How to Start a Lash Studio in Utah

Who licenses lash studios in Utah

Lash services answer to the Division of Professional Licensing in the Utah Department of Commerce, under Title 58, Chapter 11a, the Cosmetology and Associated Professions Licensing Act, advised by the Cosmetology and Associated Professions Licensing Board. Lashes are not an unregulated corner of esthetics in Utah and never were an afterthought: the chapter carried an eyelash credential before the rebuild, in the form of the eyelash and eyebrow technician listed in the division's renewal table, and Senate Bill 330, which repealed and re-enacted the chapter's licensing part effective January 1, 2026, carried it forward as a full license at 270 hours. The division's authority runs to practitioners and to schools; no section of the chapter creates a lash studio license, a salon license or a booth permit, and the division issues nothing for the premises.

Applications are online only. Beginning January 31, 2026, the cosmetology professions, eyelash and eyebrow technology included, apply through the division's My License One portal with a Utah ID, and paper applications are no longer accepted. Section 58-11a-305 requires every licensee to prominently display the license where they practice, which in a lash studio means in the treatment room. The rest of the opening stack, the entity, the name, the taxes and the room, belongs to the Division of Corporations, the Tax Commission, the Department of Workforce Services and the city and county where the studio sits, and this guide works through each in turn.

Utah lash studio at a glance

The eyelash and eyebrow technology license, step by step

The license is set by Section 58-11a-302.15: 270 hours of education in a licensed school, covering the lash and brow curriculum the division sets by rule, plus the examinations required under Rule R156-11a. The scope the statute grants is the studio's menu in one list: eyebrow arching, tinting of eyelashes and eyebrows, facial waxing, perming of eyelashes and eyebrows, and applying eyelash or eyebrow extensions. Lifts and lash perms sit inside the perming line, brow lamination style services sit inside the same technology, and extensions, the service most lash studios are built on, are named outright rather than implied. Applications run through the My License One portal with a Utah ID, and the license must be prominently displayed in the room under Section 58-11a-305. Renewal runs on the chapter's common cycle, every two years expiring September 30 of odd years, with the division mailing its notice at least 60 days ahead. The practitioner fee is set by the division under Section 63J-1-504 and confirmed in the portal when you apply; the published fee schedule prices the discipline's instructor license at $60 and an eyelash and eyebrow technology school at $110, which are the figures to budget for a studio that later trains.

The apprenticeship route runs beside the school route at identical hours. Under Section 58-11a-306, a lash apprentice registers with the division before beginning, naming the licensed instructor who will supervise, completes the same 270 hours within two years under one-on-one direct supervision, and a supervisor may oversee at most two apprentices; the apprenticeship registration costs $20. The boundaries around the license are what make this guide necessary. The cosmetology license, Section 302.13, covers eyelash and eyebrow technology except applying eyelash extensions, so the state's most common license cannot legally anchor an extensions menu on its own. The master esthetics license, Section 302.18 at 1,200 hours, includes eyelash and eyebrow technology without the carve-out, so a master esthetician may apply extensions. The basic esthetics permit at 200 hours covers basic skincare and manual hair removal only, and the legacy esthetics license, which did include extensions, closed to new applicants on January 1, 2026. A studio staffing plan therefore reads: lash licensees and master estheticians for extensions, and nobody else.

One adjacent boundary deserves a paragraph of its own. Microblading is not lash or brow technology under this chapter at all: it is permanent cosmetics, which Utah law places in the body art framework run by health departments, and no Chapter 11a license, including this one, authorizes it. A lash studio adding microblading crosses into the microblading guide's territory, county health permits and a different rulebook, even though the service is performed on the same brow.

The premises: local permits instead of a studio license

Because there is no studio license to apply for, opening the premises is a local exercise. The only establishment the chapter licenses is a school, which under Section 58-11a-302.22 must register with the Division of Corporations and Commercial Code and hold a municipal business license. An ordinary lash studio takes its premises permissions from the city: a business license for the address and zoning that allows the use there, with building and fire review where the room is built out. No state inspector approves the room and no state studio certificate goes on the wall; what goes on the wall is each artist's own license, displayed in the treatment room under Section 58-11a-305.

One county layer deserves print because it surprises owners who assume the local layer is only a city counter. Salt Lake County's health department permits cosmetology facilities on its published fee schedule: a facility plan review and initial permit at $305 plus $20 per station, a renewal at $220 plus $20 per station, a follow-up inspection at $135 and a temporary facility permit at $110 plus $20 per station. A studio inside Salt Lake County therefore carries a county sanitation permit on top of its city business license, while a studio in a county without such a program may carry neither. Call the health department and the city for the specific address before signing the lease, because the local layer is the only premises layer Utah has.

