Kentucky — statewide
Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Registration
In short
Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Registration issues 3 permits we publish for Kentucky — statewide, last verified 2026-09-03. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.
What this agency issues
| Permit | Issuing agency | Fee | Renews | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales and Use Tax Permit | Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Registration | No fee | no expiry — open-ended and location-specific | 2026-09-03 |
| Local Occupational License Tax | Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Registration | A percentage of payroll and net profits set by each city or county, capped at 1.25% for a county over 300,000 people — not a flat fee | annual, filed in every taxing district a business has a presence in | 2026-09-03 |
| Automotive Repair Shop Licensing — Kentucky Motor Vehicle License List (KRS 190.030)only if it applies to you | Kentucky Department of Revenue, Division of Registration | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-03 |
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
Sales and Use Tax Permit
No fee — neither the authorising statute nor the official application form charges anything to register. A separate permit is required for each place of business, is not assignable, and must be conspicuously displayed at the location it names. There is no renewal cycle: the permit remains valid until the business changes hands or closes. Registration runs through MyTaxes.ky.gov or the paper Form 10A100.
Local Occupational License Tax
Kentucky's Business One Stop portal states outright that Kentucky doesn't have a statewide business license that applies to all businesses, but this tax is what actually reaches nearly every business, and calling it a license understates how it works. It is not a flat fee: it taxes the wages earned and services performed within a jurisdiction and the net profits apportioned to it, at a rate each city or county sets for itself, up to a statutory ceiling of 1.25% in a county of 300,000 or more. A 2025 legislative briefing put the scale in perspective: a hundred and seventy cities and eighty-seven counties tax gross earnings, eighty-nine cities and seventy counties tax net profits, and thirty-nine cities tax gross receipts, together supplying sixty per cent of city tax revenue and nearly forty-six per cent of county tax revenue — the largest local revenue source in the state. A business with a presence in several jurisdictions registers and files in each of them, using standardised forms the law requires every district to publish online, with a credit against the county tax where a city inside it also taxes the same activity.
Automotive Repair Shop Licensing — Kentucky Motor Vehicle License List (KRS 190.030)
No fee is recorded. KRS 190.030, the statute governing motor vehicle licensing, lists the businesses that need a license — dealers of each kind, brokers, wholesalers, automotive recycling dealers, manufacturers, distributors and their representatives, and salespeople — and that list names no repair or body shop; the state's roster of forty-nine occupational and professional boards lists none for automotive repair either. What a repair shop does need is entity registration, a sales and use tax permit for parts it sells, and the local occupational license tax in every city or county it operates in. Selling vehicles rather than merely repairing them brings a separate Motor Vehicle Commission dealer license into play, and consumer complaints about repair work are handled by the Attorney General as a deceptive trade practice rather than through any licensing board.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Kentucky — statewide
- Phone
- (502) 564-3306
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.
- Kentucky Business One Stop — stating that Kentucky doesn't have a statewide business license that applies to all businessesCommonwealth of Kentucky · primary source · retrieved 2026-10-08
- Kentucky Revised Statutes section 139.250 — a separate sales tax permit for each place of business, with no fee imposedKentucky Legislative Research Commission · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Kentucky Revised Statutes section 190.030 — the exhaustive list of motor vehicle licences, which does not include repair shopsKentucky Legislative Research Commission · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Kentucky Revised Statutes section 68.180 — county occupational licence tax, capped at 1.25% of wages and net profitsKentucky Legislative Research Commission · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Kentucky Secretary of State — occupational license tax forms for every taxing district, required by KRS 67.766Kentucky Secretary of State · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
Other Kentucky statewide offices
- Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction
- Kentucky Secretary of State, Business Filings Division
- Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Food Safety Branch
- Kentucky Board of Barbering
- Kentucky Board of Cosmetology
- Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners
- Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Division of Regulated Child Care
Kentucky jurisdictions
Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.