How to Start a Nail Salon in Montana

Who regulates nail salons in Montana

Nail salons answer to the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, in the Business Standards Division of the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, under Title 37, chapter 31 of the Montana Code Annotated. The board licenses manicurists as one of its six practices, licenses the premises as salons or shops, and licenses the schools that teach the 400 hour manicuring curriculum. Its fees are set by rule at ARM 24.121.401, adopted effective November 22, 2025: $100 for the manicurist license, $125 for the salon or shop license, $150 for the salon inspection, and $95 for a booth rental license. Where an older board checklist or web page prints different figures, the adopted rule is the schedule to budget from.

The rest of the setup sits outside the board. The Secretary of State takes the LLC filings, the April 15 annual report and assumed business name registrations. The Department of Revenue runs income tax and employer withholding and confirms the absence of a general sales tax. The Department of Labor and Industry's wage and unemployment divisions govern payroll, and your city or county controls zoning, signage and the building, including the ventilation and plumbing questions a nail build out always raises. Tattooing and permanent makeup sit with the Department of Public Health and Human Services, so a nail salon adding cosmetic tattooing takes on a second regulator covered in the Montana microblading guide.

Montana nail salon at a glance

The manicurist license, step by step

Section 37-31-101 defines manicuring in a single sentence that covers the whole nail salon floor: it includes care of the nails, the hands, the lower arms, the feet and the lower legs, and the application and maintenance of artificial nails. Acrylics, hard gels, extensions and fills are therefore inside the license itself, not a specialty endorsement, and a manicurist may also deliver the hand, arm, foot and lower leg care that pedicure and manicure services involve. What the license does not reach is everything outside that sentence: no hair services, no skin care beyond the hands and lower limbs named in the definition, and no permanent hair removal, which belongs to the electrology license.

Section 37-31-304 sets the route: at least 18 years old, good moral character, a high school diploma or its equivalent, and 400 hours of manicuring education in a school licensed under section 37-31-311, which sets the same 400 hour floor for the curriculum and requires the school to furnish a $5,000 bond. The candidate then passes the board's examinations and pays the $100 license fee for a two year term. At 400 hours the manicurist route is the fastest of the board's six practices, roughly a single school term, which is why nail salons can staff up faster than any other Montana beauty business once the premises license is in place.

The same alternative routes feed nail chairs as feed hair chairs. Endorsement under section 37-31-304 licenses an out-of-state manicurist without examination when her home state's hours equal or exceed Montana's 400 and her license is current and undisciplined; Montana is in no licensure compact, so endorsement is the relocation path. The registered apprenticeship pathway created by House Bill 336 in 2025 and implemented at ARM 24.121.620, effective November 22, 2025, extends to manicuring, with the apprentice registered through the Department of Labor and Industry's Registered Apprenticeship Program and trained under a licensed mentor in a licensed salon. A salon that also offers hair or skin services staffs those stations with cosmetologists, whose 1,500 hour license includes manicuring inside the cosmetology definition, or with estheticians for the skin menu; the manicurist's own license renews March 1 of the renewal year, with 45 days of late online renewal at a late fee equal to 100 percent of the renewal fee.

The salon or shop license for your premises

Section 37-31-302 makes it unlawful to manage or operate a salon or shop without a license, and a nail salon takes the same salon or shop license as a hair salon. The application carries the $125 license fee and the $150 inspection fee together, because the premises are inspected as part of being licensed, and the license renews every July 1 at $125. Nail build outs should expect the inspection to care about the physical plant a nail service depends on: the stations, the pedicure units and their plumbing, and the sanitation setup for implements used on nails and skin. The owner may not employ an unlicensed person in any of the six licensed practices, which for a nail salon means every technician on the floor holds a manicurist or cosmetologist license of her own.

