Huntington
City of Huntington, Finance Division
In short
City of Huntington, Finance Division issues 10 permits we publish for Huntington, last verified 2026-09-11. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Business License | City of Huntington, Finance Division | $20 annual, flat | annual — July 1 through June 30; renewal notices sent around June 1 | 2026-09-11 |
| Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Contractors | City of Huntington, Finance Division | 2% of gross income (total labor and materials) for Classification 10, 'Contractors,' on the City's own current fillable B&O Tax Return form. Filed quarterly, 30 days after each quarter ends. | ongoing — quarterly filing (30 days after each calendar quarter ends) | 2026-09-11 |
| Contractor Registration (General Business License, contractor-specific attachments) | City of Huntington, Finance Division | $20 annual, flat | annual — July 1 through June 30 | 2026-09-11 |
| Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Retailers, Restaurants, and Others | City of Huntington, Finance Division | 0% of gross sales for Classification 5, 'Retailers, Restaurants, and Others,' on the City's own current fillable B&O Tax Return form, reflecting a mayoral waiver of this classification effective September 13, 2021. Still filed quarterly (30 days after each quarter ends) even at a 0% rate; a separate older Fee Schedule PDF on the City's own site lists this same classification at 0.25%, a figure now superseded by the current 0% rate confirmed on the actively-used tax return form. | ongoing — quarterly filing (30 days after each calendar quarter ends) | 2026-09-11 |
| City Service Fee | City of Huntington, Finance Division | $5 per week, per full-time/part-time employee or qualifying self-employed individual working in Huntington | ongoing — withheld each pay period by the employer, remitted per the employer's filing arrangement | 2026-09-11 |
| Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Service and All Other Business | City of Huntington, Finance Division | 0.5% of gross income for Classification 12, 'Service and All Other Business,' on the City's own current fillable B&O Tax Return form — the most plausible classification for these industries, though the City's own materials do not map any specific business type to a named classification. Filed quarterly, 30 days after each quarter ends. | ongoing — quarterly filing (30 days after each calendar quarter ends) | 2026-09-11 |
| Fitness Studio/Gym Municipal License (not found)only if it applies to you | City of Huntington, Finance Division | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-11 |
| Auto Repair Shop Municipal License (not found)only if it applies to you | City of Huntington, Finance Division | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-11 |
| Veterinary Facility Municipal License (not found)only if it applies to you | City of Huntington, Finance Division | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-11 |
| Salon/Barber/Cosmetology Municipal License (not found)only if it applies to you | City of Huntington, Finance Division | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-11 |
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
General Business License
Every business operating in Huntington must first obtain a West Virginia Business Registration Certificate, then complete the City's own Business License Application and pay this flat $20.00 fee, renewed annually by June 30. The City's own current Fee Schedule confirms the identical $20.00 figure and additionally shows that, as of 6/15/2021, what was formerly a separate 'Contractor License' product is now issued as this same General Business License (with a WV Contractor's License and proof of general liability insurance naming the City as certificate holder required as attachments) — recorded as its own record below for the contracting industry specifically. Confirmed directly against the codified ordinance itself: Huntington Municipal Code § 735.06(b) states 'The Huntington Municipal Business License Tax hereby levied shall be $20 for each Huntington Municipal Business License,' read on the City's own Municode-hosted Code of Ordinances via a rendered-browser fetch (a plain text-extraction proxy returns 'not authorized' for this host, but a full browser render succeeds). The same section's subsection (a) carves out a real exemption: 'no municipal business license shall be required for an independent contractor or sole proprietor who earns less than $2,500 in annual gross revenue and who does not maintain a permanent physical location within the city limits.'
Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Contractors
Contracting is one of the two unambiguous classifications on Huntington's own rate table (the other being Retailers/Restaurants/Others), taxed at a flat 2% of total labor-and-materials gross income, unaffected by the Classification 5 waiver described in the other B&O records on this page. This 2% city tax is layered on top of, not instead of, West Virginia's own state Contractor Licensing Board fee recorded at the state layer, and on top of the City's own $20.00 General Business License / contractor registration recorded separately above.
