The line Registration and licences

A beauty business is licensed by the work, not by the name of the trade.

There is no application form headed beauty licence. Five states are set out below, each with the instrument it uses and the words it uses for the work: a notification to a council, a premises registration, a licence for higher risk services, a code applied as a local law, or a power the Director holds. Where a state's law cannot be stated here, the section says so.

General information about the law for beauty businesses in each state, not legal or health advice. Your council or state health department has the final word.

the skin hairdressing N V Q make-up N V Q manicure and pedicure N V Q lash and brow V Q

NSW Health counts nail work where a treatment involves skin penetration, and its notification form lists manicures and pedicures among the procedures businesses notify.

Light

commercial solarium V Q banned Victoria: management licences cancelled from the commencement on 1 January 2015. banned Queensland: a banned radiation source, a relevant solarium.

laser hair removal N V Q W S T A NT The NSW Public Health Regulation 2022 declares laser hair removal not to be a skin penetration procedure, so it sits above the line.

IPL, intense pulsed light N V Q W S T A NT

ARPANSA's page, as it stood in October 2026, listed cosmetic lasers as regulated only in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia, and IPL only in Tasmania; in the remaining states and territories it listed no licensing requirements at all.

Through the skin

waxing N V Q W

electrolysis N V Q W

cosmetic tattooing N V Q W

ear and body piercing N V Q W Queensland leaves out ear or nose piercing done with a closed instrument and a sterilised single-use cartridge.

body art tattooing N V Q W

Cosmetic injectables are medical. This guide stops here. NSW Health's beauty treatment page says prescription-only medicines given by injection, such as botulinum toxin and injectable dermal fillers, can only be administered by a registered medical practitioner or a nurse practitioner.

Letters, left to right: N New South Wales, V Victoria, Q Queensland, W Western Australia, S South Australia, T Tasmania, A the ACT, NT the Northern Territory.

A solid letter: the state's law asks something of that work.

An outlined letter: the state's skin penetration law leaves it out, or, for lasers and IPL, ARPANSA's list shows no licensing there. Other rules may still apply.

A blank: nothing is held here either way, so ask the state.

Each service below the line is set against the same four states: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

New South Wales: notify the council, and a licence for tattoos

New South Wales does not license a salon as a salon. It regulates procedures, and it does that through the Public Health Act 2010 and the Public Health Regulation 2022.

The Act's definition is broad: it reaches any procedure, medical or not, that involves skin penetration, naming acupuncture, tattooing, ear piercing and hair removal, and the penetration of a mucous membrane. The Regulation then puts two procedures on either side of the line: colonic lavage is declared a skin penetration procedure, and laser hair removal is declared not to be one.

What that leaves a business with is a notice to its local council, not an annual licence. The occupier of premises where skin penetration procedures are carried out must give the council notice of the procedures, in the approved form, before they are carried out, and the notice must carry the fee the council determines, not exceeding the amount in the Regulation's Schedule 5, which lists $105 for the notification. A change in the information given must be notified within 7 days, and no fee is payable for that.

The council keeps a register of those premises, holding the address and telephone number, the occupier's contact details, any ABN or ACN, the type of procedures carried out, the inspections it has made, and, for mobile premises, the local government areas the occupier intends to work in.

Body art tattooing is the exception that does carry licences of its own. A body art tattooing business must hold a master licence to carry on at its premises, and a separate master licence is needed for each set of premises; an individual must not perform a body art tattooing procedure for fee or reward without a tattooist licence, unless they are self-employed and do the work at premises for which they hold the master licence, work under a visiting tattooist permit, or fall within other circumstances the regulations prescribe. A licence is nominated for a term of 1, 3 or 5 years. The Act's own definition of body art tattooing excludes cosmetic tattooing, which is why the two words in the tally carry the same letter by different routes.

Victoria: register the premises

Victoria registers premises, and it does so by class of business. The Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 defines the classes, and registration is with the council for the district the premises are in.

The classes that matter here are beauty therapy, skin penetration, tattooing, and, at the lighter end, the business of applying cosmetics that involves no skin penetration or tattooing, and hairdressing. A business in one of the lighter classes may register on an ongoing basis rather than a periodic one, but only if it conducts no other business the Act lists at the same premises. A salon that also offers beauty therapy, skin penetration or tattooing there must register on a periodic basis, unless a regulation exempts it.

Mobile businesses are treated apart from shopfronts: a mobile hairdresser, a mobile beauty therapist and a mobile cosmetic application service, where the service involves neither skin penetration nor tattooing, stand outside the registration requirement except at the business's own principal place of business.

