Rules and Regulations That Affect Beauty Businesses in the UK: What To Know Before You Start

Launching your own beauty salon is a step many take to becoming their own boss. In 2024, over 1,000 beauty and nail salons opened. It remains an important vehicle for social mobility, and this guide will walk you through the beauty salon rules and regulations that you need to know. 

Beauty Business Regulations in the UK: What New Owners Need to Know

Beauty salon regulations in the UK are both national and regional. For example, the tax registration applies to all beauty businesses, but local bylaws may govern certain services, like electrolysis. You therefore need to check local guidance for the full scope of beauty industry regulations.

Consult the HSE and NHBF for national regulatory advice. 

Here are the main regulations to be aware of as a British beauty salon:

• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974: This is the main blanket legislation. It outlines the fundamental duty of care to all UK businesses, keeping staff and clients safe.
  
• COSHH: Most beauty salons have chemicals around (nail monomers, lash glues, peroxide, etc.). COSHH rules are around storage and safe usage. Document COSHH assessments if you have five or more employees.
  
• Consumer Protection Laws & Digital Markets: Every operator must trade fairly, and these are the rules on refunds, pricing, complaints, and so on.
  
• Health and safety checks: Inspections from environmental health officers and fire safety.
  
• Workplace Regulations 1992: Structural, spatial, and ventilation rules.
  
• HSE: HSE SR13 is advisory guidance, not legislation.

As you can see, on a national level, beauty does not receive a large amount of specific regulation.

Registering Your Beauty Business and Choosing a Legal Structure

Launching a business in the UK is relatively straightforward, taking just a few hours to a few days, depending on the legal structure. Here are the three most common structures for a UK beauty salon.

Legal Structure	Description & Considerations
Sole Trader	The most common and the easiest. You run the business as an individual, you keep the profits after tax, and you are personally responsible. Submit a Self Assessment.
Limited Company	The business has more separation from you, both legally and financially. Stricter reporting (Companies House) and higher accounting standards.
Partnership	You and your partner(s) share responsibility for the business.

General advice is that the net benefits of being a limited company grow as your revenue and staffing grow. Given that incorporation (moving from sole trader to limited company) is quite straightforward, and costs around £100, you can start as a sole trader, hire an accountant, and find a natural time together when to make the jump.

If your turnover exceeds £90,000, you must register for VAT. This means you must account for VAT on all taxable supplies. 

National Insurance is something you must pay when paying staff. But with the Secondary Threshold falling from £9,100 to £5,000, and the rate rising to 15%, you may consider switching to self-employed workers rather than employing staff, especially if the recruitment crisis continues. 20% of businesses in this sector said they would make the switch.

Around two-thirds of UK beauty salonshave an annual turnover of under £99,000

Local Council Licences and Permissions

Specific licensing requirements and regulations for beauty salons vary across the UK. It’s surprisingly fragmented. 

Local authorities will look at beauty procedures through local byelaws and licensing, such as:

• Special treatment licenses: In London, aromatherapy, body massage, facials, manicures, and pedicures may be classed as special treatments due to hygiene, machines or heat. Outside of London, they are likely not broadly licensed. NVQ and VTCT might be checked.
  
• High-risk treatments: Under the same special treatment licenses, higher risk treatments like laser therapies, piercing, and tattooing may have stricter rules (e.g., designated sharp bins, special fire safety, more ventilation).
  
• Hairdressing registration: Councils can require all hairdressers (including barbers) to register their premises.
  
• Compliance checks: Local authorities are tied to formal, and national, premises and license inspections. 

Tactic consent may not apply here, and you may need your license granted before performing your first treatment.

Example: If Bella’s Beauty wants to expand its services from facials to laser therapies, Bella cannot simply start offering them. She must consult local licenses, possibly gaining a special treatment license and adhering to more premises rules.

Health and Safety Rules for Beauty Salons and Mobile Beauticians

Under the broader beauty salon health and safety regulations, there is a duty of care to protect both customers and employees. COSHH assessments are legally required regarding hazardous substances, but the duty to write down findings applies only to salons employing five or more staff.

Risk assessments should be conducted to find general workplace hazards (template here). 

These ask things like: 

• Who collects the heavy deliveries? 
• What are you doing to control the risks of wet floors?
• How do you deal with abusive behaviour?
• How do you store cleaning chemicals?
• If trapped, could staff escape from a fire?

