A salon in Austin runs on a state establishment licence plus an Austin certificate of occupancy. They come from different governments, renew on different clocks, and neither one tells you about the other.
Issued by Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). The licence covers the premises; every stylist working in it also holds an individual licence.
| TDLR establishment licence | Fee |
|---|---|
| Barbering & cosmetology establishment renewal (full-service, mobile and specialty) | $78 |
| Renewal expired 90 days or less | 1½ × the normal renewal fee |
| Renewal expired more than 90 days but under 18 months | 2 × the normal renewal fee |
City of Austin certificate of occupancy through Development Services. This is the half that depends on your building rather than your trade, and it is usually the half that delays an opening.
A certificate of occupancy is the City's proof that a structure is habitable for its legal use. If the unit you are taking was not previously a salon, you go through Austin's Change of Use process to get an updated certificate reflecting your planned use.
You will also need a Travis County Clerk assumed name (DBA) filing if you trade under a name that is not the entity’s.
Austin treats a salon fit-out in a unit that was not previously a salon as a change of use, which is a certificate-of-occupancy question before it is a licensing one.
Austin cut change-of-use review from eleven disciplines to three, taking the typical timeline from about two months down to roughly two weeks. Advice written before that date will still tell you to allow two months.
Register with Texas Secretary of State — the Texas LLC filing fee was $300 when we last checked, so confirm it with the office — and with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts for a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit if you sell retail product alongside services.
Check whether your opening date is legally possible — free. Put in the business type and the address and you get the target date against the earliest legal open, with every permit, fee and deadline cited to the official source.
The full stack — every permit in filing order, the calendar, and the certificate-of-occupancy packet — is $49, one-time, no subscription. Through 30 September the code DEADLINE takes it to $29 in Austin. It is a live link your landlord or lender can verify themselves, not a PDF.
Checked at the official sources listed above on 2 September 2026. Fees and procedures change without notice and the agency’s own page is always the authority — this is a heads-up to go and look, not legal advice, and BondPermit does not file anything on anyone’s behalf.