Does a med spa have to register or hold a license in Rhode Island?

Short answer
The cited rules do not settle this — no med spa license appears in them; they do license esthetician shops (a shop licensed to do esthetics, with a set shop-license fee) and they place laser/IPL and non-ablative treatment inside the practice of medicine.

Rhode Island licenses the SHOP as a class of license in its own right: an “esthetician shop” means a shop licensed under the chapter to do esthetics of any person, and a “hair design shop” means a shop licensed under the chapter to do barbering or hairdressing/cosmetology, or both. The division issues licenses to persons engaged in, or desiring to engage in, the practice of barbering, hairdressing and cosmetic therapy and/or manicuring or esthetics, and to instructors, provided that no license is issued to anyone under eighteen years of age. Licenses are divided into classes issued to applicants who have qualified for each class, with the hairdresser’s and cosmetician’s license requiring not less than one thousand hours of continuous study and practice. These claims survey the barbering and hairdressing chapter and do not report on registration requirements elsewhere in Rhode Island law. The PRICE sits in the Department of Health’s fee statute rather than the cosmetology chapter: the chapter sends the applicant to a fee established in regulation and to the renewal fee set forth in § 23-1-54, and that section lists a $25.00 application fee and $25.00 renewal application for barbers and hairdressers and a shop license of $170.00 initial and $170.00 renewal.