How to Start a Lash Studio in Montana

Who regulates lash services in Montana

The honest answer is that no Montana regulator issues a lash license, and the closest authority is the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, in the Business Standards Division of the Department of Labor and Industry, which administers Title 37, chapter 31. The board licenses the people lash artists are licensed as, estheticians and cosmetologists, and it licenses the premises lash services are performed in, salons and shops, under the fee schedule at ARM 24.121.401: $100 for the practice license, $125 for the salon or shop license, $150 for the inspection, and $95 for a booth rental license. What the board does not do is publish a lash rule, a lash endorsement or a lash hour requirement, because the statute it administers never mentions the service.

The neighboring regulators mark the boundaries. The board states on its own homepage that it does not regulate tattooing, body piercing, permanent makeup or microblading, which belong to the Department of Public Health and Human Services under Title 50, chapter 48, so brow pigmenting is never an add on to a lash menu under a board license. The Secretary of State takes the studio's LLC and assumed name filings, the Department of Revenue runs income tax and withholding in a state with no general sales tax, and your city or county controls zoning and the premises. A lash studio's regulatory map is therefore the esthetics map, plus a hard line at the brow.

Montana lash studio at a glance

The license question: no lash credential in chapter 31

Start with the text. Section 37-31-101 defines the board's six practices one by one. Cosmetology is work included in hairdressing, manicuring, esthetics and beauty culture for the embellishment, cleanliness and beautification of the hair and body. Esthetics is skin care of the body, including hot compresses, safety approved electrical appliances and professional chemical compounds, and the temporary removal of superfluous hair by lotions, creams, or mechanical or electrical apparatus. Manicuring is nails, hands, lower arms, feet and lower legs. None of the definitions names eyelashes, eyelash extensions, lash tinting or lash lifting, and no section of the chapter creates a lash license, a lash endorsement or a lash training requirement. Section 37-31-102 then lists what the chapter does not reach at all: emergency and unpaid domestic services, the healing arts, theatrical work, correctional barbering, and, since 2023, natural hair braiding. Lash services are not on that list either.

Against that silence, section 37-31-302 makes it unlawful to practice any of the chapter's six practices for compensation without a license, and unlawful for a salon owner to employ an unlicensed person in them. The working conclusion the Montana industry runs on, and the one this guide recommends building on, is that lash services are delivered as part of licensed beauty practice: by an esthetician, whose 650 hour training is the skin and facial credential the service sits closest to, or by a cosmetologist, whose 1,500 hour license carries the broadest scope in the chapter, working inside a licensed salon or shop or on a booth rental license. Both licenses are earned under section 37-31-304, at 18 or older with a high school diploma or equivalent, followed by the board's examinations, and both cost $100 for a two year term. An out-of-state artist relocating to Montana uses the endorsement route in the same section when her home state's hours equal or exceed Montana's and her license is current and undisciplined, and the registered apprenticeship pathway at ARM 24.121.620 covers esthetics and cosmetology training for new entrants.

Two boundaries deserve plain statements. First, private lash certifications, however good the training, are not Montana licenses and do not substitute for the esthetician or cosmetologist license when the artist is working for compensation inside the licensed trades. Second, the eye area services that cross into pigment are outside this discussion entirely: microblading and permanent makeup are tattooing under Title 50, chapter 48, regulated by the Department of Public Health and Human Services, and no esthetician or cosmetologist license reaches them. A studio that wants both lashes and brows done with pigment needs the body art establishment license described in the Montana microblading guide, held alongside the salon license, not instead of it.

The salon or shop license for your studio

The premises follow the standard Montana route: a lash studio is a salon or shop under chapter 31, licensed by the board on the application that carries the $125 license fee and the $150 inspection fee together, renewing every July 1 at $125. Section 37-31-302 makes operating without that license unlawful, and the owner may not employ an unlicensed person in the licensed practices, which for a lash studio means every artist on the floor holds an esthetician or cosmetologist license. The same application framework covers mobile salons and shops, though a lash business built on house calls should read the residence rule in section 37-31-101 first: a room in a home is outside the salon definition only while it serves residents, and paying nonresident clients make it premises that must be licensed as a salon or shop.

