Just qualified?
Here’s your admin checklist.

What do you need to sort before your first paying client?

Before your first paying client, get insurance that names every treatment you offer and read its conditions. Use a consultation form for each treatment, patch test where the product or your insurer asks, and write it all down. Check whether you need to pay the ICO’s data protection fee, and tell HMRC once you earn more than £1,000 in a tax year. Most lash, brow and nail work doesn’t need a council licence outside London. Then set prices that cover your costs, take a deposit with a clear cancellation policy, and put one booking link in your Instagram bio.

Congratulations on qualifying. Most of this you only do once. We make Covered Beauty, and we’ve said where it fits at the end. This is general information, not legal or insurance advice, and your own policy comes first.

1. Insurance for every treatment
2. A form for each treatment
3. Patch tests, written down
4. The ICO fee and safe records
5. The council, if it applies
6. Telling HMRC
7. Your prices
8. Deposits and a cancellation policy
9. A booking link on Instagram

What insurance does a newly qualified tech need?

Beauty insurance usually bundles a few kinds of cover. Balens, for example, lists public liability, for someone or their belongings being accidentally hurt or damaged, malpractice, for a claim that you were negligent, and products liability, for harm from a faulty product you used or sold.

Then check what it asks of you:

• Your qualifications. Balens says you should be suitably qualified for the treatments you provide, with evidence when cover is arranged or a claim is made. Hamilton Fraser’s cover for beauty therapists is subject to at least NVQ Level 2 in general beauty or equivalent, so ask any insurer whether your course certificate counts for each treatment you offer.
• Records. Balens says its policy requires you to keep a record of all consultations and treatments.
• Patch tests and allergy checks. Salon Gold’s 2021 freelancers’ policy wording covers lash and brow treatments such as tints, lifts and lamination on condition that, where it applies, you patch test with the exact product at least 24 hours before the first treatment, and don’t go ahead if the result isn’t right. For nail extensions and coatings cured under a lamp, it asks you to check the client isn’t allergic to acrylics or plastics first.
• Where you work. Hamilton Fraser warns that running a practice from home without telling your insurer can invalidate your cover.

Get it in place before you treat anyone, practice models and friends included. The insurers here are examples, not recommendations, and every policy has its own conditions.

Which consultation forms do you need?

One for each treatment, so a brow tint client isn’t answering questions about lash glue. It shows you asked the right questions, and it’s the kind of record insurers ask you to keep. Our free consultation form templates are blank forms to print, with no sign-up:

• New client medical history consultation form (PDF)
• Lash extensions consultation form (PDF)
• Lash lift consultation form (PDF)
• Lash tint consultation form (PDF)
• Brow lamination consultation form (PDF)
• Brow tint consultation form (PDF)
• Brow henna consultation form (PDF)
• Brow wax consultation form (PDF)
• Nail services consultation form (PDF)

Each comes with a guide to what it asks and why: the lash, lash lift and tint, brow lamination, tint and henna and nail consultation forms, and the client medical history form for the one-off health questions. They’re starting points to check with your insurer, not forms an insurer has approved.

When should you patch test, and what do you write down?

BABTAC’s 2016 Good Practice Guide says to patch test at least 24 hours before a client’s first treatment, or 48 hours for clients with diabetes or other special circumstances, and again after a change in their medical history, a new product, hormonal changes such as pregnancy, or 12 months. It lists lash and brow tinting and lash extensions among the treatments that need one. Follow the product’s own instructions too.

Write down the date, the product and the result, and keep it with their form. BABTAC tells its members to keep record cards for seven years. If a client won’t have a patch test the treatment needs, it says a form they sign to skip it won’t protect you, so the answer is “not today”.

In Covered Beauty, you can add a patch test as its own short treatment with no deposit, so clients book one online, and the ready-made tint, henna, lamination and lash lift forms ask about it. It doesn’t stop a client booking without one, so check their form before you start.

Do you need to pay the ICO?

The ICO says organisations, sole traders included, that use personal information must pay a data protection fee unless they’re exempt. Its self-assessment takes about 10 minutes and tells you whether you need to pay and how much.

It’s not a big bill. The ICO says most businesses only pay £52 or £78 a year, and paying by Direct Debit takes £5 off. Tier 1, for a turnover of up to £632,000 or no more than 10 staff, is £52, and you renew it each year.

The ICO counts health information, including medical history, as special category data, which needs more protection. Our guide to consent forms and GDPR explains what that means in plain English, from the explicit consent tick to deletion requests. One easy habit to start with: keep health answers out of WhatsApp chats and screenshots.

