How to Start a Nail Salon in North Dakota

Who regulates nail salons in North Dakota

The licensing authority is the State Board of Cosmetology, seven members appointed by the governor, administering North Dakota Century Code chapter 43-11 as amended by House Bill 1126 effective January 1, 2026. The board licenses manicurists alongside cosmetologists, estheticians and advanced estheticians, licenses the schools that train them, and licenses the premises as establishments, with a second license for each independent licensee working inside. Nail services sit in two places in the statute at once: manicuring is its own license at section 43-11-16, and it is also one of the named components of the cosmetology definition at section 43-11-01, which is why a cosmetologist may do nails without a second license and a manicurist may not cut hair with hers.

The rest of the setup sits outside the board. The Secretary of State takes the Articles of Organization, the annual report, and trade name registrations through the FirstStop portal, and the board's establishment application requires the business name to be registered there first. The Office of State Tax Commissioner issues the sales and use tax permit and the withholding account through ND TAP. Job Service North Dakota runs unemployment insurance, and Workforce Safety and Insurance is the only lawful source of workers compensation coverage. Your city holds zoning, building and signage permits and any local business license.

North Dakota nail salon at a glance

The manicurist license, step by step

The manicurist license is the narrow credential under chapter 43-11, and section 43-11-16 sets its terms: 350 hours of training in a board approved program, the shortest course the board licenses. The applicant must be at least 16 and have completed at least a tenth grade education or its equivalent, then apply for examination under section 43-11-21 with proof of training, the examination fee set by the board's examination administrator, and the $50 original licensure fee set at section 43-11-28. The scope the license buys is manicuring as the chapter defines it, the care of the nails and hands, and nothing beyond it: a manicurist who adds facials needs the esthetician license, and one who adds hair needs the cosmetologist license, each with its own hours.

The renewal clock is the same statewide date as every other cosmetology license: the manicurist license expires December 31, renews at $50 on the board's renewal form SFN 61745, and draws a $50 penalty per license when paid or postmarked late. Reinstatement follows the ladder in section 43-11-29, the late fee plus the renewal fee within one year, the North Dakota law, rules and regulations examination added after one year and before five, and a fresh application as an initial applicant after five years, because no reinstatement exists beyond that point. A licensee with 45 or more years of active licensure who is no longer practicing may hold legacy status at $25 a year.

Two planning facts follow from the new law. The first is supervision: the master manicurist license at section 43-11-26 requires evidence of at least 1,000 hours of practice as a manicurist under the direction and control of a master cosmetologist or master manicurist, plus the $50 original licensure fee, and Administrative Code section 32-03-01-07 makes that credential, or a master cosmetologist, the required supervisor of a salon providing only manicuring services. A first time owner who holds a fresh manicurist license cannot be her own salon's supervisor on opening day; the opening plan either hires a master or waits on the 1,000 documented hours, and salons must provide documented hours for master license applications on request, which is how a tech employed in someone else's salon builds the record. The second is continuing education: Administrative Code section 32-05-01-01 requires each licensee to complete at least 4 hours of board approved continuing education annually beginning with the 2028 renewal cycle, starting the calendar year after the initial license issued, with at most one hour creditable to trade show attendance. The registered apprenticeship route at section 43-11-16.1 also reaches manicuring, run through the state office of apprenticeship with trainers licensed at least three consecutive years, though the statute prints no total hour figure for it in the sections the board publishes.

The establishment license for your premises

The premises hold their own license, called an establishment license, and section 43-11-15 allows an establishment to be owned by any person authorized to do business in the state, licensed or not. The original license costs $150 and renews annually at $100, expiring December 31, under the fee schedule at section 43-11-28. The application is form SFN 11795, and its mechanics set the opening calendar: the original application must be notarized and submitted two weeks before the opening date, and the business name on it must already be registered with the Secretary of State as a trade name, an LLC, an LLP, or a corporation. Section 43-11-37 requires each new establishment to be inspected, with routine inspections afterward and additional inspections available after a violation, an ownership change, a late renewal, or probation, with a reinspection fee the statute caps at $75.