The license is tied to the location and the operator in the application. Moving the salon requires a new salon or shop license application, and so does an ownership change of more than 50 percent, so a relocation or buyout belongs on the licensing calendar before the moving calendar. The premises definition in section 37-31-101 also covers the home studio question: a room in a residence is outside the salon or shop definition only while it serves residents, and the first paying nonresident client makes it premises that must be licensed as a salon or shop, with local home occupation zoning as the second gate.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most Montana nail salons 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 and corrections cost $15, termination costs nothing, and a certificate of existence costs $5 when a landlord or lender asks for one.

The recurring obligation is the annual report, due April 15 each year. The Secretary of State's fee schedule waives the fee when the report is filed by April 15 and charges $35 after that date, and 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.

Registering your salon name

A nail salon 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 their own 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 nail salon 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 states the point in terms. For a nail salon the result is that no tax is collected on a manicure or pedicure and none on the retail shelf either: the polish, treatments and home care products a client buys to take home are sold without a state sales tax, and there is no sales tax permit to obtain or return to file. Nail salons in most states spend real bookkeeping effort splitting taxed retail from untaxed services; a Montana salon's register never makes that split.

The qualifications still apply. The salon's 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 salon 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. And products shipped to customers in other states follow those states' collection rules; Montana's clean register ends at the state line.

Station rent in Montana: the renter holds her own license

Station rent in Montana is a licensed status. 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 renter's own: $95 to apply and $95 to renew, on the annual July 1 premises calendar. The board's conditions require the renter to hold a current Montana practice license in good standing, and a manicurist license qualifies her, and require that she not be employed by the owner of the shop as employment is defined in section 39-51-204(1)(e).

That unemployment definition sets the terms a rental agreement should be drafted around: the licensee'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. An owner who prefers employees instead hires technicians under the salon license and takes the payroll obligations in the next section. The salon suite guide examines the renter's position in this structure in full.

Hiring nail technicians: 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 technician is paid the full $10.85 in wages with tips on top. Hourly, commission and hybrid pay plans all sit on that floor, and a technician the salon schedules, prices and directs is an employee for wage and tax purposes whatever the agreement calls her; independence in Montana comes from the booth rental license and its written contract, not from a label.

Hiring triggers three registrations. The salon 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 salon 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 salon carries workers' compensation coverage through the Montana State Fund or a private insurer.

The local layer: cities, zoning and premises

The state licenses the salon; 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. Nail salons should raise the trade's physical questions early in that process: pedicure plumbing and drainage, ventilation for chemical services, and water and waste connections are building department questions long before they are board inspection questions. 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 moving or changing ownership by more than 50 percent requires a new application and inspection rather than an amendment. A home based nail studio meets the residence rule in section 37-31-101: the room is outside the salon definition only while it serves residents, and paying nonresident clients make it a salon or shop that must be licensed, with home occupation zoning as the second gate.

Insurance for a Montana nail salon

Nothing in chapter 31 conditions the salon's licenses on liability insurance, so coverage is a business judgment apart from workers' compensation, which a salon with employees carries through the Montana State Fund or a private insurer. The standard voluntary stack is general liability for the premises, professional liability for the services each license covers, and property coverage for stations, pedicure units and retail inventory, with the lease usually naming the landlord as an additional insured. Owners renting stations should require each booth renter to carry her own professional liability policy, because the licensing structure makes her a separate operator inside your premises.

What it costs to open a Montana nail salon

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 each manicurist license 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 salon 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, manicurist licenses at $100 every two years, and the LLC annual report is free when filed by April 15.

Beyond the schedules, the money is in the build out: stations, pedicure chairs and their plumbing, ventilation, product and implement inventory, and the insurance stack. Montana adds no transaction tax layer to any of it, since there is no general sales tax to collect on services or retail and no sales tax permit to maintain, which keeps the salon's bookkeeping simpler than the same business in most states in this library.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a Montana nail salon year is a March in which the technicians 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 for manicurists, salons and shops, and booth renters, and the adopted fee rule at ARM 24.121.401.
• MCA 37-31-101: the definition of manicuring, including artificial nails, and the definitions of booth and salon or shop.
• 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.
• Department of Labor and Industry, 2026 minimum wage determination: the $10.85 rate effective January 1, 2026 under MCA 39-3-409.
• 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 nail salon FAQ