The license is tied to the location and the operator in the application. Moving the studio requires a new salon or shop license application, and so does an ownership change of more than 50 percent, so both events belong on the licensing calendar ahead of the moving calendar. A solo artist renting a room inside someone else's licensed salon takes the booth rental route in the booth rent section below rather than a second salon license; a solo artist opening her own storefront takes the salon or shop license herself.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most Montana lash studios form a limited liability company under Title 35, chapter 8. Formation is one filing: Articles of Organization to the Secretary of State's Business Services division through the online filing portal, for $35, naming the company and its registered agent in Montana. Amendments cost $15, termination costs nothing, and a certificate of existence costs $5 when a landlord or lender asks for proof of standing.

The recurring obligation is the annual report, due April 15 each year, with the fee waived when the report is filed by April 15 and $35 when filed after. A company that lets its reports lapse faces reinstatement at $35 plus $35 for each delinquent year. The report keeps the entity, and the liability shield the lease and licenses sit inside, alive on the register, which matters for a service performed millimeters from a client's eyes.

Registering your studio name

A studio trading under a name other than its legal name registers an assumed business name with the Secretary of State under Title 30, chapter 13, part 2, for $20. Under section 30-13-206 the registration is effective for five years and renews for another five year term at $20, with the Secretary of State notifying registrants before expiration. Amending costs $20 and canceling is free. A $10 name reservation can hold a name during organization, but it is a different instrument from the registration, and both run on clocks separate from the LLC's April 15 annual report.

Getting your EIN

The Employer Identification Number is the federal tax identity for the business, issued free by the IRS. A lash studio with employees needs one before the first payroll, because Montana withholding and unemployment reporting key off it, and a single member LLC that elects corporate tax treatment or opens a business bank account will be asked for one as well. Apply on the IRS site, keep the number with the LLC records, and use the same legal name on the EIN record, the Secretary of State filings and the board's salon license application so the three files match.

Sales tax: the tax Montana does not have

Montana has no general sales tax, and the Department of Revenue's sales tax guidance for Montana businesses and residents says so directly. For a lash studio that means no tax collected on a full set or a fill, and none on the aftercare products and retail a client takes home, because the state levies no general tax on either. There is no sales tax permit to obtain and no sales tax return to file, which removes the service versus retail split that complicates lash studio bookkeeping in most states.

The qualifications still apply. Studio profits remain subject to Montana income tax, on the owners' returns for a pass-through LLC, and employers register for withholding and unemployment insurance as the hiring section describes. A studio in a designated resort community may face the local resort tax on its retail sales and should confirm its position with the community and the Department of Revenue. Products shipped to customers in other states follow those states' rules; Montana's clean register ends at the state line.

Booth rent in Montana: the artist holds her own license

The solo lash artist's standard structure in Montana is the booth rental license. Section 37-31-101 defines a booth as any part of a salon or shop rented or leased for performing the licensed services, and section 37-31-302 makes it unlawful to operate a booth without a booth rental license. The license is the artist's own: $95 to apply and $95 to renew, on the annual July 1 premises calendar. The board's conditions require a current Montana practice license in good standing, which for lash work means the esthetician or cosmetologist license, and require that the artist not be employed by the owner of the shop as employment is defined in section 39-51-204(1)(e).

That unemployment definition is the drafting template for the rental agreement: the artist's written acknowledgment that she is not covered by unemployment insurance and workers' compensation, a contract with the salon, freedom from the owner's control and direction, payment from her own clientele, and her own equipment, skills and knowledge, in an agreement that can support a breach of contract action. A suite or room rented inside a licensed salon works the same way, which is why the salon suite guide treats the booth rental license as the suite mechanism. An owner who prefers employees instead hires artists under the salon license and takes the payroll obligations in the next section.

