How to Start a Beauty Business in Mississippi

Mississippi rebuilt its beauty regulator before it rebuilt anything else. On January 1, 2025 the old State Board of Cosmetology and the old Board of Barber Examiners became one agency, the Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, and barbering moved into the same chapter of the Code as cosmetology, at the same 1,500 hours. The merged board licenses cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians at 600 hours and nail technicians at 350, the shortest nail course in this series, plus the establishments they all work in, on an $85 application that includes the first inspection. Two trades sit with a different agency entirely: the Department of Health registers hair braiders for $25 under a statute that lets the department keep a list and almost nothing more, and the same department registers tattoo artists, which in Mississippi is what a microblading artist legally is. Massage answers to its own board, the State Board of Massage Therapy, on a 600 hour program, a state law examination of its own, and a business registration that the therapist renting a room files personally. The business stack has its own signature: an LLC whose Certificate of Formation costs $50 and whose annual report costs nothing at all but is due every April 15, a fictitious name registration that is voluntary rather than required, and a sales tax that reaches only the businesses the legislature listed by name, a list beauty services never made. This hub walks every Mississippi route into the beauty business, with every figure traced to the statute, rule or agency page that sets it.

Who regulates beauty businesses in Mississippi

Most of the beauty trades answer to a board that is barely two years old. The Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, created by House Bill 313 of 2024 and effective January 1, 2025, merged the former State Board of Cosmetology and the former Board of Barber Examiners into a single agency in Jackson. The old barber chapter of the Code, Title 73, Chapter 5, was repealed in the merger, and barbering now lives inside the cosmetology chapter at section 73-7-13.1. The merged board licenses cosmetologists, barbers, estheticians, nail technicians, wig specialists and instructors, licenses the establishments where they practice, and writes one rule book, Title 30, Chapter 10 of the Mississippi Administrative Code, for all of them. It also runs a route most states in this series have closed: every practitioner license in its chapter can be earned in a board certified apprenticeship instead of a school, at twice the school hours.

Two trades belong to the Mississippi State Department of Health instead. Its Professional Licensure division registers hair braiders under section 73-7-71, a registration the statute itself describes as a listing rather than a license, and it registers tattoo and body piercing artists under sections 73-61-1 and 73-61-3, which is where microblading and permanent makeup live. Massage therapy has its own board, the Mississippi State Board of Massage Therapy, working under the Mississippi Professional Massage Therapy Act, Title 73, Chapter 67: it licenses therapists, approves programs, and registers massage businesses. The rest of the business stack belongs to the general agencies: the Secretary of State takes entity filings, the free LLC annual report and the voluntary fictitious name registration; the Department of Revenue runs sales tax, withholding and the TAP portal; the Mississippi Department of Employment Security takes employer registration for unemployment insurance; and the cities and counties hold the local business permits and inspections that the state applications themselves ask about.

Mississippi at a glance

License or filing	Mississippi requirement
Licensing structure	One merged board for cosmetology and barbering (the State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering, since January 1, 2025), the Department of Health for braiding and tattoo registration, and the State Board of Massage Therapy for massage
Cosmetologist license	1,500 hours of school over no less than 9 months, or 3,000 hours in a board certified apprenticeship. License $50, renewed every two years
Barber license	1,500 hours at a board approved barbering school, or 3,000 hours of board approved apprenticeship, under section 73-7-13.1. A barber adds 600 hours of cosmetology school to sit for the cosmetology exam, and a cosmetologist adds 600 hours of barbering school to sit for the barber exam
Esthetician license	600 hours of school, 100 hours of theory and 500 hours of skill practice, or 1,200 hours in a board certified apprenticeship. The 600 hours credit toward a cosmetology license
Nail technician license	350 hours of school over no less than 9 weeks, or 700 hours in a board certified apprenticeship, with only one apprentice per mentor
Examinations	Written theory only since February 2, 2026, when the board retired the practical examination. Passing score 70 for practitioners and 75 for instructors
Establishment license	$85 application including the initial inspection, and the license issues only after the premises pass inspection. Renewal $60. The license does not transfer, and any change of ownership, location or name, including a move to another area inside the same building, requires a new application
Eyelash services	No lash license exists, and none is needed for extensions: applying and removing eyelash extensions sits outside the cosmetology chapter by statute, alone or combined with makeup artistry and threading. Tinting eyelashes and eyebrows remains licensed work
Braiding	Registration with the Department of Health, $25, under section 73-7-71. The braider completes the infection control self-test in the department's brochure and keeps the brochure and the completed test where they work; the department may inspect for those documents and does not otherwise regulate the practice
Microblading	Tattooing under the Department of Health. A Certificate of Registration, Regular or Provisional, names the artist and the establishment: $150 application and $150 annual renewal on a June 1 to May 31 registration year
Massage therapist	550 hours of instruction plus 50 hours of student clinic, the MBLEx or the board's own MPE examinations, and the Mississippi State Law Examination. Application $50, license $200 for two years expiring May 31 every other year, with 24 hours of continuing education
Massage business	Registration with the Board of Massage Therapy, $50 by money order or cashier's check. A therapist renting a room files as owner and sole proprietor; a landlord who only rents the room does not file
LLC formation	Certificate of Formation $50 with the Secretary of State. The annual report is free and due April 15 every year; a foreign LLC pays $250 to register and $250 for its annual report
Fictitious name	Voluntary registration with the Secretary of State, $25 for a five year term. It is not required, carries no penalty when skipped, grants no exclusive right to the name, and has no county filing
Sales tax	7 percent state rate on retail sales of tangible personal property. Services are taxed only when section 27-65-23 lists the business activity by name, and no beauty service is listed

