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How to Start a Beauty Business in Montana
Montana splits its beauty trades across three regulators, and knowing which one owns your service is the first decision in the state. The Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, inside the Department of Labor and Industry, licenses six personal practices under Title 37, chapter 31 of the Montana Code Annotated: cosmetologists at 1,500 hours, barbers at 1,100, barbers nonchemical at 900, estheticians at 650, electrologists at 600 and manicurists at 400, each license priced at $100 for a two year term. The premises run on a separate clock: a salon or shop license costs $125 plus a $150 inspection and renews every July 1, and a stylist who rents a chair holds a booth rental license of her own at $95, on the express condition that she is not the owner's employee. Massage therapists answer to a different board in the same department, licensed under chapter 33 at 500 hours with a $140 application fee and a $90 annual renewal. Microblading answers to neither board: the cosmetology board states plainly that it does not regulate tattooing or permanent makeup, and the Department of Public Health and Human Services licenses the establishment under the body art framework in Title 50, chapter 48. Hair braiding needs no license at all, because the 2023 Legislature wrote natural hair braiding out of the licensing chapter. Underneath sits the shared stack: an LLC formed for $35 with an annual report due April 15 whose fee is waived when it is filed on time, an assumed business name registered for $20 on a five year term, and no general sales tax anywhere in Montana. The nine guides below walk each business type through its own route.
Montana sources last reviewed: November 3, 2026
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Who regulates beauty businesses in Montana
Three regulators divide the work, all of them reachable from Helena. The largest share sits with the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, a licensing board in the Business Standards Division of the Department of Labor and Industry. The board administers Title 37, chapter 31, which licenses barbers, barbers nonchemical, cosmetologists, electrologists, estheticians and manicurists, the instructors who teach them and the schools that train them, and it licenses the premises in three forms: the salon or shop license for the establishment, the booth rental license for the practitioner who rents space inside it, and the school license. Its fees live in rule, at ARM 24.121.401, and the schedule in force since November 22, 2025 prices the practice licenses at $100, the salon or shop license at $125 and the booth rental license at $95. The same department houses the Board of Massage Therapy, which licenses massage therapists under Title 37, chapter 33, a separate chapter with its own education rule, its own examination list and an annual renewal that expires August 31.
The third regulator is a health department, not a licensing board. Tattooing, cosmetic tattooing, body piercing and ear piercing, which is the framework microblading and permanent makeup sit inside, belong to the Department of Public Health and Human Services and its Body Art program, under Title 50, chapter 48 and the department's rules at ARM Title 37, chapter 112. The statute licenses the establishment rather than the artist, the license is annual and not transferable, and a local board of health may run its own licensure program in place of the department's, which is why the county sanitarian is often the inspector a body art studio actually meets. Around the licensing sit the business agencies every Montana owner deals with: the Secretary of State, whose Business Services division takes the LLC articles, the April 15 annual report and the assumed business name registrations; the Department of Revenue, which runs income tax and employer withholding and publishes the state's no sales tax guidance; and the Department of Labor and Industry's other divisions, which set the indexed minimum wage and run unemployment insurance. Your city or county holds the last layer: zoning, building permits, any local business license, and, in resort communities, a possible local resort tax.
Montana at a glance
| Item | Montana rule |
|---|---|
| Salon regulator | Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, Department of Labor and Industry, under MCA Title 37, chapter 31 |
| Cosmetologist | 1,500 hours; license $100 for a two year term, renewing March 1 |
| Barber / barber nonchemical | 1,100 hours with chemicals; 900 hours for the nonchemical license that excludes chemical services |
| Esthetician | 650 hours, or a cosmetologist license plus the esthetics examination |
| Manicurist | 400 hours; the definition includes artificial nails |
| Electrologist | 600 hours; its own license, separate from esthetics |
| Premises | Salon or shop license, $125 plus a $150 inspection; renews every July 1 |
| Booth renters | Booth rental license in the renter's own name, $95 a year; the renter may not be the owner's employee |
| Renewal days | People renew March 1 every two years; premises renew July 1 every year; massage renews August 31 every year |
| Braiding | Exempt by statute under section 37-31-102(5); an individual who engages only in natural hair braiding is outside the chapter |
| Lashes | No lash license; the chapter's definitions never name eyelash services |
| Microblading | Tattooing under Title 50, chapter 48; annual establishment license from DPHHS or the local board of health |
| Massage | 500 hour program and a national examination; application $140 plus a $5 litigation fund fee; renewal $90 a year; no establishment license |
| LLC | Articles of Organization, $35; annual report due April 15, fee waived when filed by April 15 and $35 after |
| Assumed name | Registration with the Secretary of State, $20, effective for five years and renewable at $20 |
| Sales tax | None. Montana has no general sales tax; some resort communities levy a local resort tax |
| Minimum wage | $10.85 an hour from January 1, 2026, indexed annually; no tip credit |
Montana traps that catch new owners
The first trap is the calendar, because Montana runs three of them. Personal licenses under the cosmetology board renew every two years on March 1. The salon or shop license and every booth rental license inside it renew every year on July 1. A massage therapist renews every year on August 31, and an LLC files its annual report by April 15. An owner who puts licensing on a single annual reminder will miss at least one of these clocks in the first two years. The second trap is the booth. Montana does not treat booth rent as a private arrangement under the salon's roof: the renter holds a booth rental license of her own, and the board's condition for that license is that she is not employed by the owner of the shop. An owner who schedules, prices and directs a renter like an employee is holding the wrong license structure for the relationship, and the unemployment statute's exclusion for licensed cosmetologists and barbers turns on the same written terms: a contract, freedom from control, payment from her own clientele, and her own equipment.
