How to Start a Lash Studio in Mississippi

Who regulates lash services in Mississippi

Formally, lash services in Mississippi are regulated by absence. The Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering licenses the salon trades under Title 73, Chapter 7, but the chapter's own definitions carve lash extensions out of its jurisdiction: section 73-7-2 provides that, for regulation purposes, the term cosmetology does not include persons whose practice is limited to only performing makeup artistry, threading, or applying or removing eyelash extensions. The identical exemption is written into the definition of esthetics, so neither license reaches the extension artist. No other agency picks the practice up: the Department of Health registers braiders and tattoo artists, not lash artists, and the State Board of Massage Therapy licenses massage. A lash extension studio therefore has no state licensing regulator at all.

What the board still governs is everything around the exemption. The moment a studio's menu crosses into licensed work, the board's system applies in full: a cosmetologist or esthetician license for the person, at 1,500 or 600 hours respectively, and an establishment license for the premises. The board also licenses the neighbors a lash studio most often shares space with, the salons, barbershops and nail studios whose establishment licenses describe the building. The rest of a lash studio's opening stack is the general one: the Secretary of State for the entity, the Department of Revenue for taxes, the Department of Employment Security if it hires, and the city for its own permits.

Mississippi lash studio at a glance

The exemption, in the statute's own terms

The exemption is worth reading closely, because its wording decides what a lash studio may sell. Section 73-7-2 defines cosmetology broadly, and the definition expressly includes arching eyebrows and tinting eyebrows and eyelashes. It then limits its own reach: for regulation purposes, the term does not include persons whose practice is limited to only performing makeup artistry, threading or applying or removing eyelash extensions, and a person may perform a combination of not more than three such practices and still be exempt from the chapter. The same carve out appears inside the definition of esthetics, so the exemption does not depend on which license the artist might otherwise have needed. Three practices, in any combination up to all three, sit outside the licensing law; everything else on a typical lash and brow menu sits inside it.

The practical consequence is a menu decision with a licensing price attached. A studio built on extensions, makeup and threading alone owes the state nothing: no practitioner license, no examination, no establishment license, no renewal. The first tint, wax or facial on the menu changes the studio's legal category, because those services are licensed work that only a cosmetologist or esthetician may perform, in premises holding an establishment license. Studios that want the tint revenue have two lawful shapes: employ or contract a licensed cosmetologist or esthetician to perform the licensed services inside an establishment licensed studio, or keep the menu exempt and refer tint clients out. What the statute does not offer is a middle credential: there is no lash license to upgrade to, only the full esthetician license at 600 hours or the cosmetologist license at 1,500.

Exempt is not the same as unskilled, and the market knows it. Nothing in Mississippi law stops an extension artist from training privately, and clients, landlords and insurers all treat certification from a reputable trainer as the credential the state declined to issue. The exemption removes the state's permission slip; it does not remove the studio's exposure if an untrained hand injures an eye, which is why the insurance section below matters more for this guide than for any other in the Mississippi cluster.

The establishment question for a lash studio

Rule 10.4 of the board's rules requires an establishment license for premises where any board licensed profession is practiced. An extension only studio practices no licensed profession, so no establishment license attaches to it: the studio may open in a storefront, a suite or a room inside another business without the board's application, inspection or $60 renewal. That is the whole of the state premises position for exempt work, and it is worth stating plainly because owners arriving from other states in this series routinely budget for a salon license Mississippi does not ask them for.

The license attaches the moment licensed work enters the room. Add tinting, waxing or skin care and the premises become an establishment where a licensed profession is practiced: the application costs $85 including the initial inspection, the license issues only after the premises pass inspection under Rule 10.5, renewal is $60, and the license is nontransferable, so a change of ownership, location, including a different area inside the same building, or name requires a new application. A hybrid studio, extensions by exempt artists and tinting by a licensed esthetician under one roof, is an establishment licensed business for the whole premises, and its exempt artists work inside it without licenses of their own. The establishment application even anticipates the mixture, asking which services the board does not regulate the establishment will offer.

