How to Start a Nail Salon in Virginia

The regulator: the Board for Barbers and Cosmetology

Nail care in Virginia is licensed by the Board for Barbers and Cosmetology, inside the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR), under Chapter 7 of Title 54.1 of the Code of Virginia and the barbering and cosmetology regulations at 18VAC41-20. Nail care is one of the practices the statute names directly: engaging in it for compensation requires a license, and operating a nail care salon requires a facility license of its own, separate from a hair salon license at the same address.

The Board's unified fee schedule, in force since August 1, 2025, sets the prices for the whole trade: $120 for an individual application and for each renewal, $220 for a facility application and for each renewal, with reinstatement at $240 for a practitioner and $440 for a facility. Every license expires two years from the last day of the month in which it was issued, so a nail salon tracks a different renewal date for every technician and one more for the premises. A 30 day grace period follows expiration, reinstatement stays available for two years, and the renewal sections impose no continuing education condition on these licenses.

Virginia nail salon licenses at a glance

The nail technician license, step by step

The training program is at least 150 clock hours in a licensed school, covering the nail curriculum in 18VAC41-20-210: health and safety, manicure and pedicure procedures, nail care and artificial nail application and removal. It is the shortest program on the Board's list, and it is deliberately narrow. Registered apprenticeships for nail technicians also run through Virginia Works, the state workforce agency; the apprenticeship standards are set in that system rather than in the Board's regulation, so this guide publishes no apprenticeship hours, and an apprentice's registration proof must be displayed in the salon where they work.

Graduates pass a written and a practical examination approved by the Board. The examination charge is set by the Board's contracted vendor and capped by 18VAC41-20-60 at $225 per candidate. Before the exams are passed, an applicant found eligible for the examination can work under a temporary license: no fee, 90 days, under the direct supervision of a currently licensed practitioner. The license application to DPOR costs $120, and endorsement, renewal and the parts of reinstatement all use the Board's standard figures: $120 to apply or renew, $240 to reinstate. Fees are nonrefundable and are not prorated.

Scope is the section to read before the service menu is printed. The nail technician license covers nail care: manicures, pedicures and artificial nail work. It does not authorize waxing, and the Board's guidance says so in terms: waxing in Virginia requires a wax technician license, a cosmetologist license or an esthetician license. A nail salon planning brow or lip waxing at the front desk is planning a second credential, either the 115 hour wax technician license covered in the esthetics guide family of licenses or a cosmetologist on staff. The traffic runs the other way as well: manicuring and pedicuring sit inside the cosmetology scope, so a licensed cosmetologist can staff a nail station on the cosmetology license alone, which is a useful flexibility for a salon that hires across both menus.

The nail care salon license

The premises license is the nail care salon license, required by section 54.1-704.1 of the Code of Virginia and issued under 18VAC41-20-120 for a $220 application fee. Like every Virginia facility license, it is issued to a firm rather than a person, it is not transferable, and it carries the name and address of the business it licenses. Report a change of name or address to the Board in writing within 30 days. If the entity holding the license is dissolved or altered into a new entity, the license becomes void and the new firm applies again, so the entity chosen at formation should be the entity the salon intends to keep.

Day to day, the salon runs under responsible management: the answerable operator must keep all licenses displayed in plain view and must ensure that no one in the salon performs services outside their license's scope, which in a nail salon means watching the waxing line described above. Allowing an unlicensed person to practice is a disciplinary ground against the salon's management. Ownership of the salon does not require a nail technician license, provided the owner performs no services; the obligations sit on the premises license and on each technician. A nail salon operated from a home follows the Board's home business pattern: the practitioner license plus a salon license for the home address and full compliance with local law, which is where most home salons are actually decided.

Mobile nail services sit under the same facility license rather than outside it. The Board licenses mobile shops and salons under 18VAC41-20-120, with the application giving the address where the mobile unit is permanently garaged. A mobile operation must be stationary while services are being provided, and it may not operate where a local ordinance prohibits it, so a mobile nail business is planned locality by locality in a way a storefront is not. The salon license, the technician licenses and the display and scope duties travel with the unit; what changes is only the address on the license and the local permissions at each stop.

Forming the LLC and keeping it alive

Virginia entity filings go to the Clerk's Office of the State Corporation Commission (SCC), online through the Clerk's Information System, CIS. Forming an LLC means filing Articles of Organization, Form LLC1011, for the $100 fee set by section 13.1-1005 of the Code of Virginia, naming a registered agent with a physical Virginia address. There is no secretary of state in this process and no separate state business license layered on top of the Board's salon license.

After formation the LLC owes an annual registration fee of $50, due by the last day of the month in which the LLC was organized. Virginia LLCs file no annual report; the fee is the whole recurring obligation. The Commission notifies the registered agent about two months ahead. Late payment adds a $25 penalty, and an LLC still unpaid after the last day of the third month following the due date is automatically canceled. Since the nail care salon license is issued to the firm and dies with it, a canceled LLC is a licensing problem as well as a corporate one. Keep the formation month on the salon's compliance calendar from the first year.

Your salon name: the assumed name certificate

Trading under any name other than the LLC's exact legal name, or a sole proprietor's own name, requires a Certificate of Assumed or Fictitious Name under section 59.1-70 of the Code of Virginia. Since January 1, 2020 the certificate is filed with the Clerk of the State Corporation Commission, the central filing office for individuals and entities alike, for a $10 fee. The pre-2020 practice of filing with the circuit court clerk of each locality no longer applies, and older Virginia startup advice still points owners to the courthouse. The certificate connects the trade name to the legal business; it neither reserves the name nor replaces the nail care salon license, and the name on it should match the name on the salon license application and the lease.