Contractor Registration (General Business License, contractor-specific attachments)
The City's own current Fee Schedule labels this line item 'Contractor License (General Business License as of 6.15.2021) — $20.00,' confirming that a contractor's local registration was formerly a distinct product before that date and has since been folded into the same $20.00 General Business License recorded separately above, distinguished only by its required attachments: a copy of the WV Business Registration Certificate, a copy of the contractor's WV Contractor's License, and a certificate of general liability insurance naming the City of Huntington as certificate holder. This is the real local layer on top of West Virginia's own state Contractor Licensing Board fee recorded at the state layer — a $20.00 registration requirement, not a separate dollar figure, is what Huntington adds locally.
Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Retailers, Restaurants, and Others
Huntington's B&O Privilege Tax reaches 'all' business activity in the city, filed quarterly regardless of profit — but Classification 5, 'Retailers, Restaurants, and Others,' the classification plainly reaching restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, and food trucks, is priced at 0% (a '.00' multiplier) on the City's own currently-issued fillable tax return. The City's own B&O Tax webpage explains why: 'Mayor Williams waived Retail, Restaurant, & Others B&O Tax Classification (5)' effective September 13, 2021. A still-hosted, separate Fee Schedule PDF lists this same classification at 0.25% instead of 0%; that figure is treated here as superseded by the current 0% rate shown on the tax-return form Huntington businesses actually file today, since the waiver postdates that schedule's own internal date stamp. A business must still file a quarterly return even when the tax due is $0.00.
City Service Fee
A flat $5.00-per-week fee on every full-time or part-time worker and qualifying self-employed individual who regularly reports to a physical location or works from home within Huntington — higher than Charleston's $3.00-per-week City Service Fee. The employer withholds the fee each pay period and remits it, or a qualifying self-employed individual remits it directly; an annual Employer Worksheet reconciles accounts. The fee is codified at Article 772, and the General Business License at § 735.06 (see that record above); the B&O Tax figures on this page come from the City's B&O Tax page and tax-return form rather than a codified section.
Business and Occupation (B&O) Privilege Tax — Service and All Other Business
Neither the City's own B&O Tax webpage nor its current tax return form maps childcare, fitness-studio, auto-repair, veterinary, or salon businesses to a specific classification by name — the same ambiguity as in Charleston's materials. Classification 12 ('Service and All Other Business,' 0.5%) is the most plausible fit for these five industries given the rate table's own structure (which otherwise only names natural-resource extraction, manufacturing, retail/wholesale, utilities, contracting, amusement, rents/royalties, lending, and banking classifications), although the City's own materials do not themselves state that mapping.
Fitness Studio/Gym Municipal License (not found)
No fee applies. The City's own current, comprehensive Fee Schedule lists no gym- or fitness-specific license anywhere. The Zoning Ordinance's own permitted-use table has no 'gymnasium' or 'fitness studio' category by that name; the closest listed use, 'Commercial Recreational Facilities (Indoors)' (which the ordinance's own definition names as including roller-blade rental, billiard parlors, and ice-skating rinks among similar businesses), is permitted by right in C-2, C-3, I-1, and I-2, and a Conditional Use in C-1 only — recorded in this file's Conditional Use Permit record. A fitness studio's Huntington-specific obligations are otherwise the same General Business License, B&O Tax, and Certificate of Occupancy requirements recorded elsewhere in this file.
Auto Repair Shop Municipal License (not found)
No fee applies. The City's own current Fee Schedule itemizes every city business license by name (General Business License, Rental General Business License, Contractor License, Electrical Contractor, Hawker/Peddler, Itinerant Vendor, Real Estate Broker, Real Estate Sales Agent, and several liquor/beer categories), and none of them is auto-repair-specific. The Zoning Ordinance does substantively regulate 'Auto Service Station and Repair Shop' as a land use — Section 1341.11 requires all storage, pits, lifts, and repair work to be within an enclosed building and caps outdoor storage of vehicles awaiting repair at six vehicles for up to five days each — a genuine zoning-level finding, but not a licensed business type or fee. An auto repair shop's Huntington-specific obligations are otherwise the same General Business License, B&O Tax, Certificate of Occupancy, and Conditional Use requirements (in the C-1 and I-1 districts specifically) recorded elsewhere in this file.
