the premises, and needs their own technician license, current and posted. The host establishment's license is what makes the room lawful, which is why established studios can host guest artists and additional technicians without new premises filings.

The salon suite version of the arrangement fails, and it is the mistake this guide exists to prevent. A microblading artist who rents an independent suite, in a suite building or inside a cosmetology salon, and performs procedures there is working in an unlicensed establishment, because neither a suite lease nor a salon license is a body art establishment license. The suite needs its own establishment license at $1,500, issued to that location, or the artist works inside someone else's licensed establishment. The tax classification question is separate and runs on control, not on the label in the arrangement: paper a real tenancy like a tenancy, with written terms, set rent, and the artist's own clients 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 for any studio with employees.

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. Hiring a trainee adds the licensing layer on top of the payroll layer: a temporary technician license for the trainee and a licensed supervisor in the establishment, as the practitioner section describes.

Local rules and the delegated jurisdictions

The local layer for body art is heavier than for any other guide in this cluster, because part of it is the licensing layer. In Anoka, Hennepin and Steele counties and in the cities of Minneapolis, Maplewood, Brooklyn Park, Bloomington and Edina, the Department of Health does not regulate body art facilities; the local health authority runs its own program under chapter 146B, and establishment and technician licensing runs through that authority on its forms and fees. Outside those jurisdictions, the state program in this guide is the program. Either way, zoning, occupancy and signage rules are the city's, and body art uses are zoned more restrictively than ordinary retail in many Minnesota cities.

Get two answers in writing before the lease is signed: which authority licenses body art at the address, and whether zoning allows a body art establishment there. The establishment license is written for the location, so a change of address means dealing with the licensing authority on the new location rather than editing the old license. A studio that signs first and asks later can end up paying rent on a room that cannot be licensed, which is the most expensive mistake in this guide.

Insurance for a Minnesota microblading business

Chapter 146B sets no per practitioner professional liability floor in the fee and licensing provisions the way the cosmetology chapter does for salons, so insurance for a body art studio is a risk and contract decision rather than a licensing line item. In practice it is not optional in any meaningful sense: landlords name limits in the lease, and a business performing permanent cosmetic procedures on faces carries professional liability for the procedures, general liability for the premises, and property coverage for equipment as the standard stack.

Technicians renting inside a host establishment should confirm in writing whose policy responds to a claim arising from their chair, theirs or the host's, because the establishment license makes the room lawful without answering the insurance question. Owners comparing this guide with the salon guides should note the difference plainly: the $25,000 per claim floor belongs to the cosmetology salon license under section 155A.29, and it does not attach to a body art establishment.

Your Minnesota renewal calendar

Official sources

• Department of Health: body art program, licensing and the delegated jurisdictions
• Department of Health: body art technician licensing information
• Minnesota Statutes 146B.10: body art fees, temporary licenses and establishment licenses
• Minnesota Statutes 146B.01: definitions, tattooing including micropigmentation and cosmetic tattooing
• Minnesota Statutes 146B.03: technician qualifications and supervised experience
• Minnesota Rules 2110.0010: cosmetology definitions, microblading listed as unregulated for cosmetology
• 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 microblading FAQ