How to Start a Hair Salon in South Dakota

Who regulates hair salons in South Dakota

The licensing authority is the Commission of Cosmetology, a commission in the Department of Labor and Regulation. The commission administers South Dakota Codified Laws chapter 36-15, which licenses cosmetology, esthetics and nail technology, licenses instructors and schools alongside practitioners, and licenses the premises where the work happens as salons and booths. Its fees were reset by Senate Bill 27 effective July 1, 2025 and are printed in the commission bulletin: $120 for the examination and initial operator license, $90 to retake an examination, $45 for an operator renewal, $75 for a new business license, $55 to renew one, and $30 penalties on the late filings described in the sections below.

The rest of the setup sits outside the commission. The Secretary of State takes the LLC Articles of Organization and the annual report, and holds the fictitious name registry with the county registers of deeds. The Department of Revenue issues the sales tax license and collects a tax that reaches services themselves. The Department of Labor and Regulation also sets the minimum wage and runs reemployment assistance. One boundary deserves emphasis: chapter 36-15 does not reach microblading, which South Dakota treats as tattooing under a municipal licensing framework, so a salon adding a brow chair adds a second regulator, covered in the South Dakota microblading guide. Barbering sits outside the commission as well, under the Board of Barber Examiners, which matters when a salon hires across the two trades.

South Dakota hair salon at a glance

The cosmetologist license, step by step

The cosmetologist license is the full scope credential under chapter 36-15, and section 36-15-2 sets its terms. The education requirement is 1,500 hours, the applicant must be at least 18, and the scope the hours buy is the whole salon menu: hair care including braiding, twisting, weaving and extending, nail technology, esthetics, and nonpermanent hair removal. On finishing the hours, the candidate passes two examinations, the NIC national written theory examination and the South Dakota Laws and Rules examination. The commission prices the bundle at $120 for the examination and initial license together, with a $90 fee to retake an examination, and since October 2023 the license itself issues as a one time paper license carrying a QR code rather than a card with a printed expiration date.

The renewal clock is the detail South Dakota stylists get wrong most often, because it is personal rather than statewide. A cosmetologist license renews every year on or before the licensee birth date, at $45, with a $30 penalty if the renewal is postmarked or paid after that date. The lapse rules layer on top: a license expired under five years renews with a $30 penalty per expired year, a license expired over five years also requires retaking the theory and laws and rules examinations, and a license lapsed more than 60 days is subject to disciplinary action, so working on an expired license is the one renewal mistake the commission treats as an offense rather than a fee. The commission also requires one time continuing education courses for specific services, including microdermabrasion, eyelash extensions and electric nail filing, which the lash and esthetics guides take up in detail.

Two neighboring notes matter to staffing a salon floor. The apprenticeship route runs beside school: an apprentice license costs $25, an apprentice salon license costs $300, and the cosmetology apprenticeship totals 2,150 hours under the administrative rules, a longer road that trades tuition for time. And the two specialist licenses layer in beside the cosmetologist rather than replacing her: the esthetician, at 600 hours, covers the skin care side of the menu within the limits the esthetics guide describes, and the nail technician, at 400 hours, covers nails only. A full service salon is therefore built on cosmetologists, with estheticians and nail technicians added where the menu justifies dedicated chairs.

The business license for your premises

Cosmetology, nail technology and esthetics may only be practiced in a licensed salon or booth under section 36-15-54, with narrow exceptions such as documented special events run through a salon or booth, so the premises license comes before the first paying client rather than after a soft opening. A new salon opens on a 90 day permit: the business license costs $75, the premises is inspected during the 90 days and inspected annually after that, and the business may not open before the permit is received by mail and posted. The license then expires every year on the anniversary of the opening date, renews at $55 with a $30 penalty after the date, and belongs to the original owners at the original physical address, so a move or an ownership change requires a new license rather than an amendment.

Space is regulated alongside the license. The administrative rules set working space minimums of 120 square feet for the first licensee plus 60 square feet for each additional licensee, and a salon license is required for each unique postal address. The home salon rule cuts the same way as the storefront rule: a home based salon needs the salon license, a separate entrance from outside, complete separation from the living quarters, and a check of local ordinances before the first appointment. None of those features is an exemption; a home salon is a licensed salon that happens to sit in a residence, inspected on the same annual cycle as any other premises.