Hiring lash artists: wages, unemployment and withholding

Montana's minimum wage is $10.85 an hour from January 1, 2026, under the annual inflation adjustment in section 39-3-409, up from $10.55 in 2025 and recalculated every fall. Montana allows no tip credit, so a tipped artist is paid the full $10.85 in wages with tips on top. An artist the studio schedules, prices and directs is an employee for wage and tax purposes whatever the paperwork calls her; independence in Montana comes from the booth rental license and its written contract, not from a label.

Hiring triggers three registrations. The studio registers with the Unemployment Insurance Division and pays contributions on the first $47,300 of each employee's wages in 2026, the wage base set at 80 percent of the state average annual wage; new employers start at their industry's average rate, which for services in 2026 is 1.10 percent on Schedule I, plus the 0.18 percent Administrative Fund Tax. The studio registers with the Department of Revenue for withholding through the Montana Business Registration form or the TransAction Portal, with employees completing Form MW-4 and the year reconciled on Form MW-3. New hires are reported to the Department of Labor and Industry within 20 days, and the studio carries workers' compensation coverage through the Montana State Fund or a private insurer.

The local layer: cities, zoning and premises

The state licenses the studio; the city decides where it can be. Zoning approval for a personal services use, any local business license or registration the city requires, building and signage permits, and occupancy inspections run through the city or county where the premises sit, on the local calendar. Lash studios are small footprint tenants, often in converted office or retail space, so the change of use and occupancy questions belong in the lease negotiation rather than after it. In a designated resort community, the local resort tax question from the sales tax section belongs on the same checklist.

Premises facts carry licensing consequences. The salon or shop license is tied to the location and operator in the application, so a move or a greater than 50 percent ownership change requires a new application and inspection. A home based lash room meets the residence rule in section 37-31-101: outside the salon definition only while it serves residents, and a licensed salon or shop the moment paying nonresident clients are on the bed, with home occupation zoning as the second gate.

Insurance for a Montana lash studio

Nothing in chapter 31 conditions the studio's licenses on liability insurance, so coverage is a business judgment apart from workers' compensation, which a studio with employees carries through the Montana State Fund or a private insurer. For lash work the judgment is not a close call: the standard stack is general liability for the premises and professional liability written for lash and esthetic services specifically, with product liability for the retail shelf, and owners renting booths should require each artist to carry her own professional policy. Adhesive and eye area services are exactly the claims profile insurers price separately, so the policy should name the services the studio actually performs.

What it costs to open a Montana lash studio

The state level costs sit in two fee schedules. Licensing: the $125 salon or shop license fee and the $150 inspection fee at application, $100 for the esthetician or cosmetologist license if it is not already held, and $95 for each booth renter's own license on the rental model. Formation: $35 for the LLC's Articles of Organization, $20 for the assumed business name if the studio trades under a different name, and nothing for the EIN. Recurring state costs follow the calendar: the salon license renews at $125 every July 1, booth licenses at $95 each, practice licenses at $100 every two years, and the LLC annual report is free when filed by April 15. Private lash certification courses are a training expense many artists choose, priced by their providers, and they sit on top of, not instead of, the state license costs.

Beyond the schedules, the money is in the room: the bed, lighting, ventilation, product and adhesive inventory, and the insurance stack. Montana adds no transaction tax layer, since there is no general sales tax to collect on services or retail and no sales tax permit to maintain.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a Montana lash studio year is a March in which the artists renew, an April entity report, and a July 1 on which every premises license in the building comes due at once.

Official sources

• Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists: the board's licensing pages and homepage statement that tattooing, permanent makeup and microblading sit outside its authority, plus the adopted fee rule at ARM 24.121.401.
• MCA 37-31-101: the definitions of cosmetology and esthetics, which name no eyelash services, and the definitions of booth and salon or shop.
• MCA 37-31-102: the chapter's exemption list, which covers natural hair braiding and does not cover lash services.
• MCA Title 37, chapter 31: license requirements at section 37-31-302 and qualifications and hours at section 37-31-304.
• Secretary of State, Business Services filing fees: Articles of Organization 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.
• Unemployment Insurance Division, contribution rates: the 2026 taxable wage base of $47,300 and the industry rates for new employers.
• IRS, apply for an EIN: the free federal application.

Montana lash studio FAQ