How to Start a Microblading Business in North Dakota

Who regulates microblading in North Dakota

The licensing authority is the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services, acting under Century Code section 23-01-35, which authorizes the department to license body art establishments. The operative rules are the Body Art Code, Administrative Code chapter 33-41-01.1, effective October 1, 2026, which repealed the prior chapter 33-41-01 and replaced it section by section: definitions, health and hygiene standards, procedure specific rules, documentation, informed consent, disinfection and sterilization, premises requirements, temporary and mobile establishments, licensing, inspections, discipline and fees. Because the Code is new, older guidance describing North Dakota body art under the former chapter, including its different fee schedule, is superseded reading, and this guide works from the October 2026 text throughout.

The definitional move that decides everything is at section 33-41-01.1-01: body art means body piercing, tattooing, cosmetic tattooing, branding, scarification or subdermal implants, and cosmetic tattooing means any method of placing ink or other pigment into or under the skin or mucosa with needles or any instrument used to puncture the skin, including permanent or semipermanent makeup, scalp micropigmentation, and microblading, which is named outright. The State Board of Cosmetology has no part in it: chapter 43-11 licenses do not authorize tattooing of any kind, and the esthetics scope stops at the surface of the skin in any event. Around the department sit the Secretary of State for the entity and trade name, the Tax Commissioner for the sales tax permit through ND TAP, Job Service North Dakota for unemployment insurance, Workforce Safety and Insurance for workers compensation, and your city for zoning and the local planning and zoning approval the Code itself asks about.

North Dakota microblading at a glance

The artist: no individual license, a real personnel file

There is no practitioner license to walk through, and that absence is itself the fact to organize around. The Body Art Code licenses three things, a body art establishment, a mobile body art establishment and a temporary body art establishment, under section 33-41-01.1-15, and it defines the people in the room as the operator, who controls or manages the establishment and answers for its compliance, and body artists, who perform the procedures. No section of the Code sets an artist examination, an hour count, an apprenticeship term or an artist fee. A microblading artist's qualification in North Dakota is therefore built from training she chooses, supervised practice she arranges, and the records the establishment license requires her employer or her own studio to keep.

Those records are specific. The establishment application at section 33-41-01.1-15 requires, among its contents, a record of current cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid certification and bloodborne pathogen training for body artists performing body art procedures, obtained from recognized training providers or organizations, and personnel records available for review within ten days of opening and before any procedures are performed on clients. All personnel working in any body art establishment must be at least 18 years of age. The operator's duty runs continuously rather than at application: section 33-41-01.1-15 makes it the operator's responsibility to ensure that all personnel comply with section 23-01-35 and the Code, which covers the hygiene standards, the procedure rules at section 33-41-01.1-04, including that only distilled or sterile water may be used to dilute ink, the informed consent and release form at section 33-41-01.1-07, and the disinfection, sterilization and single use item rules. An artist's practical credential file in this state is thus a training portfolio, current certifications, and a studio whose procedures she can show an inspector, and studios hiring artists should build that file at hiring rather than at inspection.

Two scope notes bound the work. The establishment may provide only the body art procedures included on its initial or renewal application, and the operator must inform the department before offering different types of procedures, so a studio licensed for cosmetic tattooing that adds piercing has a filing to make first. And the department may prohibit any procedure, device, product or modality it determines to be unsafe or beyond the scope authorized under section 23-01-35 and the Code, for existing and emerging practices alike, under section 33-41-01.1-16. Technique trends in permanent makeup move faster than codes do; the North Dakota answer is that the department holds a standing prohibition power, and a studio adopting a new modality should expect to defend it against that section rather than assume silence is permission.

The body art establishment license for your premises

The premises license is the center of this guide. Section 33-41-01.1-15 provides that a body art establishment may not operate without first obtaining a license from the department, and sets the application contents: plans and specifications whenever the establishment is newly constructed, purchased or remodeled, submitted at least 30 days before the projected start, covering the proposed layout, arrangement and construction materials with attention to building and fire codes, wastewater, water and ventilation documentation, local planning and zoning approval, certifications that work met plumbing, electrical, building and fire codes, an inventory of cleaning and sterilization equipment, and the layout of the reception, procedure, cleaning and sterilization, storage and toilet areas. The department approves the plans in writing before processing continues, and failure to submit or obtain approval can result in denial. Alongside the plans go the signed application and fee, a statement of the types of body art procedures offered with aftercare instructions for each, the personnel certification records described above, written operating procedures on request, and spore test records where reusable instruments are used, provided before procedures are performed and annually at renewal.