However, treatment-specific guides exist, such as SR12 (for electrolysis, piercing, tattoo) and SR13 (nail bars and other beauty services). These cover:

• Warnings on acrylic liquid causing dermatitis and vapour causing irritation
• PPE for the chemicals used
• Blood-borne viruses that can be transmitted to clients

There are many more hazards and suggestions, like equipment maintenance, fire safety measures, and other risk assessments. But, HSE manages to reduce these fact sheets down to four pages or so – printing them out and pinning them up in the staff room is a good move.

70% of hairdressers suffer from skin damage, such as work-related dermatitis, at some point in their career

Hygiene, Sanitation, and Infection Control

Hygiene standards are everything within a beauty salon – not only for safety, but client confidence and trust. 

Salons should differentiate between sterilisation and disinfection processes so they can keep a clinical environment. Invasive or skin-piercing tools in particular need strict sterilisation procedures, such as an autoclave running at 134°C for 3 minutes.

Hard surfaces and treatment beds need regular disinfection (1,000 ppm chlorine solution). Blood spills must be treated immediately with a stronger solution (10,000 ppm chlorine solution). 

Waste disposal policies are also recommended so that hazardous materials are properly dealt with.

• Collection: Controlled waste must be legally collected, then documented.
  
• Clinical waste: Soft items contaminated with human tissue/fluids (e.g., cotton wool, wax strips) must be disposed of in the colour-coded clinical waste bags, while sharp items (e.g., razor blades and needles) are placed into rigid colour-coded sharps containers. Segregation depends on HTM 07-01 guidance.

These rules, while they are seemingly about your environment, carry through regardless of location. A mobile nail tech needs to keep with them safe and legal ways to dispose of acrylic dust, chemical wipes, contaminated items, all in their designated bins. You cannot turn up at a client’s home and throw it in their household bin.

Qualifications, Training, and Treatment Restrictions

Training standards are important for regulatory, insurance, and client satisfaction purposes. While precise compliance comes down to what local council you’re in, a good starting place is to categorise services into risk bands and make sure staff qualifications and training reflect this.

• Low-to-medium risk: Standard beauty therapies like manicures, nails, and massage
• High-risk: Laser, IPL, chemical peels, etc.
• Injectables & non-surgical clinical procedures: Botulinum toxin, dermal fillers, invasive skin treatments

With the new demand from the public for these advanced and invasive producers, policy is catching up in response. Scotland recently passed a bill called Non-surgical Procedures and Functions of Medical Reviewers, one pillar of which is that certain higher-risk treatments must be performed or managed by qualified healthcare professionals, and HIS can inspect premises. It is also bringing in a minimum age (18) law for these treatments.

This is a regulatory space that is expecting changes across the UK because of the widespread adoption of new treatments. We can expect more emphasis on higher-level Ofqual-regulated qualifications, such as Level 7 Diploma in Clinical Aesthetics, for certain treatments.

In response to the calls for more oversight in aesthetics, the government is working on a national licensing scheme. Professional standards are expected to align with Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners’ risk-based framework. It’s a model that classifies high-risk (“red-rated”) procedures, like liquid BBLs, to be carried out by qualified medical professionals. This has yet to pass in the UK broadly, but it’s something that all beauty salon owners must track and respond to if they do.

While any qualified staff will have already undergone training during their education, there will be gaps in their training relating to regulations and business. 

For example:

• Checking IDs to prevent underage clients from using sunbeds or high-risk treatments
• Following industry news and science to properly inform clients
• Fire safety, waste disposal, hygiene standards 
• How to use the POS system, collect payments, and deal with cash

Given the staffing shortage issues, one way to recruit staff while improving your salon’s services might be to offer paid training courses and further qualifications. This could save on income tax and National Insurance (when deducted from salary), help improve compliance, and attract loyal, productive, and ambitious staff.

Insurance Requirements for Beauty Businesses

Every beauty treatment carries its own risk, as does the machinery and inventory in the salon. You must take insurance obligations seriously.