Forming your business entity

The exemption removes the licensing layer, not the business layer, and most Mississippi lash studios form as a limited liability company with the Secretary of State. The Certificate of Formation, Form F0100 on the Secretary of State's fee schedule, costs $50. Mississippi charges no franchise tax on a domestic LLC, and the LLC annual report, Form F0108, is priced at $0. The report is still a real filing with a real deadline, due April 15 every year and fileable online any time on or after January 1, and letting it lapse costs the entity its good standing, with reinstatement priced at $50.

The same fee schedule prices the variations an owner might meet. Registering a foreign LLC, one formed in another state, costs $250, and its annual report costs $250 every year, which is the entire reason a Mississippi studio forms in Mississippi. Reserving a name before filing costs $25. A sole proprietor skips the certificate and the annual report entirely; for an exempt business with no licensing file at the board, the entity records are also the studio's main paper trail, which is one more reason the $50 formation earns its keep.

Business names: the voluntary fictitious name registration

Mississippi's trade name system is the most relaxed in this series, because the filing most states require is one Mississippi merely offers. The Fictitious Business Name Registration Act, sections 75-93-1 and following, created a voluntary, centralized registry at the Secretary of State so the public can find the legal name behind a business name. Registration is not required, no penalty attaches to operating unregistered, and registering grants no exclusive right to the name. The Secretary of State's fee schedule prices the registration, Form F0070, at $25, and the registration runs for a five year term, renewable for another $25 due by December 31 of the fifth anniversary year. There is no county level filing to pair with it.

Voluntary does not mean useless. A studio trading under a name different from its legal name will meet the question at the bank, at the payment processor and on the lease, and the $25 registration is the cleanest public answer to who stands behind the sign. An LLC trading under its exact filed name needs nothing at all. Either way, the registration creates no entity and substitutes for no license, and for an exempt studio it doubles as the closest thing to a state issued business document the studio will hold.

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 for an EIN is selling a form you can file yourself. The EIN is the key that opens the registrations that follow: the Department of Revenue's TAP account if the studio sells retail, the unemployment insurance employer account when you hire, and the business bank account all key off the federal number paired with the Secretary of State's entity records.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and the EIN exist, and run every fee, product order, rent payment and payroll deposit through it. A lash studio's recurring state obligations are light, an annual report every April 15 and whatever sales tax schedule the Department of Revenue assigns, and clean separate books are what keep them light. The account also draws the line that matters if an artist's classification is ever questioned: the studio's money and the room renters' money should never share a ledger.

Sales tax in Mississippi: services are not taxed, retail is

Mississippi's sales tax is a tax with a list, and the list is the whole analysis. The general levy reaches retail sales of tangible personal property, and section 27-65-23 separately taxes the gross income of the business activities the legislature enumerated: air conditioning work, vehicle repair, car washing, hotels and motels, laundering and dry cleaning, plumbing, pest control, renting personal property and other named trades. Lash services are not on the list, and exempt status under the cosmetology chapter is a separate question from tax status: the extension service carries no sales tax because the tax statute never named the activity.

The register still needs the tax if the desk sells things. Aftercare serums, cleansers, brushes and retail kits are sales of tangible personal property, taxable at the 7 percent state rate, with any local taxes the Department of Revenue publishes for the studio's address applied on top. Register the business with the Department of Revenue through TAP, the Taxpayer Access Point, and hold the sales tax account and permit before the first retail sale; the Department advises applying at the earliest convenience because the permit process can take up to three weeks. A studio that sells nothing retail has no sales tax account to open. Set the point of sale to itemize services and products on separate lines from day one.

Room rent and worker classification

Lash studios run on rented rooms more than any other format in this series, and Mississippi's exemption simplifies the state side of the arrangement. An extension artist renting a room needs no practitioner license and no establishment license for the room, because her practice is exempt rather than licensed; the room becomes a licensed premises question only for the licensed services, if any, performed in it. Where the artist rents inside a salon or suite building holding an establishment license, the licensed work in the building rides on that license, and her exempt work simply shares the address. The paperwork that matters is private rather than state: a written rental agreement stating who collects the client's money, who carries insurance and whose name is on the door.

