Start a Beauty Business in Virginia
Virginia is the most centralized licensing state in this series. One board inside the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation licenses nearly every beauty trade and nearly every beauty address: barbers, cosmetologists, nail technicians, wax technicians, estheticians, tattooers and permanent cosmetic tattooers, plus the salons, shops, spas and parlors they work in, all under one fee schedule and one renewal clock. Massage therapy is the exception, licensed by the Board of Nursing. These guides are built from the Board's own regulations, the Code of Virginia, and the State Corporation Commission, Virginia Tax and Virginia Employment Commission pages, so the hours, fees and forms are the state's, not a school brochure's.
The regulator picture in Virginia
The Board for Barbers and Cosmetology, part of the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR), writes the rules for almost the whole beauty industry in Virginia. Its statute is Chapter 7 of Title 54.1 of the Code of Virginia, and its regulations sit in Title 18, Agency 41 of the Virginia Administrative Code: chapter 20 for barbering and cosmetology, chapter 40 for wax technicians, chapter 50 for tattooing and permanent cosmetic tattooing, chapter 60 for body piercing and chapter 70 for esthetics. A license is required to engage in barbering, cosmetology, nail care, waxing, tattooing, body piercing or esthetics, and a separate facility license is required to operate a barbershop, cosmetology salon, nail care salon, waxing salon, tattoo parlor, body piercing salon, ear piercing salon or esthetics spa.
The Board runs on one unified fee schedule across all three of its main chapters, in force since August 1, 2025: an individual license application costs $120, renewal costs $120, and a facility application costs $220 with a $220 renewal. Every license the Board issues runs on the same clock: it expires two years from the last day of the month in which it was issued, so there is no single statewide renewal day to circle. Licenses carry a 30 day grace period after expiration, reinstatement is possible within two years at the renewal fee plus a reinstatement fee, and after two years the former licensee starts over as a new applicant. The Board imposes no continuing education condition on renewal of these licenses.
Massage therapy sits outside DPOR entirely. The Board of Nursing, inside the Department of Health Professions, licenses massage therapists under 18VAC90-50: 500 hours of training from a program approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, a passing score on the MBLEx, a $140 application fee, and a $95 biennial renewal that falls in the therapist's birth month. Business formation runs through a different door than in most states: Virginia has no secretary of state filing office, so limited liability companies are formed with the Clerk's Office of the State Corporation Commission, online through the Clerk's Information System. Sales tax is administered by Virginia Tax, unemployment insurance by the Virginia Employment Commission, and the minimum wage is set by the Department of Labor and Industry. Zoning, occupancy and the local business license sit on top of all of it, and a facility license is tied to one firm's name at one address, so the local layer is settled before the state application is filed, not after.
Virginia at a glance
| License | Training route | Hours | Regulator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmetologist | Licensed school program | 1,000 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Barber | Licensed school program | 750 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Master barber | Barber license plus master program | 250 more hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Nail technician | Licensed school program | 150 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Wax technician | Licensed school program | 115 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Esthetician | Licensed school program | 600 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Master esthetician | Esthetician license plus master program | 600 more hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Tattooer | School program or licensed parlor apprenticeship | 1,000 hours, or 1,500 apprenticeship hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Permanent cosmetic tattooer | Licensed school program | 200 hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Master permanent cosmetic tattooer | Permanent cosmetic license plus master program | 200 more hours | Board for Barbers and Cosmetology |
| Licensed massage therapist | SCHEV approved program plus MBLEx | 500 hours | Virginia Board of Nursing |
| Hair braider | No license required | None | Outside the licensing chapter |
One fee schedule runs the whole board. A practitioner application to the Board for Barbers and Cosmetology costs $120 and renewal costs $120. A facility application, whether the premises is a salon, a barbershop, a nail salon, a waxing salon, an esthetics spa, a tattoo parlor or a permanent cosmetic tattoo salon, costs $220, with a $220 renewal and a $440 reinstatement. Massage therapy is priced separately by the Board of Nursing: $140 to apply, $95 to renew.
The traps that catch Virginia owners
The old hour counts are wrong now
Virginia rewrote its training hours effective December 1, 2025. Cosmetology fell from 1,500 hours to 1,000, the barber program is 750 hours with a 250 hour master barber add-on, and the nail technician program is 150 hours. School marketing and older directories still print the pre-2026 figures, so any Virginia guide quoting 1,500 hours for cosmetology is quoting a repealed rule.
Braiding needs no license at all
The statutory definition of cosmetology expressly says it does not include hair braiding, and braiding appears nowhere in the list of practices Virginia licenses. A braiding only business needs its entity, its tax accounts and its local approvals, but no board license for the braiders and no facility license for the shop. The licensed lines begin where braiding ends: cutting, coloring, chemical work and waxing.
