3.2 Salon/Shop Registration and Facility Requirements

A personal Illinois esthetician license lets you practice esthetics. It does not let you open the door as a business. 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1175 Subpart M (Sections 1175.1300–1175.1335), implementing Article IIID of the Act, requires every cosmetology, nail technology, hair braiding, or esthetics salon and every barber shop to obtain a Certificate of Registration from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) Division before operating in Illinois. Practicing on unregistered premises is unlicensed activity. Section 4-7 of the Act lists operating a school, salon, or shop without a valid license or registration as a cause for discipline.

What Must Be Registered

1175.1300(b) is broader than a storefront with a neon sign. Subject locations include:

• A salon in a physical space the owner owns or leases (storefront, unit, or free-standing building).
• A mobile salon or shop.
• A salon that rents space to individual licensees who run their own businesses on the premises — the facility owner registers the entire facility, or each booth renter obtains a separate registration.
• A salon operated as a kiosk or similar temporary or semi-permanent structure inside another facility.
• A person or business that contracts with a healthcare or residential facility to send licensed personnel onto that facility’s premises to serve residents or clients.

1175.1305(b) adds the practical net: a separate certificate is required for each salon or shop location, with a separate application, fee, and supporting documents, except for the mobile/contracting office rule in 1175.1305(c). Any physical location dedicated to providing cosmetology, esthetics, nail technology, hair braiding, or barbering services — including kiosks, trailers, or motor vehicles — is subject to registration. A kitchen-table “friends and family” setup that is dedicated to paid esthetics is still a location. Home-based work still needs registration, and it still must meet 1175.115 hot-and-cold water (not the restroom sink), ventilation, and sanitation rules. Registration does not waive the sanitary code.

A mobile salon, or a business that only sends licensees into a healthcare or residential facility, reports the business-office address and may hold one certificate without listing every service stop. A permanent salon sitting inside another business (a senior-living spa room, a medical-building suite used as a salon) does need its own certificate at that facility address. If that operator has more than one permanent salon in the same facility, only one certificate is required for that facility.

IDFPR may reject a business name that states or implies a service the salon cannot legally offer, that misleads consumers, or that is inconsistent with the Act. The use of “medical” or a similar term in a salon or shop name is prohibited under 1175.1305(b). Calling an esthetics studio a “med spa” on the registration does not create medical authority; it creates a naming violation.

Fees, Expiration, and Paperwork (1175.100(c))

Salon fees are their own table. Do not confuse them with individual-license fees ($30 to license, $25 per year to renew, $50 plus lapsed renewals not exceeding $200 to restore a person).

The application (1175.1305(a)) is an ownership package, not a postcard. It includes ownership structure (sole proprietor, corporation, LLC, or partnership); owner (or CEO/managing partner) name, address, email, and telephone; federal employer identification number (FEIN); salon name, address, and telephone; franchise disclosure; the name and license number of any owner, managing partner, or CEO who holds an Illinois license under the Act; corporate or LLC articles or a signed partnership agreement; franchise agreement if applicable; assumed-name proof if you are using one; and the $40 fee. Illinois corporations, foreign LLCs with a certificate of authority, and assumed names all have specific attachments. Incomplete filings delay the certificate; they do not authorize you to open.

Posting, the IDFPR Sign, and Self-Inspection

225 ILCS 410/1-10 requires every license holder to display the license in a prominent place in the salon or shop where clients enter or wait to receive services, and in that same prominent location to display the sign provided by the Department. Every registered shop also displays its certificate of registration at the shop location. Hidden licenses in a back-office drawer fail the display rule even if the licenses are current.

1175.1335 requires every registered salon or shop to conduct an annual self-inspection using forms provided by the Division. The salon chooses the month and uses that same month every year. Documentation is kept at the salon for 5 years and made available to Division investigators. The self-inspection form is not optional homework. It is the paper trail that the owner actually walked the 1175.115 checklist — water source, covered soiled-linen container, clean-tool drawers, hospital-grade disinfectant, posted licenses — on a recurring schedule.

Facility codes ride along. 1175.115(e) already requires owners, managers, and licensees to observe IDPH rules and city, county, and State building, fire, plumbing, and electrical regulations. A Certificate of Registration is not a substitute for a legal occupancy, a working approved water supply, or ventilation that keeps the room free of excessive heat, steam, and odors.

Communicable Disease on the Payroll

1175.115(b)(33) is an owner/manager duty: no owner or manager of a salon or shop shall knowingly permit any person suffering from a serious communicable disease, as defined in 77 Ill. Adm. Code 690, to work on the premises. That is separate from the licensee duty not to work upon a person with such a disease. If a worker has a serious communicable disease as defined by IDPH, the owner who knows and still schedules that person is in the sanitary-and-registration crosshairs, not merely “being flexible.”

Student Clinic Versus a Salon on the Same Premises

1175.835(b)–(c) is the school exception you will see on labor and facility items. An esthetics student may not practice on the public until successful completion of the 75 hours of basic training in 1175.835(a)(1). After that, a school may, as part of its educational program and on school premises, offer esthetics services to the public through a student clinic. Those services are provided by students under teacher supervision. Students shall receive no compensation, including tips, but they receive credit toward the 750-hour education requirement. The school provides those services under its school license and is not required to obtain a salon registration for that clinic. The school shall post a sign visible to the public advising that all services are provided by students. Except as provided in that subsection, a school and a salon shall not operate in the same premises. A licensed salon cannot quietly share the school clinic floor, and a school cannot skip the student-service sign because “the public already knows.”

The optional internship in 1175.835(a)(5) is not a substitute salon registration for the school, and it is not a paid job for the student. Internship students likewise receive no compensation, including tips. The salon that hosts an intern must already be a registered salon; the intern is a student earning hours under a three-party contract, not an unpaid employee the salon uses to dodge registration or wage law.

Change of Location, Name, or Ownership

Registration follows the location and the owner. It does not travel in the licensee’s pocket.

Change of location (1175.1310): the owner files written notice at least 30 days in advance. The notice includes owner name and signature, date, FEIN, salon name, previous address, new address, and effective date, and it is accompanied by the original certificate and a $20 reissuance fee. IDFPR issues a new certificate with the new address. Moving over a weekend and “notifying later” is operating at an unregistered address.

Change of name (1175.1320): the same 30-day advance written notice, original certificate, $20 reissuance reprint fee, and assumed-name proof if you use an assumed name. The new name must still comply with 1175.1305 — including the ban on “medical” and other misleading terms.

Change of ownership (1175.1315): “change of ownership,” “sale,” or “transfer” means more than 50% of stock, partners, or LLC members during a 14-day period. A change of ownership of a parent entity that owns the salon’s owner is not treated as a change of ownership of the salon. The new owner notifies the Division in writing at least 30 days before the effective transfer date, with a signed, dated letter from the pre-transfer owner acknowledging the sale. After that notice, the new owner may continue under the previously issued registration only if the new owner submits a full certificate application within 30 days after the effective transfer date. Buying a salon and ignoring Subpart M does not buy the registration.

Restoration (1175.1330): if the certificate expired or went inactive, the owner files written notice with name, signature, date, FEIN, salon name, previous and current addresses, and the $40 fee, plus assumed-name proof if needed. Until that certificate is restored, the premises are not a registered salon.

The exam fact pattern is usually simple: services for the public happen in a registered salon or shop, or in a school student clinic under the school license. Anywhere else — an unregistered apartment, a hotel room, an unregistered booth, a moved address with no 30-day filing — is unlicensed activity, and Section 4-7 is written to reach the operator.