Mississippi traps that catch new owners

One board runs cosmetology and barbering now

Owners working from older Mississippi guides will file with agencies that no longer exist. House Bill 313 of 2024 merged the State Board of Cosmetology and the Board of Barber Examiners into the Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering effective January 1, 2025, repealed the barber chapter of the Code outright, and moved barbering into Chapter 7 at section 73-7-13.1. Every reference to the old barber board in any statute, rule or document now means the merged board. The practical consequences run through the whole cluster: one application portal, one establishment license form covering cosmetology, barbering, nail technology and esthetics, one fee schedule at section 73-7-29 where a barber and a cosmetologist pay the same $50, and one renewal discipline for both trades. A barbershop that prepares its paperwork from a pre-2025 source is preparing for a regulator that has been abolished.

The suite trap is written into the establishment rule

Mississippi's establishment license is personal to the operator and the exact premises, and Rule 10.4 of the board's rules says so in terms a suite renter cannot negotiate around. The license is nontransferable. Any change to ownership, location, expressly including an area within a building, or name requires a brand new establishment license application, and no license issues until every fine previously assessed against the establishment is paid. Read against a suite building, that means the landlord's establishment license never covers the renter's business, a stylist who moves from one suite to another suite in the same building starts a new application, and each separately operated room carries its own $85 application, its own inspection and its own $60 renewal. The salon suite guide works through the arithmetic; the trap is assuming a suite is a chair with a door when the rule treats it as a new establishment every time.

Braiding is a registration, not an exemption

Mississippi is often listed among the states that deregulated braiding, and the listing is half right. Section 73-7-71 exempts a registered braider from the cosmetology and barbering licensure law, but the exemption is earned, not automatic: no person may braid hair for compensation without first registering with the State Department of Health, at a fee the department set at $25, completing the self-test inside the department's infection control brochure, and keeping the brochure and the completed self-test at the location where they braid. Department representatives may walk into any braiding establishment during business hours, which the rules define as 8 in the morning to 8 at night, to check that those two documents are on the premises. The statute is equally clear about the limits of the state's interest: the registration exists only to maintain a listing and does not authorize the department to license or regulate the practice itself. Skip the $25 and the paperwork, though, and the braider is not exempt at all.

Lash extensions are exempt. Lash tinting is not.

Mississippi wrote its lash position into the definitions themselves, and the line it draws is not the line most lash artists expect. Section 73-7-2 provides that, for regulation purposes, cosmetology does not include a person whose practice is limited to makeup artistry, threading, or applying or removing eyelash extensions, and that a person may combine up to all three of those practices and remain outside the chapter entirely. A lash extension studio therefore needs no practitioner license and no establishment license in Mississippi. The same definition, a few lines earlier, lists tinting eyebrows and eyelashes as part of cosmetology itself. The artist who adds a tint service to the extension menu has crossed from an exempt practice into licensed work, and the room she works in crosses with her, into establishment license territory. The lash studio guide maps exactly where the line falls.

The practical exam is gone, and a renewal window closes December 31, 2026

Two examination and renewal changes from the merged board's first two years catch anyone working from older material. In a Board Action Update dated February 2, 2026, the board retired the practical examination for its licenses and set the passing score on the written theory examination at 70 for practitioners and 75 for instructors, so licensure is now theory only. Separately, the board opened a transitional route for its longest serving licensees: a practitioner or instructor who held a license for at least 10 years and whose license expired between April 2016 and April 2026 may renew without retesting by completing the renewal form and paying every fee and fine owed, with instructors also submitting continuing education hours. That route expires on December 31, 2026. A stylist returning to Mississippi work after years away should treat that date as a cliff, because the ordinary rule after three years expired is a fresh examination.

