Treatments and age limits question
isitbannedintheuk.co.uk · Answer card
There's no single UK-wide licence for beauty treatments. What's needed depends on the treatment, where you are and whether an exemption applies. Some treatments need council registration, a personal licence or approved premises. Scotland brings in a wider licensing scheme on 6 September 2027. Further reforms in England are still proposals.
Where the council has adopted the rules
Council registrationA business doing tattooing, semi-permanent skin-colouring, cosmetic piercing or electrolysis must register itself and its premises with the council. Acupuncture has its own registration. These rules only apply where the council has resolved to adopt them, and a council can adopt different parts. Doctors, and people working under a doctor's supervision, are exempt; for acupuncture, so are dentists.
Where the borough has adopted the rules
Special treatment licencePremises used for special treatment need a licence from the borough. Special treatment includes massage, manicure, acupuncture, tattooing, cosmetic piercing, chiropody, and light, electric or other special treatment. Exemptions cover registered doctors, dentists for acupuncture, and members of a professional body that has given the borough written notice that it keeps a register, requires qualifications and experience, requires indemnity insurance, has a code of conduct and has disciplinary procedures. Licence conditions can include the qualifications of the people giving treatment.
Since 29 November 2024
Personal licence and approved premisesAnyone performing acupuncture, body piercing, electrolysis or tattooing (including semi-permanent make-up) as a business needs a special procedure licence, and the premises or vehicle must be approved by the council. Members of the statutory healthcare professions, such as doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists, are treated as exempt from the personal licence unless regulations say otherwise.
Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982
Council licenceBusinesses providing skin piercing or tattooing need a council licence. Skin piercing includes acupuncture, cosmetic body piercing and electrolysis, and tattooing includes micropigmentation. Regulated healthcare professionals don't need this licence.
Licensing of Non-surgical Procedures Order 2026
Wider licence startsA licence will also be needed for a list of skin treatments. Examples include superficial chemical peels, microneedling below 1.5 mm excluding radiofrequency microneedling, non-ablative laser and IPL, HIFU, radiofrequency treatments not delivered through microneedles, cryolipolysis and electrocautery. NHS treatment, treatment of an illness by a healthcare provider, procedures using a prescription anaesthetic, most intimate-area procedures, tattooing and piercing, and procedures in excepted premises (such as registered clinics run by prescribers, GP and dental premises, and registered pharmacies) are outside it. Someone who applies before 6 September 2027 isn't guilty of the unlicensed-activity offence while the application, and any appeal, is undecided.
Where the council has adopted the rules
Council registrationA business doing tattooing, semi-permanent skin-colouring, cosmetic piercing or electrolysis must register itself and its premises with the council. Acupuncture has its own registration. These rules only apply where the council has resolved to adopt them. Doctors, and people working under a doctor's supervision, are exempt.
The Health and Care Act 2022 lets the government bring in a wider licensing scheme for cosmetic procedures in England, but it hasn't done so yet. Separately, a consultation open until 13 January 2027 proposes restricting the highest-risk procedures to named healthcare professionals in CQC-registered services. These are proposals, not law yet.
A person shall not in any area in England in which this section is in force carry on the business— (a) of tattooing; (aa) of semi-permanent skin-colouring; (b) of cosmetic piercing; or (c) of electrolysis, unless he is registered by the local authority for the area under this section.
An individual who performs a special procedure on someone else in the course of a business must do so under the authority of a special procedure licence, unless the individual performing the procedure is exempt from the requirement to be licensed in respect of that procedure.
Whether your council has adopted the rules, or what its byelaws or licence conditions say. Ask the council's licensing or environmental health team. This page also doesn't cover planning permission or insurance.
isitbannedintheuk.co.uk/rules/beauty-salon-licence/ · Last checked 2 November 2026
General information from official sources, checked on the date shown. Not legal or medical advice. © The Contract Studio UK Ltd
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