Veterinary Facility Municipal License (not found)
No fee applies. The City's own current, comprehensive Fee Schedule lists no veterinary-specific license anywhere. The Zoning Ordinance's own definitions section defines 'Animal Hospital/Clinic' as a use 'intended or used primarily for the testing and treatment of animals on an emergency or outpatient basis; synonymous with veterinary hospital,' listed as its own permitted-use category (permitted by right in C-2, C-3, and I-2; a Conditional Use in C-1 and I-1) separately from 'Animal Boarding and Training,' which carries its own distance-from-residential-property standard under Section 1341.53 — genuine zoning-level findings, but not a licensed business type or fee. West Virginia's own state Veterinary Facility Registration, recorded at the state layer, remains the real trade-specific credential; a Huntington veterinary practice's local obligations are otherwise the same General Business License, B&O Tax, and Certificate of Occupancy requirements recorded elsewhere in this file, plus a Conditional Use Permit if located in the C-1 or I-1 district.
Salon/Barber/Cosmetology Municipal License (not found)
No fee applies. Unlike Charleston, which still enforces a genuine 1938-era Barbers and Beauticians ordinance pricing a $2.00 individual license and a $20.00 shop license, Huntington has no equivalent: the City's own current, comprehensive Fee Schedule itemizes every other city business license by name and includes none for barbers, beauticians, or cosmetology, and no dedicated barber/salon ordinance page or PDF is published on the City's own site. The Zoning Ordinance's own 'Personal Service' use category (which its own definition lists as including 'barber and beauty shops' among similar establishments) is permitted by right in every commercial and industrial district with no Conditional Use exposure. This project treats this as a genuine, confirmed difference from Charleston rather than an unchecked assumption — though, as with the auto-repair, veterinary, and fitness-studio records above, this project could not directly inspect a complete codified-ordinance table of contents for Huntington's own Business Regulation part to rule out a long-dormant, unadministered chapter (see this file's Access Note). A salon's Huntington-specific obligations are otherwise the same General Business License, B&O Tax, and Certificate of Occupancy requirements recorded elsewhere in this file, plus the Home Occupation Permit above if operated as a one-chair shop from a home with no products sold on-site.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Huntington
- Phone
- (304) 696-5540
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.
- Business & Occupation (B&O) Tax — the City's own current overview, confirming quarterly filing and stating 'Mayor Williams waived Retail, Restaurant, & Others B&O Tax Classification (5)' effective September 13, 2021City of Huntington, Finance Division · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
- Business and Occupation Tax Return — the City's own current fillable return, listing Retailers/Restaurants/Others (Code 5) at 0%, Contractors (Code 10) at 2%, and Service and All Other Business (Code 12) at 0.5%City of Huntington, Finance Division · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
- City of Huntington Fee Schedule — the City's own current, comprehensive cross-departmental fee schedule, pricing the General Business License ($20), Certificate of Occupancy ($75), Home Occupation ($30), Sign Permits ($5/$10), Building Permit Application ($20 plus cost), zoning filing fees ($160-$350), the City Service Fee ($5/week), and the full 15-classification B&O rate tableCity of Huntington · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
- City Service Fee — the City's own current page pricing the fee at $5.00/week and citing Article 772 of the Code of OrdinancesCity of Huntington, Finance Division · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
- Codified Ordinances of the City of Huntington, § 735.06 (Imposition of Annual Municipal Business License and Tax Thereon) — the codified ordinance itself, read via a rendered-browser fetch of library.municode.com, confirming the $20 General Business License Tax and exempting an independent contractor or sole proprietor earning under $2,500/year with no permanent physical location in the cityCity of Huntington, via Municode · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Huntington Business License (New Business) — the City's own current summary pricing the General Business License at $20.00, annual, July 1-June 30City of Huntington, Finance Division · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
- Zoning Ordinance of the City of Huntington, West Virginia (enacted 12/14/1998, last updated 6/16/2023) — the City's own complete current zoning text, including Table 1320.A (Permitted Uses), Article 1341 (General Regulations, including Section 1341.09 Day Care, Section 1341.11 Auto Service Station and Repair Shop, and Section 1341.22 Home Occupation), Article 1345 (Sign Regulations), Article 1357 (Filing Fees), Article 1359 (Conditional Use), and Article 1361 (Board of Zoning Appeals)City of Huntington, Department of Planning and Development · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-11
Other offices serving Huntington
The full permit list for this jurisdiction
Industry permit lists that include this agency
West Virginia jurisdictions
Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.