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Madison County

Madison County License Department

In short

Madison County License Department issues 4 permits we publish for Madison County, last verified 2026-09-28. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.

What this agency issues

Permits required, with issuing agency, fee, renewal term and the date each record was last verified against its source
County Business/Privilege License — Contractor (Classification Code 0084)Madison County License Department$15–$375 per year, tiered by gross amount of contracts under classification code 0084, from $15.00 ($5,000-$10,000 in contracts) up to $375.00 (contracts over $200,000)annual — Madison County's license year runs October 1 through September 30, with renewal accepted October 1-312026-09-28
County Business/Privilege License — General ClassificationMadison County License DepartmentA county business/privilege license is required for each of these business types, issued through the classification schedule the Alabama Department of Revenue files annually for Madison County. That published schedule does not carry a dedicated line item labelled for restaurant, coffee shop, food truck, retail store, childcare, fitness-studio or auto-repair businesses — a confirmed gap in the document itself, not a research shortfall. The License Department assigns the applicable classification code and resulting fee at the time of application rather than publishing one in advance for these categories.annual — Madison County's license year runs October 1 through September 30, with renewal accepted October 1-312026-09-28
County Business/Privilege License — Veterinary Surgery (Classification Code 0178)Madison County License Department$5 per year, flat, under classification code 0178 ('Veterinary surgery')annual — Madison County's license year runs October 1 through September 30, with renewal accepted October 1-312026-09-28
County Business/Privilege License — Salon/Barbershop Chair ClassificationMadison County License DepartmentThree separate chair/practitioner-based classification codes appear in the county's published schedule for salon and barbershop-type chair-rental businesses: code 0058 ('1st Chair'), $3.75 for the first chair plus $3.75 for each additional chair; code 0124 ('Manicurists, hairdressers, etc.'), a flat $7.50; and custom code 0C12 ('One Chair'), $3.00 for the first chair plus $3.00 for each additional chair. The published schedule does not explain which code applies to a given walk-in salon or barbershop, and more than one code plausibly fits the same business — this is a genuine overlap in the published document itself, confirmed by an independent, line-by-line re-read, not a transcription error. Confirm the classification code the License Department assigns before budgeting a fee.annual — Madison County's license year runs October 1 through September 30, with renewal accepted October 1-312026-09-28

Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.

About each permit

County Business/Privilege License — Contractor (Classification Code 0084)

Madison County's classification schedule carries a specific 'Gross Amount of Contracts' line, code 0084, for general contractors — tiered from $15.00 at the $5,000-$10,000 contract band up to $375.00 for contracts over $200,000. This county classification tax is separate from, and stacks with, both a contractor's state license and each municipality's own contractor business license. The state licensing threshold has changed recently and is easy to get wrong: as of October 1, 2024, Act 2024-277 raised the Alabama Licensing Board for General Contractors' commercial-licensing threshold from $50,000 to $100,000 — a general contractor undertakes a project requiring the state license once its cost reaches $100,000, not the older $50,000 or $75,000 figures still found in some secondary sources. Madison County and each municipality may separately add a flat $20.00 surcharge to residential building permits under Ala. Code §45-45-200.02, recorded on the unincorporated building-permit entry below.

County Business/Privilege License — General Classification

This is the countywide license, issued by the independently elected Madison County License Department, not the Probate Judge and not the Revenue Commissioner. It applies to every business in the county, whether inside Huntsville, Madison, or any of the county's smaller cities, or outside them — the county's own site directs applicants to also contact whichever municipality they are in for that city's own separate license, because the two stack rather than one replacing the other. A business inside an incorporated city typically pays MORE, not less, for the same classification than an unincorporated-area business, since many of the schedule's lines price 'unincorporated' as the lowest tier and 'incorporated by population bracket' as the higher ones. For the seven business types listed on this record, the published 33-page classification schedule was read in full and genuinely contains no identifiable dedicated line — the closest candidates (a generic vehicle-based code and unlabeled square-footage-tiered codes) are not explicitly identified in the source document as applying to any of these categories, so none is asserted here. Contractor, veterinary and salon/barbershop classifications do have identifiable codes in the same schedule and are recorded as their own entries below.

County Business/Privilege License — Veterinary Surgery (Classification Code 0178)

A flat $5.00 a year, under classification code 0178, 'Veterinary surgery.' This is the ordinary county business-privilege tax that applies to a veterinary practice the same way it applies to any other business in the county — it is not evidence of county regulatory oversight of veterinary medicine itself, which is handled entirely by the state veterinary board. It is also separate and additional to the $1.00 state-statutory license-filing fee a veterinarian pays the county Probate Office, recorded as its own entry below — one is a county business tax, the other is a state-mandated filing with a different county office.

County Business/Privilege License — Salon/Barbershop Chair Classification

This is the ordinary county chair-based business-privilege tax on a salon or barbershop, separate from and in addition to the state cosmetology/barbering board's own shop license ($200.00 new, $150.00 to renew, $50.00 to relocate, recorded on the ABOC Class I Barber entry below) and separate from Huntsville's own municipal chair-based schedule for shops inside city limits. The county schedule's three overlapping chair codes (0058, 0124, 0C12) were each independently re-read verbatim from the primary Alabama Department of Revenue filing, and all three genuinely describe chair-based fees at different rates with no disambiguating text in the source document, so all three are shown here; confirm which code applies to a given shop with the Madison County License Department.

Contact

Jurisdiction
Madison County
Phone
Not verified — use the website

Contact details are taken from the agency’s own site or its published fee schedule. Where we have not verified a phone number we leave it blank rather than guess.

Sources

Every fee and term above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown.

  1. ABOC Licensing Fees — shop license: $200 new, $150 renewal, $50 relocationAlabama Board of Cosmetology and Barbering · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  2. Ala. Code §45-45-201 — Madison County License Department created (Title 45, Ch. 45, Art. 20, Pt. 2)Justia / Code of Alabama · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  3. Changes to the Alabama Licensing Board for General Contractors — Act 2024-277, $100,000 threshold effective Oct. 1, 2024Alabama Licensing Board for General Contractors · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  4. Madison County Annual Business Privilege/License Tax Fiscal Year Report, FY2026Alabama Department of Revenue · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  5. Madison County License DepartmentMadison County, Alabama · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
  6. Madison County License Department — Business LicensesMadison County, Alabama · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28

Other offices serving Madison County

The full permit list for this jurisdiction

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Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.