The third trap is stale money. The board's fee rule changed on November 22, 2025, when ARM 24.121.401 took effect with practice licenses at $100, the salon license at $125 and the booth license at $95, but some of the board's own web pages and its August 2024 application checklist still print the superseded $80 figure. Budget from the rule, not from the checklist PDF. The fourth trap is departmental. A cosmetology license does not reach microblading or permanent makeup in Montana: the board says so on its own homepage, and the service belongs to the Department of Public Health and Human Services body art framework, where the license attaches to the establishment and the training duties run on their own annual cycle. The fifth trap is the word only in the braiding exemption. An individual who engages only in natural hair braiding is exempt; the braider who adds color, chemical services or keratin bond extensions has stepped back inside the chapter and needs the cosmetology license. The sixth trap is the tax assumption. Montana has no general sales tax, which simplifies the register, but it does not make a Montana business tax free: income tax still applies to profits, employers still register for withholding and unemployment insurance, and a salon in a designated resort community may owe the local resort tax on what it sells.
Montana guides by business type
Hair salon
The flagship route: the cosmetologist license at 1,500 hours and $100 for two years, the salon or shop license at $125 plus the $150 inspection, and the split renewal calendar that runs the building.
Barbershop
Two barber licenses, not one: barbering at 1,100 hours with the full chemical scope, and barbering nonchemical at 900 hours with chemicals written out of the license.
Nail salon
The manicurist license at 400 hours, the shortest school route under the cosmetology board, with artificial nails written into the definition and the salon license behind the premises.
Lash studio
No lash license exists and the chapter never names eyelash services, so this guide builds the studio on the esthetician and cosmetologist licenses and states exactly where the statutory silence leaves the owner.
Esthetics
The esthetician license at 650 hours, a definition that reaches skin care and temporary hair removal, and electrology beside it as a separate 600 hour license for permanent removal.
Salon suite
The renter's own license: the booth rental license at $95 a year, the rule that the renter may not be the owner's employee, and the unemployment exclusion that rewards getting the written contract right.
Braiding
Natural hair braiding is exempt under section 37-31-102(5), the statutory definition draws the boundary at dyes, chemicals and fusion bonds, and the full business stack still applies the moment the doors open.
Microblading
A different department and a different license: tattooing under Title 50, chapter 48, an annual establishment license through DPHHS or the local board of health, and training duties that renew every year.
Massage
The chapter 33 license earned on a 500 hour program and a national examination, $140 plus the $5 litigation fund fee to apply, a $90 annual renewal, 12 continuing education credits every two years, and no establishment license anywhere in the chapter.
What this Montana cluster covers
Montana is the forty-third 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. Five reading notes for anyone comparing sources: fees for the cosmetology board's licenses are printed from ARM 24.121.401 as adopted effective November 22, 2025, because parts of the board's website and its August 2024 checklist still show the superseded $80 practice fee, and where the two disagree the adopted rule governs; the massage license lives in Title 37, chapter 33, not in the cosmetology chapter, so massage hours, fees and renewal dates are printed from the Board of Massage Therapy's own checklist and rules; no dollar fee is printed for the body art establishment license, because Title 50, chapter 48 sets that fee by rule and local health programs vary, and the pages describe the license and its training duties without inventing the amount; the registered apprenticeship pathway created in 2025 is described at the level the board's announcement supports, because the hour by hour apprenticeship rule had not been published in a form this cluster could verify line by line; and the LLC annual report is printed the way the Secretary of State's LLC fee table prints it, fee waived when filed by April 15 and $35 after, because a generic table elsewhere on the same fee page shows a $20 figure the LLC table does not.
Official Montana resources
- Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists: the board's homepage, with its licensing pages for cosmetologists, salons and shops, and booth renters, and its statement that tattooing and microblading sit outside its authority.
- MCA Title 37, chapter 31: the barbering and cosmetology chapter, including the definitions in section 37-31-101, the braiding exemption in section 37-31-102, and the hour requirements in section 37-31-304.
- Board of Massage Therapy: the massage board's pages, its application checklist with the 500 hour program breakdown, and its continuing education rule summary.
- Department of Public Health and Human Services, Body Art program: tattooing, cosmetic tattooing and piercing under Title 50, chapter 48, with the establishment license and training requirements.
- Secretary of State, Business Services filing fees: LLC articles at $35, the annual report terms, and assumed business name registration at $20.
- Department of Revenue, sales tax guidance: the department's statement that Montana does not have a general sales tax, plus its withholding and local resort tax guidance.
- Unemployment Insurance Division, contribution rates: the rate schedules, the 2026 taxable wage base of $47,300, and the industry rates assigned to new employers.