Microblading is a tattooing license, not a health permit
Permanent cosmetic tattooing, eyebrows included, is licensed by the same DPOR board that licenses hair salons, under 18VAC41-50. The route is a 200 hour permanent cosmetic tattoo program and a permanent cosmetic tattoo salon license for the premises, not a county health department permit. The chapter was rewritten effective January 5, 2026, which makes older Virginia microblading guides doubly unreliable.
The facility license dies with the entity
A Virginia shop or salon license is issued to a firm, is not transferable, and becomes void when the legal entity holding it is dissolved or altered into a new entity. Reorganizing the LLC, moving to a new address or changing the business name is not paperwork on an existing license: it is a new $220 application, and name or address changes must be reported to the Board in writing within 30 days.
Master esthetics needs the spa license
A cosmetology salon may offer ordinary esthetics services, but chemical exfoliation, microdermabrasion and lymphatic drainage are master esthetics services. Offering them takes a licensed master esthetician working under an esthetics spa license, a separate $220 facility license from the salon license down the hall. Hiring the master esthetician alone does not authorize the menu.
Massage renews on your birth month
Massage therapists renew with the Board of Nursing, not DPOR, and the deadline is personal: licensees born in even numbered years renew by the last day of their birth month in even numbered years, and odd numbered years work the same way. There is no state massage establishment license in Virginia at all, so the premises layer for a massage business is local, not state.
Choose your Virginia guide
Hair salon
The full service route: the 1,000 hour cosmetologist license, the $220 cosmetology salon license, what the 2025 scope changes mean for facials on the menu, and how chair renters sit under the shop's license.
Barbershop
The 750 hour barber license and the 250 hour master barber add-on, the Board's printed exam charges of $99 theory and $95 practical, the barbershop license, and why a barber needs a second license to wax or do nails.
Nail salon
The shortest practitioner route on the board at 150 hours, the nail care salon license, and the scope line that keeps waxing off a nail technician's menu.
Lash studio
Virginia issues no lash license. Lash extensions sit inside both the cosmetology and esthetics curricula, so the studio is built on one of those licenses and licensed as a salon or an esthetics spa.
Esthetics and spa
The 600 hour esthetician license, the further 600 hour master esthetician program, and the esthetics spa license that master level services legally require.
Salon suite
Virginia has no suite category and no booth renter license. The guide works through the two structures the rules actually offer: renting inside a licensed salon, or licensing your own premises as its own salon.
Braiding
Braiding is expressly outside the cosmetology definition, so this guide is about everything except a board license: the entity, the assumed name, sales tax on retail, and the service lines that would cross into licensed work.
Microblading and permanent cosmetics
The 200 hour permanent cosmetic tattooer license, the further 200 hour master program, the health education prerequisite, and the permanent cosmetic tattoo salon license, under the chapter rewritten in January 2026.
Massage therapy
The Board of Nursing route: 500 hours in a SCHEV approved program, the MBLEx, a $140 application, birth month renewals, and a premises layer that is local because Virginia licenses the therapist, not the establishment.
Not sure which route?
Start with the Virginia hair salon guide. It carries the full sequence every Board licensed business follows, from school hours to the facility license to the SCC filing, and the other guides flag where their trade leaves that path.
Sales tax changes with the map. Virginia's combined retail sales tax rate is 5.3 percent in most of the state, 6 percent in Central Virginia, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, 6.3 percent in a listed set of counties and cities, and 7 percent in the Historic Triangle. Beauty services themselves are not taxed; the products a client takes home are. Every Virginia guide works the split through for its trade.
What every Virginia guide covers
Each Virginia guide follows the same ground, trade by trade: the practitioner license and its training hours, examinations and fees; the facility license for the premises and the rules that keep it alive; forming the LLC with the State Corporation Commission for $100 and keeping it in good standing with the $50 annual registration fee; the assumed name certificate filed with the SCC Clerk for $10; the federal EIN; Virginia Tax registration and the services versus retail split; chair and suite rental as the Board's facility rules actually treat it; hiring, including the $12.77 minimum wage for 2026 and the Virginia Employment Commission's 2.5 percent new employer unemployment rate on the first $8,000 of wages; the local layer of zoning and business licensing; insurance; a renewal calendar; and the official sources every figure came from, with a last reviewed date.
Official Virginia resources
State sources last reviewed: November 3, 2026
This guide is general information about starting a beauty business in Virginia, not legal, tax or licensing advice for a specific business. License requirements, fees and forms change, and local ordinances add their own layer. Confirm your exact obligations with the Virginia Board for Barbers and Cosmetology, the Virginia Board of Nursing, the State Corporation Commission and your locality before you sign a lease or enroll in a program.