A salon in Houston runs on a state establishment licence plus a Houston 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 Houston certificate of occupancy and fire clearance, handled through the Houston Permitting Center. This is the half that depends on your building rather than your trade, and it is usually the half that delays an opening.
Every tenant of a commercial building or individual lease space must hold a valid certificate of occupancy before the space is occupied. A salon moving into a unit that held one under a previous tenant does not inherit it.
You will also need a Harris County Clerk assumed name (DBA) record if you trade under a name that is not the entity’s.
Houston runs occupancy and fire through the Permitting Center; the chair licence itself never touches the City.
Houston voids a certificate of occupancy application if payment is not made within five calendar days of receiving the payment link. It is the shortest deadline in the whole process and it runs before you have done anything wrong.
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 Houston. 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.