Forming your business: the LLC

Most South Dakota salons form a limited liability company, and formation is a single filing: Articles of Organization submitted to the Secretary of State for $150 filed electronically online, or $165 on paper, the paper price including the $15 paper filing fee printed on the Secretary of State fee schedule. The articles name the company and its registered agent, who must be a South Dakota resident with a physical and mailing address in the state.

The annual obligation is where South Dakota differs from the calendar most owners expect. The LLC files an annual report due on the first day of the anniversary month of formation, so a company formed in June owes its first report the following June 1, and filing may begin two months early. The report costs $55 filed online or $70 on paper. The late fee for a delinquent annual report is $55, the same size as the online report fee itself, and an LLC that lets the report lapse into administrative dissolution faces a $150 reinstatement fee plus the delinquent reports and fees. There is no state income tax in South Dakota, so the report and the federal filings are the whole recurring entity workload.

Registering your salon name

South Dakota handles trading names through a fictitious name statement under section 37-11-1, and the statute starts with the exception most salons use. A business whose name is already on file with the Secretary of State in a required business filing, which covers an LLC trading under its own legal name, does not need a separate statement. A statement is required when the business trades under a name that does not plainly show the true surname of each owner and is not already on file, and operating without a required statement is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

The filing itself is small and durable. The statement is filed electronically with the Secretary of State, or in paper form with any register of deeds in the state, at a fee of $10 with each new filing and each renewal. The filing is renewed every fifth year, so a name filed at opening comes back once every five years rather than on the annual cycle the LLC report uses. A change in ownership or operation of 25 percent or more requires a fresh filing under the same chapter. Keep the name consistent across the statement, the commission business license, the sales tax license and the bank account, because the commission license prints the name and address it was issued to and cannot be transferred to a renamed or relocated business.

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 state reemployment assistance account and new hire reporting all key off the business identity it anchors. 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 filing, the sales tax license and the commission business license application so the files match.

Sales tax: the tax that reaches the service ticket

South Dakota taxes services, and that single fact reorganizes a salon opening budget. The sales tax applies to the gross receipts of retail sales including the sale of services, the statute at section 10-45-5 names barbers and beauty shops among the taxed businesses outright, and the Department of Revenue tax fact for beauty salons and barber shops states the rule plainly: services provided by barbers, cosmetologists, nail technicians and estheticians are subject to state plus applicable municipal sales tax. The state rate is 4.2 percent, and municipalities add 1 to 2 percent where the service is received, so the register is programmed for the combined rate at the salon address rather than the state rate alone. One date belongs in the pricing plan: the 4.2 percent rate is a temporary reduction, and the statute restores 4.5 percent on July 1, 2027.

The mechanics matter as much as the rate. The salon holds a sales tax license from the Department of Revenue, required of any business with a physical presence in the state, and the license is not transferable, so an ownership or entity change means a new license and a final return on the old one. The salon is the consumer of the products it uses in services, which means use tax is owed on supplies bought without tax and taken from inventory for service use, while products sold to customers are taxable retail sales that the salon may buy for resale with an exemption certificate. Voluntary tips are not taxed, mandatory tips are part of taxable gross receipts, gift certificates are taxed when redeemed rather than when sold, and business records must be kept at least three years. How receipts split between the house and independent booth renters is its own section below, because South Dakota licenses the renter and the tax follows the license.

Booth rent in South Dakota: the booth license

South Dakota gives the chair renter her own license, which sets it apart from states where the renter works entirely inside the salon license. The commission describes a booth as an independent person salon within a salon, and every salon law and rule applies to it. One person at a physical location holds the salon license; the other independent operators hold booth licenses, each priced like the business license it is, $75 to open on the permit sequence and $55 to renew on the opening anniversary. A booth licensee must also hold her own personal license as a cosmetologist, nail technician or esthetician, and the booth must be registered under an existing salon license, so a booth cannot exist without a licensed host premises around it. W-2 employees of the salon need no booth license; the booth is the credential of independence, not a second tax on employment.

The tax registration follows the same independence. A booth licensee must hold her own South Dakota sales tax license, and the Department of Revenue booth renter rules make her responsible for remitting sales tax on her own receipts. Booth rent itself is not subject to sales or use tax, and the renter cannot deduct the rent she pays from the gross receipts she reports, two halves of one rule: the house does not tax the chair, and the renter taxes the full service ticket. Whether a chair arrangement is genuinely a rental or is employment in substance still turns on the working facts, who controls the schedule, the prices and the clients, but in South Dakota the analysis has an objective marker most states lack: a stylist the salon calls independent should be holding the booth license and the sales tax license that independence requires, and a stylist without them looks like an employee the salon forgot to put on payroll.