The fee schedule at section 33-41-01.1-20 prices the license at $160 for a body art establishment, $160 for a mobile body art establishment, and, for a temporary establishment operating a special event at a fixed location for no more than 14 consecutive days or the event's duration, $50 for not more than five temporary or guest artists, $100 for six to ten, and $150 for more than ten. An initial application carries a $100 administration fee in addition to 50 percent of the annual license fee where a plan review application is required, and a plan review application fee of 50 percent of the annual license fee applies where plan review is required. The department inspects each establishment before issuing the license and at intervals it deems necessary under section 33-41-01.1-17, with access during normal hours to the premises and to client and personnel records.

The term is the calendar fact of this business type: a body art establishment license expires annually on December 31 unless renewed, renewal takes the application and the $160 fee by December 31, and a license not renewed by that date expires, with the establishment barred from operating. Within 60 days after December 31 the expired license may still be renewed with the late fee, set at 50 percent of the annual license fee by section 33-41-01.1-20; after that window the license may not be renewed and the operator applies for initial licensure again, administration fee, plan review and all. The license is not transferable and is valid only for the services and locations it identifies, so a sale, a move or a second room across town is a new licensing event, planned on the 30 day plan review clock rather than discovered at closing.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most North Dakota microblading businesses form a limited liability company under Century Code chapter 10-32.1, and formation is a single filing: Articles of Organization submitted to the Secretary of State through the FirstStop portal for $135. The articles name the company and its registered agent and office in the state.

The annual obligation runs on a fixed statewide date rather than an anniversary. The LLC annual report costs $50 and is due November 15, a report filed after November 15 draws a $50 late fee, and the first annual report is due in the year following the calendar year of registration.

Registering your business name

North Dakota registers trading names at the state level as trade names under Century Code chapter 47-25. A business using a name other than the name registered with the Secretary of State must file a Trade Name Registration, which covers the studio that forms an LLC under a plain legal name and trades under its brand, and the sole proprietor working under a studio name of her own. An LLC or corporation trading under its exact registered name needs no second filing, because that name is already on file with the Secretary of State.

Registration costs $25 through the FirstStop portal, the registration expires every five years, and renewal costs another $25, with cancellation priced at $10. Keep the name identical across the trade name registration, the body art establishment license, the sales tax permit and the bank account, because the establishment license is valid only for the services and locations it identifies and is not transferable, which makes name drift a licensing problem rather than a branding one.

Getting your EIN

The Employer Identification Number is the federal tax identity for the business, issued free by the IRS. A studio with employees needs one before the first payroll, because federal withholding, the Job Service unemployment account, Workforce Safety and Insurance coverage, and new hire reporting all key off the business identity it anchors, and a solo operator uses it on supplier and pigment accounts in place of a Social Security number.

Sales tax: retail yes, services no

North Dakota's sales tax is a tax on retail sales, and the distinction runs in a microblading studio's favor. The Office of State Tax Commissioner imposes sales tax on retail sales at a 5 percent state rate for most sales, plus city and county taxes where they apply, paid by the purchaser and collected by the seller.

The retail shelf is the other half of the rule: aftercare products and any retail kits sold to a client are taxable retail sales at the combined rate for the studio's location, which is why a studio with retail holds a sales and use tax permit, registers and files through ND TAP, and keeps product bought for resale separate from the pigments, needles and supplies consumed in procedures. Use tax mirrors the rule on the way in, reaching machines, beds, lighting and equipment bought without tax and used in the business.

Working inside a salon: the second premises license

The commonest North Dakota microblading arrangement is a brow room inside a beauty salon, and its licensing truth is the one this guide exists to state: the arrangement takes two premises licenses, not one. The salon's establishment license from the cosmetology board authorizes cosmetology, esthetics, advanced esthetics and manicuring in the space; it does not authorize tattooing in any form, because chapter 43-11 contains no tattooing.

The practical structures are three. The salon operator can hold both establishment licenses and employ or host the artist under them, with the body art license's operator duty covering the brow room's compliance. The artist can instead hold the body art establishment license for her own room inside the salon, two licenses from two agencies on one premises, hers answering for the brow room alone. Or the studio can stand alone in its own space under a single body art license, the simplest file of the three structures.

Hiring artists: wages, unemployment and reporting

The North Dakota minimum wage is $7.25 an hour under section 34-06-22, unchanged since July 24, 2009 and equal to the federal rate, with a tipped cash wage of $4.86 an hour for employees who receive tips. Overtime runs at one and one half times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek.