Management is where the establishment license bites for a nail salon. The rule at Administrative Code section 32-03-01-07 requires every salon to be supervised by a master licensee present on the premises during business hours, and for a salon providing only manicuring services it names the two credentials that qualify: a master cosmetologist or a master manicurist, responsible for the operation, conduct and management of the salon. A mixed salon adding skin care answers to the parallel rule for its menu, and a salon whose menu spans hair, nails and skin is supervised by a master cosmetologist, the one credential whose scope covers the whole floor. Build the supervision answer into the lease decision, because a beautiful room with no master licensee scheduled is a room that cannot lawfully open its doors.

The establishment holder also carries the renters by default. The application states the allocation in plain terms: as the holder of the establishment license, you are responsible for the safety and sanitation of the entire premises, and if a renter does not have a valid, current independent licensee license, that station or chair falls under the establishment license and you are responsible for the sanitation of that space. Collect a copy of every renter's independent licensee license at signing and again at each December renewal. Establishment licenses expire December 31 under section 43-11-29.1, reinstate within one year on the late fee plus the renewal fee, and after twelve months the establishment reapplies, with late penalties accruing at $100 per year expired.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most North Dakota nail salons 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, and a report filed after November 15 draws a $50 late fee, doubling the cost of the filing for a missed week.

Registering your salon name

North Dakota registers trading names at the state level as trade names under Century Code chapter 47-25, and the cosmetology board makes the filing a licensing step rather than a branding preference. The establishment application will not proceed on an unregistered name: the business name must be registered as a trade name, LLC, LLP, or corporation with the Secretary of State before the board licenses the premises under it.

The filing is cheap and long lived. Registration costs $25 through the FirstStop portal, the registration expires every five years, and renewal costs another $25, with cancellation priced at $10.

Getting your EIN

The Employer Identification Number is the federal tax identity for the business, issued free by the IRS. A salon 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.

Sales tax: retail yes, services no

North Dakota's sales tax is a tax on retail sales, and the distinction runs in a nail salon'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, and nail salons carry more of it than most: polish, treatments and home care products sold to a client are taxable retail sales at the combined rate for the salon's location, which is why a salon with retail holds a sales and use tax permit, registers and files through ND TAP, and keeps product bought for resale separate from the product consumed at the table. Use tax mirrors the rule on the way in, reaching equipment, furniture and supplies bought without tax and used in the business.

Station rent in North Dakota: the independent licensee

North Dakota gives the station renter her own license, and the license is the classification. Section 43-11-01 defines an independent licensee as a licensed individual who maintains a separate license and practices manicuring, cosmetology, esthetics or advanced esthetics at a location within, but separate from, a cosmetology establishment, bound by the same provisions of the chapter as an establishment.

The administrative rules add a freedom most rental states do not offer: an independent licensee operates under a lease agreement and may render services within the establishment and at various temporary or offsite locations, which matters for the nail tech whose book includes wedding parties and event work. Whether a station arrangement is genuinely a rental or employment in substance still turns on the working facts for tax and wage purposes, who sets the schedule, the prices and the client relationship, but North Dakota hands both sides an objective marker: a tech the salon calls independent should be holding the independent licensee license and filing her own taxes as a business, and a tech working your hours at your prices without one reads as an employee the salon forgot to put on payroll, sitting inside your establishment sanitation responsibility besides. The license itself costs $150 originally and $100 on renewal, and the board's application states the employment position plainly: independent licensees are not employees of the licensed establishment.

Hiring nail techs: 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, a figure that matters at the pedicure chair where tips are a real share of pay. Overtime runs at one and one half times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek. Commission techs are employees when the salon controls their schedules, prices and clients, and the station rent section above explains the licensed marker that separates a genuine renter from a misclassified one.

The payroll number that surprises out of state owners is the unemployment insurance wage base. Job Service North Dakota sets the 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. The rate on that base starts low: a new non-construction employer pays 1.00 percent with a positive balance, before experience rating moves it within a published range of 0.07 percent to 9.67 percent.