Hiring stylists: wages, unemployment and reporting

South Dakota minimum wage is $11.85 an hour from January 1, 2026, adjusted annually under section 60-11-3.2, with a tipped cash wage of $5.925 an hour, exactly half the standard rate. Commission stylists are employees when the salon controls their schedules, prices and clients; as the booth rent section explains, South Dakota hands the genuine renter a booth license and her own tax license, so the line between the two models is documented rather than argued.

Hiring triggers two state registrations and one federal habit. The business registers with the Reemployment Assistance Tax Unit in the Department of Labor and Regulation and pays contributions on the first $15,000 of each employee wages per year, the taxable wage base in place since 2015 and confirmed for 2026. A new non-construction employer pays a 1.20 percent reemployment assistance tax plus a 0.55 percent investment fee in its first year, then 1.00 percent plus the same investment fee in years two and three, before experience rating takes over with rates from 0 to 9.5 percent. New hires are reported to the Department of Labor and Regulation within 20 days of the hire date. There is no state income tax withholding to run, which removes one payroll layer entirely, and the EIN from the earlier section must be in hand before payroll starts.

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 all run through the city or county where the premises sit, on the local calendar rather than the commission calendar. The municipal sales tax is also a local fact: the 1 to 2 percent a city adds is set by the city where the service is received, so two salons under the same owner in different towns can program different combined rates. Treat the local layer as a set of calls to make in the specific town before signing a lease.

Premises facts carry state licensing consequences as well. The business license belongs to the owners and the address printed on it: it is valid only for the original owners at the original physical address, so a move, a second location or an ownership change each starts a new license and a new 90 day permit rather than an amendment. The home salon rule cuts the same way, adding a separate outside entrance, complete separation from living quarters and a local ordinance check to the licensing list, which makes the city the second gate for a home based salon after the commission itself.

Insurance for a South Dakota salon

Nothing in chapter 36-15 conditions the salon licenses on carrying liability insurance, so coverage is a business judgment rather than a licensing step, with one exception: workers compensation is an employment obligation for a salon with employees. The standard voluntary stack is general liability for the premises, professional liability for the services each license covers, and property coverage for equipment and retail inventory. Owners using the booth rent model should require each renter to carry her own professional liability policy, because the renter is a separate licensed business operating inside your licensed premises, holding her own booth and sales tax licenses, and your policy alone is a thin answer to a claim arising from her chair.

What it costs to open a South Dakota hair salon

The state level costs of opening are legible in South Dakota because nearly all of them sit in published schedules. On the licensing side: the $75 business license for the premises, and the $120 examination and initial license for each practitioner who does not already hold one, with renewals at $45 a year per person and $55 a year for the premises. On the formation side: $150 to file the Articles of Organization online, $10 for the fictitious name statement if the salon trades under a name not already on file, and nothing for the EIN or the sales tax license application itself. Recurring state costs run on the calendar in the next section: the $55 LLC annual report, the license renewals on their separate birth date and opening anniversary clocks, and the sales tax the register collects on every service ticket. Everything beyond the schedules is market cost, priced locally.

Renewal and filing calendar

The rhythm of a South Dakota salon year is personal rather than statewide: birthdays carry the people, the opening anniversary carries the building, and the anniversary month carries the company, with the sales tax return running underneath all three.

Official sources

• Commission of Cosmetology: licensing and renewal for cosmetologists, salons and booths, the fee bulletin with the $120 examination and license and the $75 business license, and the booth guidelines.
• Department of Revenue, Beauty Salons and Barber Shops tax fact: sales tax on services by cosmetologists, the booth renter rules, products, tips and record keeping.
• Department of Revenue, sales and use tax: the 4.2 percent state rate, who needs a sales tax license, and the municipal tax layer.
• Secretary of State, filing fees: the $150 Articles of Organization fee online, the $55 annual report, the $55 late fee and the $10 fictitious name registration.
• Department of Labor and Regulation, minimum wage FAQ: the $11.85 rate from January 1, 2026 and the tipped cash wage.
• Department of Labor and Regulation, Reemployment Assistance tax FAQ: the $15,000 taxable wage base and the new employer rate table.
• IRS, apply for an EIN: the free federal application.

South Dakota hair salon FAQ