Insurance Type	Coverage Details
Employers’ Liability	The only insurance legally required by law at a national level. It’s needed when employing staff, including apprentices. This covers compensation claims from employees who fall ill or suffer an injury due to the work.
Public Liability	Recommended to cover general accidents on the premises, like a client slipping on a wet floor or tripping over a nail UV lamp cable. It does not cover treatment errors.
Treatment Risk Liability	Recommended for service providers to cover compensation claims (and subsequent legal defence) from the treatments you perform.
Mobile Beauty Insurance	Recommended for mobile therapists who visit clients at their own home, to cover their specialist equipment while in transit and protecting you when in new environments.

As demonstrated, it’s not just brick-and-mortar beauty salons that need to be insured, but those working out of their own home or on wheels. 

Remember, paying for insurance itself isn’t enough – you must document and keep an audit trail for proof when raising a claim.

Employment, Self-Employed Staff, and Chair or Room Rental Rules

Depending on the size of the salon, you are likely to employ between 1 and 10 members of staff. When structuring your workforce, you need to consider whether to hire employees, hire self-employed freelancers, or even rent a chair/room to other beauty business owners.

Over 80% of beauty businesses employ fewer than five people; 95% employ fewer than ten people.

HMRC is closely scrutinising disguised employment, a situation where a beauty salon officially classifies a worker as self-employed (freelancer) but actually treats them like an employee. 

Signs of this include:

• Dictating their working hours
• Paid by the salon, not clients
• Setting all their treatment prices
• Providing their tools
• Not allowing them to hire substitute help
• Controlling their client bookings

Non-compliance here could leave you with heavy fines, possibly years of backdated National Insurance contributions and mandatory holiday pay.

An important one here is pay. It’s recommended that freelancers be paid by their clients directly rather than receiving wages from the salon. Contrary to popular belief, it’s easy for freelancers to accept payments, and they can even do so with their iPhone via the myPOS platform, for example. 

Payment solutions for beauty businesses start from £29 with myPOS, and when receipts are sent over email/SMS, this is all you may need to get started.

It’s important to separate tips here, as processing freelance tips through the salon’s payroll could trigger a HMRC red flag, making them appear as an employee.

58% of people working in hair and beauty are self-employed

Product Safety, Cosmetic Sales, and Labelling Rules

Regulations for beauty salon services and products differ. It’s important to ask whether you’re going to sell your own-brand products, as these must then comply with product rules. You will need to notify the Secretary of State via the UK Submit Cosmetic Product Notification service before putting them up for sale in the UK.

UK trading standards and consumer protection legislation are what will dictate how you go about pricing, treatment, client disputes, and so on. For example, outlawing drip pricing, which is where you show a low headline price, then add mandatory fees/taxes later on.

The Consumer Rights Act is what oversees the standards and care involved in the beauty treatments, services, and the products used. Information that you provide to a client, be it in a consultation or brochure, is legally binding. If the services don't meet the agreed description (or just performed negligently) then the client has a right to demand a repeat or price reduction.

Some of the key fair trading rules include:

• Price Marking Order: Displaying the pricing clearly and unambiguously on products. No hidden extras before the client commits.
  
• Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading: It’s illegal to make misleading statements or leave out material details about the risks of a product. Aggressive sales tactics, especially for high-risk treatments/products, are a breach.
  
• Active Data Protection: When collecting sensitive client information (e.g., skin patch test results, contact details), you must comply with UK GDPR. Unless exempted, you must pay an annual data protection fee to the ICO. 

When selecting a supplier for your products, it’s always worth choosing reputable brands that have a proven presence in the UK. This avoids the risk of recalls and selling banned substances, which can often be included in ingredient lists (e.g., Some US and Japanese suncreams cannot be sold in the UK).

Data Protection, Client Records, and Marketing Consent

Data shouldn’t be a worry, but a tool, particularly when re-targetting customers via reminders and loyalty schemes. However, client confidentiality is a legal requirement, and processing consultation forms or medical profiles absolutely falls under UK GDPR. 

In fact, health information is classed as “special category data” within UK GDPR, so you must identify and document both a lawful basis (Article 6) and a special condition for processing (Article 9), eg., explicit consent.

For example, logging patch tests or medical appointments can be done with pen and paper, but the structured accuracy of digital records is recommended. Use proven cloud-based tools that provide a compliance-friendly environment, guiding you to safely store sensitive information.

