What a salon has to keep up with, and who does it.

Salon establishment license current

The shop itself is licensed separately from the people in it, and the state board inspects the premises before it issues one. Renewals are usually annual.

Workers’ compensation coverage in force

If someone gets hurt on the clock this is what pays their medical bills and their wages. Going without it where your state requires it is not a fine — in most states it is a criminal offense and you become personally liable for the claim.

Once you have employees

State unemployment insurance account registered

The account your state unemployment contributions are paid into — every state runs a program and every covered employer registers with it, usually with the labor or workforce department rather than the revenue one. It is worth getting right early for a reason that is not obvious: your contribution rate is experience-rated, so the claims filed against this account in your first years set what you pay for years afterwards. Register before your first payroll. The wage base and the new-employer rate are set by your state and change, so take both from the state.

State income tax withholding account registered

The account you withhold your employees’ state income tax into and remit from. You register with your state’s revenue department, usually online and usually free, and you need your EIN in hand to do it. Register before your first payroll, not after: the penalty is normally for remitting late, and you cannot remit to an account that does not exist. A few states have no wage income tax and therefore no withholding account — if yours is one of them, waive this and keep the state unemployment insurance account, which every state has.

Every technician individually licensed

One unlicensed technician working a chair can cost the shop its own license. Individual licenses renew on their own clock, usually every one to two years, and nobody notices the lapse until an inspection.

Sanitation and disinfection procedure

Written steps for implements, foot spas, single-use items and the log the board wants to see. Salon infection cases almost always trace back to a pedicure tub or a reused file.

Fatality and severe-injury reporting procedure

A death is eight hours. An in-patient hospitalization, an amputation or the loss of an eye is twenty-four. That clock runs whether or not you are exempt from keeping the 300 log, and whether or not anyone in the office knows the number to call.

Certificate of occupancy for the premises

If you are taking a space that staff or customers will use, the building official signs off that it may be occupied for what you intend to do in it — and a new certificate is normally required when the USE changes, even if nothing is built. That is the one that catches people: a unit that was a shop is not automatically an approved kitchen, a gym or a clinic, and the landlord’s existing certificate does not transfer to your use. Find out before you sign, because the work it takes to pass is the tenant’s problem and the rent starts either way. If you work from home or out of a vehicle, waive this one.

Local business license or business tax registration

Your city or county almost certainly wants its own registration on top of anything the state issued, and the two are unconnected — a perfectly formed LLC with every state account open can still be trading unlawfully in its own city. Check the city AND the county, because plenty of businesses owe both, and check the zoning at the same time: a license is routinely refused on the ground that the use is not allowed at that address, which is a much cheaper thing to discover before you sign a lease. Record the expiry printed on the license; the renewal interval and the fee are set locally and vary between neighboring towns.

Ventilation and air quality assessment

Acrylic dust, acetone and methacrylate vapors sit at the technician’s face for eight hours. There is no salon-specific OSHA ventilation standard — the hooks are the general duty clause and the exposure limits your ventilation has to hold you under, plus whatever your state board adds.

Form I-9 on file for every employee

Section 1 within the first day of work, section 2 within three business days, and the file kept for three years after hire or one year after they leave — whichever is later. An audit counts forms, not intentions.

Once you have employees

PPE assessment and program

Before you hand out gloves and glasses the rule wants you to have walked the work, written down what can hurt someone, and signed and dated the assessment. The certificate is the part that gets cited, not the gear — and it is the proof an inspector or a client asks for.

Sales and use tax permit, or a note that you owe none

If you sell anything your state taxes you register for a permit before the first sale, not before the first return — collecting tax without one is its own offense in several states, and so is failing to collect. What counts as taxable is set state by state and is not obvious: almost every state with a sales tax taxes goods, a good many tax some services, and a few tax neither because they have no sales tax at all. This is a question a founder cannot answer from first principles, so look it up once with your state’s revenue department and record either the permit or the answer that you owe none.

Annual safety refresher

Everyone should be retrained at least once a year; the training records prove it.

New-hire safety orientation

Everyone new should learn the hazards, the exits and who to tell before their first day of work, and anyone who checks your program asks whether they did.

Employer Identification Number on file

Your business tax ID. You cannot run payroll, open a business account or file a return without it, and it is free from the IRS.

General liability policy in force

No statute makes you carry this — your landlord, your hiring clients and most contracts do. One trip-and-fall claim against an uninsured business is the whole business.

Fire safety / emergency action plan

Where the exits are, who counts heads, who calls it in. Extinguishers on the wall are enough to trigger it. At ten employees or fewer OSHA lets you brief everyone out loud instead of writing it down — keep it on paper anyway, because the written version is the one an inspector, an insurer or a client asks to see.

OSHA "It’s the Law" poster displayed

Federal law says the poster has to hang where your crew actually sees it — a break room wall, not a binder. It is free from OSHA and it is the cheapest citation you will ever avoid.