One employment habit North Dakota forbids outright is the noncompete. Section 9-08-06 provides that a contract by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void, and its only exceptions are a covenant tied to the sale of the goodwill of a business and covenants among partners, members or shareholders on a dissolution or ownership split.

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 city business license your locality requires, building and signage permits, and occupancy inspections run through the city or county where the premises sit, on the local calendar rather than the board calendar. The local sales tax add-on that applies to your retail sales is also set locally, so the combined rate programmed into the register is a fact about your address. Nail salons draw one extra layer of local attention other beauty types draw less of: ventilation and plumbing for pedicure stations run through building and health codes at permit time, so the floor plan conversation with the city belongs before the lease, in the same two week window the board's application is being notarized.

Premises facts carry state licensing consequences as well. The establishment license attaches to the business at its address, the board charges $20 for a business name change, and ownership changes bring the establishment back through application and inspection under section 43-11-37, so a move, a second location or a buyout is a licensing event and not just a lease event. Practice away from the premises is not forbidden: section 43-11-11 allows practice outside a licensed establishment under board rules, which is the provision event and wedding work rests on, but a home based nail salon is an establishment like any other for licensing purposes, inspected on the same cycle, and the local zoning answer for a residence based business is the gate most home salons actually fail.

Insurance for a North Dakota nail salon

Nothing in chapter 43-11 conditions the salon licenses on carrying liability insurance, so general and professional liability coverage is a business judgment rather than a licensing step. Workers compensation is the exception, and North Dakota runs it unlike almost anywhere else: the state is a monopolistic state fund state, Workforce Safety and Insurance is the only lawful seller of workers compensation coverage, private carriers cannot write the policy, and the employer account must be opened before employees start. WSI coverage does not include employer liability protection, so the standard completion is a stop gap endorsement added to the general liability policy.

The voluntary stack around that core is general liability for the premises, professional liability matched to nail services, where infection and chemical reaction claims concentrate, and property coverage for pedicure chairs, equipment and retail inventory. Owners using the station rent model should require each independent licensee to carry her own professional liability policy and prove it at signing and renewal. The board's own allocation makes the reason concrete: the establishment holder answers for sanitation across the whole premises, and an unlicensed or uninsured renter's station is, in every practical sense, the house's problem. A licensed renter can also seek a Workforce Safety and Insurance determination of independent contractor status through its verification application, which runs one year at a time.

What it costs to open a North Dakota nail salon

The state level costs of opening are legible in North Dakota because nearly all of them sit in published schedules. On the licensing side: the $150 establishment license for the premises, $50 for each manicurist's original license, $150 for each independent licensee who rents a station rather than joining payroll, and renewals at $100 for the establishment and each independent licensee and $50 per person, all landing on the same December 31 date. On the formation side: $135 to file the Articles of Organization, $25 for a trade name registration if the salon trades under a name beyond its legal entity name, and nothing for the EIN or the sales tax permit application itself. Recurring state costs run on the calendar in the next section: the $50 LLC annual report each November 15, the December license renewals, and the sales tax the register collects on retail sales only. Everything beyond the schedules, build out, pedicure chairs, ventilation, equipment and first inventory, is market cost, priced locally.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a North Dakota nail salon year is two dates and a season: November 15 carries the company, December 31 carries every license in the building at once, and the quarterly payroll and sales tax filings run underneath both.

Official sources

• Century Code chapter 43-11: the cosmetology statute as amended by House Bill 1126, with the 350 hour manicuring course at section 43-11-16, master licenses at section 43-11-26, and fee caps at section 43-11-28.
• State Board of Cosmetology: the establishment application SFN 11795, the independent licensee application SFN 60681, and the renewal form SFN 61745 with the $50 per license late penalty.
• Administrative Code chapter 32-05-01: licensee renewal and the continuing education requirement of 4 hours annually from the 2028 cycle.
• 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 nail salon FAQ