Compliance looks like:

• Lawful and transparent storage, informing clients via a privacy notice, detailing how their data is collected and stored;
• Only requesting the information needed and nothing extra;
• Secure explicit consent before using photos of their treatment for your social media;
• If a personal data breach occurs and is a risk to their rights, you are legally required to report it to the ICO within 72 hours.

To safeguard financial information, look to PCI-compliant payment infrastructure, such as myPOS products, so card data is processed securely and isolated from salon data.

Pricing, Receipts, Refunds, and Consumer Rights

Having a clear refund policy on any products you are selling is important, such as accepting returns from unopened items only, unless there is a clear fault. In order to manage this, having clear records and receipts as evidence of the purchase is important. 

Using a myPOS card reader can produce receipts, but even the standalone portable card reader (e.g., for mobile beauticians) can simply use the SMS and email receipt function. This is arguably preferable for record-keeping.

For clear and fair pricing, follow these best practices:

• Unambiguous booking terms, especially around memberships or no-show fees
• Itemised receipts for every single product/service
• Customer complaint handling procedures should align with UK consumer protection

For example, the salon needs to have clear T&Cs in place to prepare for a client asking for a refund on an expired £100 voucher. These terms needed to have been clearly communicated at the point of sale.

Remember, it’s not just about compliance, but also avoiding a 1-star review on Google. So, consider going above and beyond the law to maintain a good reputation.

When it comes to hedging against no-shows, services like myPOS payment links make it simpler to collect deposits. This secures some revenue when freeing up a time slot.

78% of beauty businesses intend to raise prices in the next three months

Payments, Accounting, and Financial Record-Keeping

Financial records must be HMRC-compliant, but standards differ between sole traders (Self Assessment) and Limited Companies (Companies House reporting). 

It’s recommended for all structures to separate personal finances from business records. This is done with a dedicated business account, which your payment provider transfers revenue into, while all expenses are made with business cards. This will also help with Making Tax Digital compliance, which is coming into effect for sole traders with revenue over £50,000 (£30,000 by April 2027).

To mitigate disguised employment risks and messy financial records, encourage freelance workers to accept their own payments. myPOS is one example of a pay-as-you-go model, which keeps costs down for part-time freelancers who aren’t looking to scale. A full countertop POS terminal and till is recommended for salons that want to accept cash, otherwise a card terminal will suffice. 

Best practices include:

• Separating business and personal finances
• SMS or email receipts to maintain searchable records
• myPOS payment links for securing booking deposits 
• Document all tips to avoid payroll complications
• Maintain ledgers of all invoices, sales, and staff expenses
• Keep digital financial records for at least six years

An ERP system can tie all of this together (bookings, email, calendar, accounting, CRM).

Conclusion

Beauty industry regulations UK mostly revolve around being trained and qualified for the right treatments, correct waste disposal, and local byelaws. Otherwise, broader business premise rules, consumer rights, and tax compliance are the main concerns.

While regulations and compliance are important to ensure a duty of care and avoid fines, they’re not the target. You should shoot to exceed them, as doing so will help you be organised (re. data), build trust (refunds, best practices, hygiene), and give yourself more chance of being aligned with future changes that may occur, like tightening up high-risk procedures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need council approval for waxing, piercing, tattooing, or laser services?

Licensing is not universal across the UK. Some local authorities need a specific special treatment licence for invasive or high-risk treatments, while London even needs it for massages and manicures.

What health and safety records should a beauty salon keep?

If you have five or more employees, you are required to have a written health and safety policy and record significant findings from your risk assessments. You should assess COSHH risks for any hazardous substances regardless of employee count.

What insurance should a UK beauty business have before treating clients?

Employers' Liability insurance is legally required if you have any staff. Though not a requirement, you should hold Public Liability insurance for general slips, along with Treatment Risk Liability insurance.

Can I use before-and-after photos in my beauty marketing?

Yes, but you must ask the client explicitly for consent and make sure the data is handled and stored in line with UK GDPR.

What client data can I collect under UK GDPR?

You should limit what is collected, like contact information and medical notes. Allergy logs and medical histories are under special category data, so you need explicit client consent and store them according to rules.

Are Botox and filler treatments regulated differently from facials?

Yes, facials are typically classed as low-to-medium risk, while Botox and dermal fillers are labelled high-risk clinical procedures. Injectables have tight regulations (e.g., age limits).