What are the license fees to open a med spa in North Carolina?
Facility · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
The cited rules do not settle this — they set only Cosmetic Art Board fees: $25 to inspect a newly established shop, $15 reciprocity, $10 per year esthetician, $39 every 3 years cosmetologist, plus the actual exam cost, which the statute leaves unfixed.
💰 North Carolina’s cosmetic art fees are low and statutory. The Board may charge application fees of “inspection of a newly established cosmetic art shop $25.00” and “reciprocity applicant under g.s. 88b-13 $15.00”, and license fees including “ESTHETICIAN $10.00 PER YEAR” and “COSMETOLOGIST $39.00 EVERY 3 YEARS”. The Board may also charge “the actual cost of preparation, administration, and grading of examinations … in addition to its other fees”, so the examination cost is not fixed by the statute.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 88B-20(a), (b), (c) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
Related North Carolina rules
“Compounding” means taking two or more ingredients and combining them into a dosage form of a drug, exclusive of compounding by a drug manufacturer, distributor or packer. This definition alone does not determine whether a particular provider is authorized to compound, reconstitute, dispense or administer a particular product.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-85.3(c) · verified Oct 9, 2026
Sections 90-85.40(a) and (c) restrict non-pharmacist dispensing or compounding, with provisions for pharmacy technicians and approved pharmacy students working under a pharmacist’s supervision. Section 90-85.40(g) preserves acts independently authorized under North Carolina law and authorizes providers who may prescribe drugs without supervision to dispense drugs without supervision. That dispensing provision does not establish permission for every provider or every compounding practice.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-85.40(a), (c), (g) · verified Oct 9, 2026
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← All North Carolina rules and changes · MedSpaRadar is regulatory monitoring and reference: it summarizes public laws, regulations and agency actions and links each to its source. It is not legal, medical, or compliance advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. A summary can lag its source or leave out detail, and monitoring itself can be interrupted — so an absence of alerts means nothing reached you, not that nothing happened. Read the cited source, check its effective date, and confirm any change to your operations or clinical practice with qualified health-law counsel and your medical director. Legislative data via LegiScan (CC BY 4.0).