Classification follows control, exactly as it does for licensed trades. No Mississippi statute fixes the tax treatment of a rental arrangement, so the question is answered by the relationship itself. A renter who sets her own prices, hours and client list, collects her own money and carries her own supplies reads as an independent business renting space. An artist whose schedule, prices, products and clients the studio controls reads as an employee whatever the agreement calls her, with withholding and unemployment insurance following that reading, and the employer registrations in the next section applying to an exempt business exactly as they apply to a licensed one.

Hiring employees in Mississippi

The exemption is from cosmetology law, not from employment law, and the first hire registers the studio as a Mississippi employer on two tracks. For unemployment insurance, the studio completes a Status Report, Form UI-1, with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, online or through a local tax field representative. A commercial employer becomes liable on paying $1,500 in wages in a calendar quarter, or when a worker performs services in some portion of a day in each of 20 different calendar weeks in a year. The Department's published schedule for new employers runs 1.0 percent for the first year of liability, 1.1 percent for the second and 1.2 percent for the third and following years until the employer qualifies for a modified rate, which can run from 0.2 to 5.4 percent, on the first $14,000 of wages per employee per calendar year. Reports are quarterly, due April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. For income tax, the studio registers with the Department of Revenue, through TAP, to withhold Mississippi tax from wages, collecting Form 89-350, the state withholding exemption certificate, from each employee; the Department's withholding formula for 2026 applies the state's flat 4 percent rate to taxable income above $10,000.

The wage floor is federal, because Mississippi has not enacted a state minimum wage law. The U.S. Department of Labor's state minimum wage table lists Mississippi with no state law, so the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour under the Fair Labor Standards Act is the floor for covered employers, federal overtime at one and one half times the regular rate applies past 40 hours in a workweek, and state law bars cities and counties from setting a higher local wage of their own. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist, arranged before the first employee's first shift.

Local rules for a Mississippi lash studio

With no state premises license for exempt work, the local layer is the lash studio's only premises approval, and it deserves more attention here than in any other Mississippi guide. A studio opening inside a city such as Jackson, Gulfport, Hattiesburg or Tupelo should expect a city business or privilege license, at fees and on forms the city itself sets; the massage board's business registration elsewhere in Mississippi law expressly requires the registrant's city or county business permit number, which shows how standard that local document is. Fire and building inspections follow the city's own rules for the space, and a home based studio meets the city's home occupation rules instead.

Zoning sits underneath everything. Nothing in the state exemption answers whether a lash studio may operate at a given address: the city or county zoning for the specific parcel does, and a studio inside a licensed salon or suite building should confirm the use covers an exempt personal service business as well as the licensed anchor tenant. Make the zoning call before the lease is signed, because for this business type the local approval is not the last step of the opening; it is most of it.

Insurance for a Mississippi lash studio

No Mississippi statute or rule, as read for this guide, conditions lash work on an insurance filing, for the simple reason that no license exists for the state to condition. That makes the insurance stack a pure risk decision, and the risk profile argues for carrying it anyway: extension work is performed with adhesives and sharp instruments within millimeters of the client's eyes, and the studio has no licensing board file demonstrating training if a claim ever asks. Professional liability written for lash and brow work is the core policy, and private trainer certifications pair with it as the studio's evidence of competence.

General liability for the premises and property coverage for beds, lights, build out and retail stock complete the standard stack. Landlords, and suite landlords in particular, routinely write their own limits and additional insured requirements into the lease, and those contract numbers are the figures to satisfy; a landlord housing licensed tenants may require the exempt studio to carry limits matching theirs. Mississippi names no required limit for a lash studio, so treat any figure quoted as a state requirement as a sales line.

Your Mississippi renewal calendar

Official sources

• Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology and Barbering: the licensing chapter, practitioner licenses and the establishment license
• House Bill 753 (2024): section 73-7-2 definitions, including the makeup, threading and eyelash extension exemption and tinting inside cosmetology
• Secretary of State: Business Documents Filing Fees schedule, the $50 Certificate of Formation, the free annual report and the $25 fictitious name registration
• Department of Revenue: the 7 percent sales tax, sales tax permits and employer withholding
• Taxpayer Access Point (TAP): register for a sales tax account and permit, file and pay
• Mississippi Department of Employment Security: employer FAQs, Form UI-1 registration, new employer rates and the $14,000 wage base

Mississippi lash studio FAQ