The free annual report your salon license depends on

Mississippi's LLC annual report is the only free one in this series, and owners routinely mistake free for optional. The domestic LLC annual report costs $0 on the Secretary of State's fee schedule, may be filed online any time from January 1, and is due April 15 every year. The filing matters beyond the entity itself, because the cosmetology board's establishment application requires proof of the business's good standing with the Secretary of State where that applies: the salon license file literally asks for the standing that the free report maintains. The contrast sits one form away in the same fee schedule, where a foreign LLC pays $250 to register and $250 for its annual report, and reinstatement after a missed filing costs $50. Mississippi charges no franchise tax on a domestic LLC, so the April 15 report is the whole recurring state obligation, which is exactly why letting it lapse is so hard to excuse.

Mississippi guides by business type

Hair salon

The flagship route: the 1,500 hour cosmetologist license or its 3,000 hour apprenticeship, the $85 establishment application that includes the inspection, and the free April 15 annual report behind the $50 LLC.

Barbershop

Barbering inside the merged board since 2025: 1,500 hours under section 73-7-13.1, the 600 hour crossover both trades share, and the same establishment license the salons use.

Nail salon

The 350 hour nail technician license, the shortest course in this series, its 700 hour apprenticeship with one apprentice per mentor, and the Nail Technology establishment license.

Lash studio

No lash license exists in Mississippi, and extensions need none: the statutory exemption for applying and removing eyelash extensions, the three practice combination, and the tinting line that ends it.

Esthetics

The 600 hour esthetician license, split into 100 hours of theory and 500 of skill practice, its 1,200 hour apprenticeship, and where esthetics ends and tattooing begins.

Salon suite

Rule 10.4 prices the suite model: a nontransferable establishment license, a new application for any area inside a building, and a massage registration the renting therapist files alone.

Braiding

A $25 Department of Health registration instead of a license: the infection control brochure and self-test kept on the premises, inspections from 8 to 8, and a definition that stops at chemicals.

Microblading

Tattooing, not cosmetology: a Department of Health Certificate of Registration in Regular and Provisional tiers, a nine month supervised provisional period, and a June 1 to May 31 registration year.

Massage

550 hours of instruction plus 50 of student clinic, the MBLEx or the board's own examinations plus the state law exam, a May 31 expiration every other year, and the $50 business registration.

What this Mississippi cluster covers

Each guide above follows the same structure used across this site: the licensing regulator, the practitioner credential step by step, the establishment position stated exactly as Mississippi law supports it, which in Mississippi means a Board of Cosmetology and Barbering establishment license for the salon trades, a Department of Health certificate of registration for microblading, a Department of Health registration for braiding, and a Board of Massage Therapy business registration for massage, entity formation with the real Secretary of State fees, which in Mississippi means a $50 Certificate of Formation followed by a free annual report every April 15, the trade name position stated exactly as the sources support it, which means a voluntary fictitious name registration at $25 for five years rather than a required DBA filing, the EIN, the tax treatment stated precisely for that trade, which in Mississippi means services outside the sales tax entirely and retail product sales inside it at 7 percent, booth and chair rent classification, hiring, the local layer, insurance, a renewal calendar, and official sources for every figure. The shared business stack appears in every guide because most Mississippi beauty businesses are opened by the license holder, and the numbers differ by trade in ways that matter: cosmetology licenses renew on a two year cycle administered by the merged board, massage licenses all expire on May 31 every other year, and tattoo registrations run on a June 1 to May 31 year.

Mississippi is the thirty-fourth 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. Three reading notes for anyone comparing sources: the retirement of the practical examination is published from the board's Board Action Update of February 2, 2026 as reported by the Associated Press and the Mississippi Free Press, because the board's own examination page does not carry the full text of the action; the massage fee schedule is quoted from the Board of Massage Therapy's Rules and Regulations, Title 30, Part 2501, Chapter 2, the schedule the board publishes, and is consistent with the figures the national associations list for Mississippi; and the fictitious name position, voluntary registration with no penalty for skipping it, is stated from the Fictitious Business Name Registration Act itself and the Secretary of State's published summary of that Act, which is why the Mississippi guides describe a filing most states require as one Mississippi merely offers.

Official Mississippi resources

Mississippi sources last reviewed: November 3, 2026