Registration comes with a notice to the public. An approved notice must be shown at the entrance, and it tells clients that registration covers infection control only, not the quality or safety of the treatments. The department's own page is blunt about the other limit: its regulations do not judge how good a service is, or how skilled or qualified the people giving it are. Advertising about registration must be accurate; false or misleading advertising relating to registration is an offence.

Queensland: a licence for higher risk services

Queensland licenses the work it calls higher risk, and nothing lighter. The Public Health (Infection Control for Personal Appearance Services) Act 2003 covers beauty therapy, hairdressing and skin penetration provided as part of a business transaction.

A higher risk personal appearance service is one involving a skin penetration procedure in which the release of blood or another bodily fluid is an expected result, and the Act lists body piercing, implanting natural or synthetic substances into the skin, scarring or cutting the skin to make a permanent mark, and tattooing; the Regulation adds tattoo removal. A person must not carry on a business providing those services without a licence, the maximum penalty is 500 penalty units, and the services may only be provided from premises stated on the licence.

Two conditions attach to the licence that surprise people. First, the person providing a higher risk service must hold an infection control qualification, and a business proprietor must make sure every operator they engage holds one; the qualification is set by regulation as the competency HLTINF005, Maintain infection prevention for skin penetration treatments. Second, a licensee who intends to provide the services from mobile premises in a second local government area must notify that local government at least 7 days before, unless it agrees to a shorter period.

Everything lighter is a non-higher risk service, which the Act defines as any personal appearance service other than a higher risk one. A proprietor starting such a business must give notice to the local government only if a local law requires it, and then within 30 days of starting. Over every service, higher risk or not, sits one duty: the operator must take all reasonable precautions and care to minimise the infection risk, with a maximum penalty of 500 penalty units.

Where the infection control qualification is written into the licence

Western Australia: a code applied as a local law

Western Australia's instrument is a regulation that behaves like a local law, and a code of practice it adopts in full.

The Health (Skin Penetration Procedure) Regulations 1998 define their terms first: a client is a person on whom a procedure is being or is to be carried out, whether or not for fee or gain; an operator is the person who carries one out; and an owner is the owner of the establishment or, where the owner is not the occupier, the occupier. The regulations apply to all districts of the state as if they were local laws made under the Act, and do not apply to a place used solely as a surgery by a medical practitioner or a dentist.

The teeth are in the code. An owner who does not ensure the establishment complies with the code commits an offence, as does an owner who lets a procedure be carried out otherwise than in accordance with it, and an operator who does the procedure otherwise than in accordance with it. The regulations set the same scale for all three: between $100 and $1,000 for a first offence, $200 to $1,000 for a second, and $500 to $1,000 for a third or later. Only the first of the three offences, an owner not ensuring the establishment complies with the code, also carries a daily penalty of $50 to $100 for a continuing offence.

The code itself is a working document. In it, skin penetration procedures are sorted into three levels, non-critical, semi-critical and critical, with cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation attaching to each; a work area is to have at least two sinks, one for hands and one for cleaning instruments; and it carries special requirements for beauty therapy procedures, body piercing and tattooing.

Tasmania: a power the Director holds

Tasmania's Public Health Act 1997 does not list trades either. It creates a category, a public health risk activity, meaning any activity that may result in the transmission of disease, and then gives the Director of Public Health two powers.

The Director may require, by public notice, that premises where a specified public health risk activity is carried out be registered; a person must comply, and the penalty is a fine not exceeding 100 penalty units. The Director may also require, by public notice, that a person or class of person who carries out a specified public health risk activity be licensed, with the same penalty for non-compliance.

Registration is applied for at the relevant council, in an approved form, lodged at the council's public office with the applicable fee; it lasts for 12 months from the date of issue or the period on the certificate, whichever is less. A licence is applied for the same way, and lasts 12 months or the period on the licence, whichever is less. A council may grant a licence subject to conditions, or refuse it, and in deciding it is to consider whether the applicant is competent to carry out the activity in accordance with any relevant guidelines, and the protection of public health.

Which activities the Director has required to be registered or licensed is not set out on this page. The Act states the power; which trades it has been used for is on the Department of Health's own pages, and that is where a Tasmanian business should read next.

South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory

For South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory, this guide does not set out what the law asks of a beauty business. A blank letter is not a statement that there is no law. Each has health legislation and a regulator, and the next page to read is the state or territory health department's own, or the local council.