Forming your business entity

Most Utah lash studios form as a limited liability company, filed with the Division of Corporations and Commercial Code in the Department of Commerce. Utah calls the formation document a Certificate of Organization, and the Fiscal Year 2026 fee schedule prices it at $59. Optional extras on the same schedule include a name reservation at $22 before forming and expedited processing at $75 per filing; all processing fees are nonrefundable. Utah issues no general state business license on top of the entity filing, so the state level permissions for a studio are the entity, the practitioner licenses, and the tax registrations, with the local layer covering the premises.

The recurring obligation is the annual renewal, and Utah runs it on the entity's own anniversary rather than a statewide calendar date. The renewal is due one year from the date of registration and every year after, costs $18, a figure that includes a $5 surcharge for the state's single sign-on portal, and the renewal window opens 60 days before the anniversary, with changes to the address, purpose, registered agent and principals made free during an online renewal. Missing the window costs a $10 late renewal fee, and an LLC that lapses entirely reinstates at $54 plus $18 for each missed year and a $10 delinquency fee. Put the anniversary on the same calendar as the September 30 license renewals, because the two systems never remind each other.

Business names: the Division of Corporations DBA

Utah's DBA is an assumed name registration, filed with the same Division of Corporations that holds the LLC rather than at a county counter. Registering an assumed name costs $22 on the Fiscal Year 2026 schedule. An LLC trading under the exact name on its Certificate of Organization needs no DBA; an LLC whose storefront brand, booking page name or social handle differs from its registered name files one, and so does a sole proprietor lash artist trading under any name other than her own, which in the lash business is the common case.

The part of the system owners miss is the renewal cycle, because it runs on a different clock from the entity beside it. The Division's renewal guidance states the rule plainly: an entity renewal is due one year from registration and annually after, while a DBA renewal is due three years from the date of registration and every three years after that. The DBA renewal costs $18, again including the portal surcharge. The registration itself does less than owners assume: it provides public notice of who stands behind the name, and it confers no liability protection, no exclusive right to the name statewide and no substitute for any license or permit.

Federal tax ID and business banking

Apply for an Employer Identification Number on IRS.gov. It is free, it issues online in one session, and any site charging for an EIN is selling a form you can file yourself. The EIN is the key that opens the Utah registrations that follow: the Tax Commission takes business and tax registrations, including the sales tax license described below and the employer withholding account, through its Taxpayer Access Point on Form TC-69, and the Department of Workforce Services' employer registration for unemployment insurance keys off the federal number as well.

Open the business bank account as soon as the entity and the tax IDs exist, and run every license fee, product order, rent payment and payroll deposit through it. A lash studio's money has a specific failure mode worth designing against: artists who take their own payments beside artists who pay into the studio, and aftercare retail that belongs sometimes to the house and sometimes to the chair. Clean separate books, one ledger for the studio and one for each renting artist, are what keep the classification story in the room rent section provable, and they make the anniversary based entity renewal and the quarterly payroll filings survivable.

Sales tax in Utah: lash services are not taxed

Utah taxes retail sales of tangible personal property and an enumerated list of services under Section 59-12-103, and personal services performed on a person are not on the list. The State Tax Commission's own training materials list common non-taxable services to include services on a human, naming the hairstylist, the massage therapist and fingernails among the examples, and lash and brow services are the same category of work: a service performed on the client, not a sale of goods. A Utah lash studio therefore collects no sales tax on extensions, fills, lifts, tints or brow services, which keeps the register simple at the chair.

The retail shelf is the exception that still reaches the studio. Aftercare serums, lash shampoos, retail brow products and other take home goods are tangible personal property, and selling them is retail trade: register with the Tax Commission for a sales and use tax license through the Taxpayer Access Point or on Form TC-69, collect the combined state and local rate for the studio's address on product sales, the state rate is 4.85 percent under Section 59-12-103 and local option, county and district taxes stack on top, and file returns through the Taxpayer Access Point on the schedule the Commission assigns. Products the studio buys to resell are exempt at purchase with an exemption certificate, Form TC-721, and the Commission publishes a rate lookup for the exact combined rate at any address.

Room rent and worker classification

Utah is a state where room rental needs no cosmetology paperwork at all. There is no booth renter license, no room registration and no independent contractor filing anywhere in Chapter 11a, so the renter's state credential is simply her own eyelash and eyebrow technology license or master esthetics license, displayed in the room under Section 58-11a-305. The premises she rents into remain the studio operator's local responsibility: the city business license and any county facility permit cover the whole studio, renters included, and a Salt Lake County cosmetology facility permit is priced per station, which is the county counting renters whether or not the state does.

