What permits do you need to open a salon or barber in Salt Lake City?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 12 records listed for a salon or barber in Salt Lake City, UT, 6 apply to every business of this type and 6 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

5 of the 12 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 4 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

General Business Licence: A base Commercial licence fee of $193/year (risen from $187 before September 2025), plus $28/year for every full- or part-time employee once the business has more than one. Several specific trades owe a further named-category fee on top — see the individual industry records below.

Building Permit (Commercial): Priced by total project valuation on a stepped table: $54.55 flat up to $500; $54.55 plus $4 per additional $100 (or fraction) from $500.01-$2,000; $114.55 plus $20 per additional $1,000 (or fraction) from $2,000.01-$25,000; $574.55 plus $14 per additional $1,000 from $25,000.01-$50,000; $924.55 plus $10 per additional $1,000 from $50,000.01-$100,000; $1,424.55 plus $8 per additional $1,000 from $100,000.01-$500,000; $4,624.55 plus $7 per additional $1,000 from $500,000.01-$1,000,000; and $8,124.55 plus $5 per additional $1,000 (or fraction) above $1,000,000. A plan review fee of 65% of the building permit fee applies separately.

Sign Permit: Priced on the same valuation-based Building Permit Fee Schedule as the general building permit, plus a plan-checking fee of $0.15 per dollar of the calculated building permit fee (roughly a 15% surcharge) and a $16 inspection tag fee per inspection.

Zoning Verification Letter: $84 filing fee, plus $61 per hour of additional research time if the review extends beyond the first hour.

Cosmetology Facility Permit: Plan Review and Initial Permit: $305 plus $20/station. Permit Renewal: $220 plus $20/station. Follow-Up Inspection: $135. Temporary Cosmetology Facility Permit: $110 plus $20/station.

Permits for a salon or barber in Salt Lake City, UT come from 7 separate offices: City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing Division, City of Salt Lake City, Department of Community and Neighborhoods, Building Services Division, City of Salt Lake City, Planning Division, Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau), Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Utah State Tax Commission, Utah Division of Professional Licensing. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: General Business Licence451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-6644www.slc.gov/Finance/business-licensing
• City of Salt Lake City, Department of Community and Neighborhoods, Building Services DivisionIssues 3 permits on this page: Building Permit (Commercial), Sign Permit, Certificate of Occupancy451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-6000www.slc.gov/buildingservices/building-permits
• City of Salt Lake City, Planning DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Zoning Verification Letter451 South State Street, Room 406, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-7757www.slc.gov/planning/zoning
• Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau)Issues 1 permit on this page: Cosmetology Facility Permit788 East Woodoak Lane (5380 South), Murray, UT 84107 · (385) 468-3845www.saltlakecounty.gov/health/food-protection
• Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial CodeIssues 4 permits on this page: General Business Licence (not required by Utah), Certificate of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Renewal160 East 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 530-4849corporations.utah.gov
• Utah State Tax CommissionIssues 1 permit on this page: Sales and Use Tax Licence210 North 1950 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84134 · (801) 297-2200tax.utah.gov
• Utah Division of Professional LicensingIssues 1 permit on this page: Salon or Barbershop Establishment Licence (not required by Utah)160 East 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 530-6628commerce.utah.gov/dopl

Mandatory for anyone conducting business — even temporarily — within Salt Lake City's corporate limits, per the Finance Department's own description; the licensing review itself is what confirms zoning, fire-code and building-code compliance rather than a separate stand-alone certificate. A commonly repeated '$100 non-refundable application fee' appears on several third-party small-business sites but does not match the city's own Consolidated Fee Schedule, which is used here instead.

Applied for through the Citizen Access Portal, with plans submitted through ProjectDox. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits are priced on their own separate tables within the same Consolidated Fee Schedule rather than folded into this figure. New structures, additions, commercial changes of use, and historic-district work should start at the Planning Counter (801-535-7700) before applying.

Starting work before the permit is issued can double the fee, per the same code section. Available as a fillable form on the Building Services applications-forms page.

No fee is published for this certificate anywhere this research could find — Building Services' own page confirms the office issues Certificates of Occupancy and gives a direct contact (801-535-6000), but neither that page nor a section-by-section read of the Community and Neighborhoods portion of the Consolidated Fee Schedule (which otherwise itemizes building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, fencing and boarding-registration fees individually) names a separate dollar figure for it. It may be folded into the building permit fee already paid rather than charged again; confirm treatment for a specific project directly with Building Services before assuming it is free of charge.

An advisory letter documenting a property's current legal use, whether that use conforms to current zoning, and whether the building can be rebuilt, open permits, or associated variances exist — most often requested by lenders, buyers or appraisers rather than required to open a business. Submitted through the Citizen Access Portal; the Planning Division's own process states a 1-2 day turnaround once a planner is assigned. The Consolidated Fee Schedule prices a similarly-scoped 'Administrative Interpretation' at a slightly lower $81, which this file records as a related but distinct product rather than assuming it is the same fee under a different name.

Utah's own cosmetology board (DOPL) licenses only the individual practitioner, never the salon itself, per the state layer's own findings — this county permit is the actual premises-level requirement for a Salt Lake City salon. The same fee schedule prices near-identical Body Art (tattoo/piercing) and Tanning facility categories separately, for a salon that also offers those services. On the city's own Business Licensing fee schedule, a salon pays only the base Commercial licence fee (recorded above) — no separate salon or barbershop category exists there.

No fee, because Utah's state-level structure is entity registration rather than business licensing — the Division of Corporations frames the question as whether another unit of government requires registration, not as a licence the state itself grants for the right to operate. A city or county licence is the thing that actually functions as a general business licence for most Utah businesses.

Fifty-nine dollars, the same figure whether the entity is domestic or registering in from out of state. A corporation costs the identical $59 to form.

The same $59 as an LLC, and a nonprofit corporation costs the same again.

Eighteen dollars a year, the same figure for an LLC or a corporation, due in the entity's own anniversary month rather than a single date shared statewide. Missing it is not immediately fatal: the statute gives sixty days from the division's notice to cure before administrative dissolution follows, and reinstating after dissolution costs $54 for an LLC or a corporation. A dissolved entity's name, and any assumed names filed under it, cannot be reused by anyone else for two years afterward.

No fee — the state's own combined business and tax registration form lists a line for the sales and use tax licence alongside every other tax account a business might need, and nowhere on the form does a dollar amount attach to it. Once registered, a business is assigned a filing cycle, monthly, quarterly or annual, and must file on that cycle even in a period with no sales.

No fee, because Utah licenses the cosmetologist or barber, never the salon or shop itself. The professional licensing division's own current fee schedule has no salon, shop or establishment line under either the cosmetology or the barbering section — a genuine gap rather than an oversight, since the same document does carry an explicit $250 establishment fee for a funeral home and a $145 one for a massage establishment. A commonly repeated claim that Utah charges $250 for a salon establishment appears to be that funeral home figure, misattributed. Every individual working in a salon must hold their own licence — barber, cosmetologist, esthetician, nail technician or hair designer, each $60 to apply and $52 to renew on a two-year cycle expiring 30 September of odd-numbered years — and operating with an unlicensed practitioner is a violation attributed to the location even though the location itself holds no licence.