Job Service North Dakota sets the unemployment insurance taxable wage base at 70 percent of the statewide average wage, which produces $46,600 per employee for 2026, among the highest bases in the country, with a new non-construction employer rate of 1.00 percent on a positive balance and experience rated rates from 0.07 percent to 9.67 percent. Employers register with Job Service, file quarterly wage and contribution reports, register a withholding account with the Tax Commissioner through ND TAP, report new hires within 20 days of the start date, and open a Workforce Safety and Insurance account before the first hire, because workers compensation in North Dakota comes only from that state fund. Section 9-08-06 voids noncompetes outside a business sale or an ownership split, so a departing artist takes her book lawfully, and retention is built from chair economics and a studio clients ask for by name.

The local layer: cities, zoning and premises

The Body Art Code builds the local layer into the state application itself: the plans and specifications package includes documentation of local planning and zoning approval from the regulatory authority, so the city's zoning answer is not a parallel errand but a component of the license file, due with the plans at least 30 days before the projected start. Zoning for a body art use, any city business license, building and signage permits, and the plumbing, electrical, building and fire code certifications the application calls for all run through the city or county where the premises sit. The local sales tax add-on on retail sales is set locally as well.

Premises requirements in the Code itself, at section 33-41-01.1-12, then govern the room the city approved: the layout of reception, procedure, cleaning and sterilization, storage and toilet areas is part of the approved plans, the department inspects against them before licensing and afterward, and a remodel returns the establishment to plan review. Studios expanding from one room to two, or adding a service the license does not list, should treat the change as a filing with the department and, where construction is involved, a fresh 30 day clock. Mobile and temporary formats have their own Code sections and licenses, priced at $160 and at the temporary tiers respectively, which is the lawful route for convention and event work rather than an unlicensed chair at a festival.

Insurance for a North Dakota microblading business

The Body Art Code does not condition its licenses on carrying liability insurance, so coverage is a business judgment, and in a trade whose product is a permanent mark on a client's face it is the judgment that decides whether a bad outcome is a claim or a catastrophe. The stack that matches the risk is general liability for the premises, professional liability written for tattooing and permanent makeup specifically, because general beauty policies commonly exclude body art and a microblading studio insured under a cosmetology policy may hold paper that does not answer its own menu, and property coverage for machines, furniture and pigment inventory. Read the policy's procedure list against the establishment license's procedure list; the two lists should name the same services.

Workers compensation is the regulated piece once employees arrive: North Dakota is a monopolistic state fund state, Workforce Safety and Insurance is the only lawful seller of the coverage, private carriers cannot write it, and the employer account must be opened before employees start. WSI coverage does not include employer liability protection, so a stop gap endorsement on the general liability policy is the standard completion. A studio hosting an independently licensed artist should require her professional liability certificate at signing and renewal, alongside the body art license copy, because the premises the client walked into is the address every claim will name first.

What it costs to open a North Dakota microblading business

The state level costs of opening sit in the Body Art Code's fee schedule and the Secretary of State's. On the licensing side: the $160 body art establishment license, the $100 initial administration fee, and, where plan review applies, 50 percent of the annual license fee, $80 at the current rate, for the initial application's plan review component, with renewals at $160 each December 31 and a late fee of half the annual fee inside the 60 day cure window. On the formation side: $135 to file the Articles of Organization, $25 for a trade name registration if the studio trades under a name beyond its legal entity name, and nothing for the EIN or the sales tax permit application itself. There is no artist license fee, no examination fee and no course fee in the state's schedules, because the state does not license the artist; her training costs are market costs. Everything beyond the schedules, the room build out to the approved plans, machines, pigments, beds and first inventory, is market cost, priced locally, with the plan review sequence adding time rather than fees to the opening.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a North Dakota microblading year is a state double date: November 15 carries the company to the Secretary of State, December 31 carries the establishment license to the health department, and the cure window for a missed license closes 60 days into the new year.

Official sources

• Body Art Code, Administrative Code chapter 33-41-01.1: the Department of Health and Human Services body art rules effective October 1, 2026, with the cosmetic tattooing definition at section 33-41-01.1-01, licensing at section 33-41-01.1-15, inspection at section 33-41-01.1-17 and fees at section 33-41-01.1-20.
• Century Code chapter 43-11: the cosmetology statute, for the boundary that keeps microblading outside cosmetology and esthetics licenses.
• Secretary of State, limited liability companies: the $135 Articles of Organization fee, the $50 annual report and the November 15 deadline.
• Office of State Tax Commissioner, tax types: the 5 percent state sales tax on retail sales, use tax, and ND TAP registration.
• Job Service North Dakota, 2026 tax rate schedules: the $46,600 taxable wage base and the 1.00 percent new employer rate.
• IRS, apply for an EIN: the free federal application.

North Dakota microblading FAQ