What governs the arrangement instead is classification. Utah follows the control based analysis employers meet everywhere, administered through the Department of Workforce Services' unemployment system and the Tax Commission's withholding accounts: a renter who sets her own hours, books and prices her own clients, collects her own money and carries her own books reads as an independent business; a renter whose schedule, prices and booking flow the studio controls reads as an employee whatever the lease calls her. Paper the arrangement like the business relationship it claims to be, separate ledgers, the renter's own DBA or LLC if she trades under a brand, her own sales tax license for her retail sales, and rent that reads as rent. The neighboring decision, taking a room of your own as a standalone business, is the salon suite guide.

Hiring employees in Utah

The first hire makes the studio a Utah employer on two systems at once. Register with the Department of Workforce Services for unemployment insurance: the Department assigns a new employer a rate built from the two year average benefit ratio of employers in the same industry, and for 2026 the overall rates run from a minimum of 0.1 percent to a maximum of 7.1 percent on the first $50,700 of each employee's wages, a wage base the Department resets each year. New hires are also reported through the Department's new hire reporting system. Register with the Tax Commission at the same time for the employer withholding account, handled through the Taxpayer Access Point alongside the business's other tax accounts.

The wage floor is the federal one. The Utah Labor Commission states the minimum wage in Utah as $7.25 an hour, with a cash wage of $2.13 an hour permitted for tipped employees whose tips bring the total to at least $7.25, and a training wage of $4.25 an hour for employees under 18 during their first 90 days. Commission pay is no escape from the floor for anyone classified as an employee: pay must still add up to at least the minimum wage for the hours worked, so hours belong on a record even on a commission split. Workers compensation coverage belongs on the same first hire checklist, placed before the first employee's first shift.

Local rules for a Utah lash studio

The local layer in Utah carries the whole premises load, because the state licenses people and schools only. Expect the city to license the business at its address and to test the address against its zoning for a personal services use, with building and fire review where the room is built out. Expect the county question to be answered differently depending on where the studio sits: Salt Lake County's health department runs a standing cosmetology facility permit with plan review, per station pricing and renewals, while other counties regulate studios more lightly or through the city alone, and the amounts and forms are set locally in every case.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the health department and the city for the specific address are early calls, before the lease fixes the location, because a county plan review can add weeks and per station fees to a build out budget, and home based studios meet a second set of city home occupation rules on top. Second, the local permits do not travel: a second location in another city or county starts its own local stack even though every artist's state license works statewide. None of these local instruments is a cosmetology credential, and none substitutes for the artist's own license; they are the city and county acting on the room, while the division acts on the person.

Insurance for a Utah lash studio

Nothing in Chapter 11a conditions any practitioner license on an insurance filing, because the chapter licenses people without asking them to prove coverage, so the insurance stack is set by risk and by contract rather than by the Division of Professional Licensing. Professional liability is the core policy for a business that works millimeters from clients' eyes with adhesives and chemicals, and it is the coverage a room rent structure has to think hardest about, because the studio's policy, each renter's own policy and the lease describe overlapping people in the same room, while responsibility for the room itself sits with the operator the city and county permitted.

General liability for the premises and property coverage for beds, lights, build out and the retail stock complete the standard stack. Landlords, and suite landlords in particular, routinely write their own limits and additional insured requirements into the lease, and those contract numbers are the figures to satisfy. Price the stack against the studio's actual service mix: a studio that adds brow tinting and lifts carries more chemical exposure than an extensions only menu, and the policy should say so. Utah names no required limit for a lash studio in the cosmetology chapter, so treat any figure quoted as a state requirement as a sales line.

Your Utah renewal calendar

Official sources

• Division of Professional Licensing: cosmetology, the online application notice and the license display rule
• Division of Professional Licensing: fee schedule, eyelash and eyebrow technology instructor and school fees
• Division of Professional Licensing: cosmetology renewal, September 30 of odd years
• Division of Corporations and Commercial Code: Fiscal Year 2026 fee schedule
• Division of Corporations and Commercial Code: renewal due dates and the three year DBA cycle
• Salt Lake County Health Department: fee schedule, cosmetology facility permit fees
• State Tax Commission: sales tax licensing, taxable sales and non-taxable services on a human
• Utah Code Section 59-12-103: sales and use tax base and rates
• Department of Workforce Services: unemployment insurance tax rates and the taxable wage base
• Utah Labor Commission: the $7.25 minimum wage

Utah lash studio FAQ