EIN and tax accounts

An Employer Identification Number from the IRS is free and comes before the first hire and the first business bank account. The state accounts follow the salon's activities: a Virginia Tax business account for the sales tax registration once retail products are sold, and a Virginia Employment Commission employer account once technicians are on payroll, carrying the unemployment reporting described below. Both registrations ask for the legal business name exactly as the SCC holds it, so form the entity first, then the EIN, then the salon license application, and let the tax accounts follow their own triggers.

Sales tax: services untaxed, retail taxed

Virginia's sales tax reaches tangible personal property, accommodations and a short list of taxable services. Nail services are not taxable services, and service charges generally are exempt unless connected with a sale of goods. The salon's split is therefore the familiar one: manicures, pedicures, enhancements and every other service are untaxed, while polish, treatments and other products the client takes home are taxable retail sales. A salon that sells retail registers with Virginia Tax as a dealer, collects the tax at the register and files electronically by the 20th of the month following the filing period.

Rates are set by locality. The combined rate is 5.3 percent in most of Virginia, from the 4.3 percent state tax plus the mandatory 1 percent local tax. It is 6 percent in Central Virginia, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, 6.3 percent in Charlotte County, Danville, Gloucester County, Halifax County, Henry County, Northampton County, Patrick County and Pittsylvania County, and 7 percent in James City County, Williamsburg and York County. Confirm the rate for the salon's address on the Virginia Tax rate table when the point of sale system is configured.

Renting a nail station in Virginia

Virginia issues no station rental or booth renter license. The governing rule is section 54.1-704.1: a licensed practitioner who holds no ownership interest in the facility where they work needs no facility license of their own. A nail technician renting a station inside a licensed nail salon works on their own $120 license under the salon's premises license, and the salon's responsible management remains answerable to the Board for display, scope and sanitation at every station, rented or not. A written rental agreement should make a current, displayed license a condition of the station.

A technician who leases their own space and operates it as their own business is running a nail care salon, and that premises needs its own $220 nail care salon license issued to their firm. The salon suite guide works through that structure in full, since most suite based nail businesses are built on exactly this line. A genuine renter is also a separate business for tax purposes, with their own EIN, their own Virginia Tax registration for their own retail sales, and their own assumed name certificate if the station trades under its own name.

Hiring nail technicians: classification, minimum wage and unemployment

Classification follows control. A technician whose schedule, prices and service standards the salon sets is an employee; a station renter who sets their own prices and keeps their own book is an independent business. The label in the agreement does not decide it, and the Board holds the salon's management responsible for licensed, in scope work in the premises under either arrangement.

Employees are covered by the Virginia minimum wage, $12.77 per hour for 2026 as set by the Department of Labor and Industry and adjusted annually with the Consumer Price Index. A tipped technician may be paid a cash wage of no less than $2.13 per hour, but wages plus tips must reach $12.77 and the employer makes up any shortfall. Unemployment liability with the Virginia Employment Commission generally tracks the federal triggers, in practice a quarterly payroll of $1,500 or more or an employee in 20 weeks of a calendar year, with registration online through the Commission. New employers pay a 2.5 percent base rate, plus pool and fund charges, on the first $8,000 of each employee's wages per year until a calculated rate applies; calculated base rates range from 0.1 percent to 6.2 percent. Quarterly tax and wage reports run from the first quarter with payroll.

The local layer: zoning and the business license

State licensing assumes the locality has approved the address. The salon's zoning district must allow the use, the premises must meet occupancy and building requirements, and most Virginia cities and counties require a local business license, with the local Business, Professional and Occupational License tax set by the locality's own schedule. Because those schedules are local, this guide publishes no local license figures; get the number from the licensing office or commissioner of the revenue where the salon will sit. The order of operations follows from the facility license's design: it names one firm at one address and cannot transfer, so zoning and local approval for the exact address come before the entity filing and the salon license application, not after the lease is signed.

Insurance and risk

Nothing in the Board's regulations conditions the nail care salon license on insurance, so coverage is chosen on risk. The standard package is general liability for the premises, professional liability for each technician's services, and property cover for pedicure chairs, ventilation equipment and retail stock, checked against the limits the lease demands. Chemical services and pedicure work carry their own claim history in this trade, which is why insurers price nail salons on their service mix; describe the menu accurately when the policy is quoted. Station renters should hold their own professional liability in their own business name, since the salon's policy responds to the salon's operation, and workers compensation enters the picture as the employee count grows.

The Virginia renewal calendar

Official sources

• Board for Barbers and Cosmetology, DPOR
• Board fee schedule, 18VAC41-20-140
• Shop and salon license rules, 18VAC41-20-120
• Code of Virginia section 54.1-704.1, facility licenses
• Code of Virginia section 59.1-70, assumed names
• SCC annual registration fees
• Virginia Tax, retail sales and use tax
• Virginia Employment Commission, employer information

This guide is general information about starting a nail salon in Virginia, not legal, tax or licensing advice for a specific business. Fees, forms and rules change, and local ordinances add their own layer. Confirm your exact obligations with the Virginia Board for Barbers and Cosmetology, the State Corporation Commission and your locality before signing a lease or enrolling in a program.