Transfer a Cosmetology License to South Carolina

Straightforward $60first year 1,500hours South Carolina asks its own students

Your training hours never come up. South Carolina licenses an arriving cosmetologist by endorsement on a current out of state license in good standing, a $60 fee, and either a national exam you already passed or two years of licensure plus a four hour course. The 1,500 hour figure governs people getting licensed for the first time.

Training hours South Carolina accepts, and when you need more

Regulation 35-13 never mentions training hours. It asks for a current license in good standing plus either a passed nationally recognized exam or two years licensed and four hours of board approved continuing education. The 1,500 hours sit in S.C. Code Ann. 40-13-230(A), which governs licensure by examination. The board itself tells short hours out of state graduates to get licensed where they trained and then endorse in.

What actually governs a transfer. S.C. Code of Regulations 35-13, Endorsement Licensure, as amended eff. May 23, 2025

Does experience substitute? The two years substitute for the examination requirement, not for training hours, because South Carolina applies no hours test to an arrival. Regulation 35-13(b) pairs the two years with four hours of board approved continuing education in South Carolina law, client safety or infection control, available online. Those four hours also cover the first renewal. Whether the two years may be accumulated across states is not addressed in the rule.

How to transfer a cosmetology license to South Carolina

Endorsement by equivalence

S.C. Code of Regulations 35-13

current license in good standing elsewhere, plus either a passed nationally recognized exam or two years licensed plus four hours of board approved continuing education

The two branches are alternatives. No hour count, no South Carolina exam, no residency step. The board decides, since the rule says a license may be issued.

Reciprocity

S.C. Code Ann. 40-13-270

properly licensed in another state and otherwise qualified, at the board discretion

Live statute headed Reciprocity to nonresidents, discretionary, and the board answers in its own FAQ that it does not currently offer reciprocity for any license type. Its otherwise qualified language is undefined and is the only place a 1,500 hour test could be read in.

Make up the hours

S.C. Code of Regulations 35-10(E)(5)(a)

accept certified hours from the other state board and complete any additional hours needed to equal South Carolina requirements

Written for a student from another state who establishes residence in South Carolina, inside the chapter on operating cosmetology schools. It does not reach a person already licensed.

Worth knowing: S.C. Code Ann. 25-1-170, in Title 25, the Military Code. It applies notwithstanding other provisions of law to every licensing board in the state, carves out only attorneys and educators, and gives a military spouse the right to keep working on relocation plus a fifteen business day deadline for the board to issue. There is no civilian equivalent anywhere in the South Carolina Code, proved by full text search of the whole code.

Exams South Carolina requires, and exams it waives

None on the two year endorsement branch. On the other branch, a nationally recognized exam already passed, which the board reads as the NIC theory and practical.

Regulation 35-13(a) says a nationally recognized examination, singular. Four board pages read it as the NIC theory and practical examination. The gap bites only a licensee of under two years who cannot document both halves.

The way through: Two years licensed plus four hours of board approved continuing education under Regulation 35-13(b), which asks about no examination at all. Failing that, sit South Carolina's own NIC theory and practical through Prov, $78 and $89, with the practical taken inside South Carolina.

Working in South Carolina while your application is pending

The only individual temporary permit is Regulation 35-12, an Emergency Temporary Work Permit that requires a period of public emergency, a candidate who has completed education, and no access to the licensing exam. An endorsement applicant takes no exam, so the rule cannot reach them. Apply before you move. Military spouses under 25-1-170 may keep working on relocation.

What a South Carolina cosmetology license costs

$60 in your first year.

Endorsement application fee, firm, and the only fee South Carolina charges to get licensed. Add the four hour continuing education course, priced by private approved providers and not published by the board, plus whatever your old boards charge for verifications, plus $100 if you will rent a booth. The examination route instead is $45 to the board plus $78 and $89 to Prov. Everyone renews March 10 of odd years, so an arrival can owe $52 within months of licensing, with continuing education waived for that first renewal.

Military spouses moving to South Carolina

Two lanes. S.C. Code Ann. 25-1-170 gives a full license on the ordinary renewal cycle, requires the board to issue within fifteen business days, and lets the spouse keep working on relocation. S.C. Code Ann. 40-1-630 requires every Title 40 board to issue a one year non renewable temporary license on a valid license in good standing. LLR runs a department wide expedited request form and cites neither statute on its page.

South Carolina publishes no lane under the 2022 federal military spouse license portability provision. No board page, no LLR page, and no section of Title 40 or Title 25 mentions it. Its own Servicemembers Civil Relief Act contains no licensing provision.

Watch out in South Carolina

Two years is the hinge, not your hours

Under two years licensed and unable to document a passed national theory and practical exam, and the board sends you to South Carolina's own examination. The practical half can only be taken at a test center inside South Carolina, so that is one trip.

The four hour course has to be a South Carolina approved one

Regulation 35-24 puts course approval under the board working with the University of South Carolina and accepts only board approved programs. Continuing education you did for another state does not count. Around thirty approved providers offer it online, and no official source publishes a price.

Do not work before the license issues

The only individual temporary permit requires a declared public emergency and is written for exam candidates. Practicing without a license is a misdemeanor under 40-13-200 and carries permanent revocation on conviction, plus administrative penalties up to $500.

Renting a booth is a second license

A rental booth is a salon in the statute's own words, so a booth renter owes $100 initially and $72 every renewal, and it is not transferable between locations, including between suites in one building. The word booth appears nowhere in the regulations.

The interstate compact

South Carolina has not enacted the Cosmetology Licensure Compact and has never introduced it. The phrase returns zero matches in the Code of Laws and zero across all sessions of South Carolina legislation, against a corpus where licensure compact returns three chapters and nineteen bills. No multistate cosmetology license is being issued anywhere in the United States today, so non membership costs an arriving licensee nothing.

What you actually do

Check the date on your current license. Two years or more held elsewhere is the branch that asks you for no examination at all.
Order a license verification from every board that has ever licensed you, sent directly to BoardInfo@llr.sc.gov, including the state that first licensed you.
Take four hours of board approved continuing education online from a provider on the board list, and keep the certificate.
Download and notarize the Verification of Lawful Presence affidavit and the Signature Affidavit with a 2 by 2 photograph before you start the application.
File the endorsement application at eservice.llr.sc.gov/NewAppsV3 and pay $60. Do this before you move, because you may not work while it pends.
If you will rent a booth rather than be employed, file the separate booth renter application and $100 once you know the salon.
Diarize March 10 of the next odd year. Everyone renews that day for $52, and your first renewal needs no continuing education.

Official links for South Carolina

Verified August 2026. 15 questions about South Carolina remain open and are named in our research rather than guessed at.

Keep going

Cosmetology license reciprocity by state, with the published hour figure for every jurisdiction and whether it reaches you.
Cosmetology training hours by state, and the five ways a state can still apply its number to someone already licensed.
The Cosmetology Licensure Compact, who has enacted it and why no multistate license exists yet.
All four professions we cover.

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