Do you need to register with your council?

For lashes, brows and nails, usually not. GOV.UK’s page on the tattoo, piercing and electrolysis licence lists tattooing, semi-permanent skin colouring, cosmetic piercing, electrolysis and acupuncture as the treatments you register with your council for. In England, that’s section 15 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, where your council has it in force. In Wales, a special procedure licence covers acupuncture, body piercing, electrolysis and tattooing, which there includes micro pigmentation. Scotland has a skin piercing and tattooing licence for much the same treatments.

None of those lists name lash extensions, lifts, tints, lamination or nails. London is the exception: GOV.UK says that in Greater London, apart from the City of London, you need a special treatments licence instead, and it also covers massages and manicures. If you work in Greater London, ask your council first whatever you offer. The law there covers manicure and “other special treatment of a like kind”, and each council decides what that includes. In Northern Ireland, ask your council what applies. If you later add microblading, powder brows or ear piercing, check with your council before you start.

When do you tell HMRC?

If you’re self-employed, GOV.UK says you must register for Self Assessment as a sole trader if you earn more than £1,000 in a tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. You can start trading straight away without registering, but you must keep records from the day you start. Keep every receipt for your kit, products, insurance and training, and your first tax return will be much easier.

How should you set your first prices?

• Price for the time a treatment takes you now. A full set might take you longer this month than it will in a year, and that’s normal.
• Add up what each treatment costs you: products, your share of insurance and training, rent or room hire, card fees and your time.
• Look at what techs near you charge for the same treatment, on their price lists and booking pages.
• If you offer model prices while you build your portfolio, say how many and until when.

Then make it easy to read. Our free price list maker turns your treatments and prices into a picture for your Instagram stories and posts, with no account needed.

Should you take deposits?

A deposit protects the time you’ve kept free: the people who book turn up, or you’re not out of pocket. Decide how much notice you need to fill a gap, what happens to the deposit if someone cancels late or doesn’t come, any patch test rules, and what you’ll do if you’re the one who has to cancel. Write it down in plain words and show it before anyone books.

The CMA’s guide to writing a fair contract says to explain clearly and upfront what customers must pay and when, so they know how to avoid it. Our free cancellation policy writer turns your choices into a fair policy in plain English, ready for your booking page or Instagram, and nothing you type is saved.

How do you get booked from Instagram?

• One booking link in your bio. When someone asks “when are you free?”, reply with the link and let them pick a time.
• Your prices and policy where people look. Pin your price list or save it to a highlight with your policy, so the two questions everyone asks are answered before they message.
• Photos with permission. Ask before you post a client’s photo, with its own tick on the form that starts unticked.

In Covered Beauty, the Share page gives you your booking page link for your bio, a link for each treatment to use when you post about it, a QR code, story pictures to download and messages to copy into your replies.

Where does Covered Beauty fit?

You don’t need booking software for your first few clients. When the messages start taking over your evenings, Covered Beauty gives you a booking page where clients choose a treatment and a time and pay a deposit by card, straight into your own Stripe account, with no commission. Each treatment can have its own form, which clients sign on their phone before they arrive, with a separate tick for their explicit consent, and the signed copy stays with their record. Clients get a confirmation, then reminder emails before their appointment.

Paste in the price list you already have and it becomes your treatment menu, ready to check before anything goes live, or ask us to set it up for you. Solo is £9 a month for one person, and you get a free week to try it, with no card needed to start. Comparing options? Read our guides for lash and brow artists and nail technicians, or try Covered Beauty free.

Sources

Each page was read on 24 October 2026. The ICO says its guidance is under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act, so check its pages before you rely on them.

• ICO: Data protection fee
• ICO: Data protection fee self assessment
• ICO: Data protection fee, what you need to do
• ICO: Data protection fee payment and registration FAQs
• ICO: What is special category data?
• BABTAC Good Practice Guide 2016 (PDF)
• GOV.UK: Tattoo, piercing and electrolysis licence (England and Wales)
• London Local Authorities Act 1991, section 4 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, section 15 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, section 57 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, section 94 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, section 58 (legislation.gov.uk)
• The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Skin Piercing and Tattooing) Order 2006 (legislation.gov.uk)
• GOV.UK: Register as a sole trader
• GOV.UK: Set up as a sole trader
• Writing a fair contract for customers, Competition and Markets Authority (GOV.UK)
• Balens: Insurance for beauty therapists and hair professionals
• Hamilton Fraser: Beauty insurance
• Salon Gold Freelancers’ Policy wording, 03/21 (PDF)