Transfer a Cosmetology License to Wyoming

Straightforward $273first year 1,600hours Wyoming asks its own students

Your training hours never come up if you have been licensed and practicing full time for a year. Wyoming's transfer statute grants the license without examination, and the hours test written into it switches off after twelve months of full time work. Bring $273 in a money order and certifications from two states.

Training hours Wyoming accepts, and when you need more

The 1,600 hours live in a board rule, Chapter 6 Section 1, not in the statute, and the endorsement provision names no number at all. The one route by which hours can reach an arrival is the third sentence of W.S. 33-12-132, which applies an at least equal requirements test to an applicant who has not practiced full time for at least one year before applying. One year of full time practice removes that sentence from the analysis. The implementing rule adds nothing, saying only that an applicant who meets W.S. 33-12-132 may obtain a license by endorsement. Wyoming also cut its own figure from 2,000 hours to 1,600 by rule amendment effective September 6, 2016, so a chart still printing 2,000 is ten years stale.

What actually governs a transfer. W.S. 33-12-132, licensure by endorsement, and Board Rules Chapter 2 Section 2, effective May 2025

Does experience substitute? This is a switch rather than a rate. It does not convert years into hours. It removes the equivalence test from the endorsement statute entirely. It is statutory rather than board practice, there is no cap and no affidavit scheme, and it sits in the same sentence as the test it disables. Neither the statute nor the rules define full time, so a part time practitioner has no published answer.

How to transfer a cosmetology license to Wyoming

Endorsement by equivalence

W.S. 33-12-132

Hold a current license in another state, come from a state that requires a board examination, have attended a school meeting both boards' rules, and have practiced full time for at least one year. Meeting all of that yields a license by endorsement without examination.

The statute bars two categories outright, being an applicant from a state that requires no board examination for licensure, and an applicant who did not attend a qualifying school. The board's own endorsement form softens the first one, telling an applicant from a state with no exam for that credential that they will take Wyoming exams instead. That is more generous than the statute and it is guidance rather than law.

Universal recognition

W.S. 33-1-120, enacted by 2020 House Bill HB0128, effective July 1, 2020

On paper, a license in good standing from a state with substantially equivalent or more stringent education, training, examination and experience requirements, plus a competency showing.

This door is not usable. The statute reaches cosmetology, since its only exclusions are attorneys and boards with prescriptive drug authority, and there is no clause disqualifying a profession that has its own reciprocity statute. But it defers both operative tests to board rules, and HB0128 section 4 commanded boards to adopt them. The Board of Cosmetology has filed new rule chapters in 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 and the strings 33-1-120, substantially equivalent and competency return zero matches across all of them. The board's endorsement application reproduces the W.S. 33-12-132 conditions and never mentions this statute.

Worth knowing: W.S. 33-1-120 sits in the general licensing chapter of Title 33 and covers every board in the title, but the Board of Cosmetology has adopted none of the rules the statute requires to operate it, so a reader who finds it will not find a route. The general chapter also carries W.S. 33-1-117, the military service member and spouse provision, which is live and does real work.

Exams Wyoming requires, and exams it waives

None for endorsement. W.S. 33-12-132 grants the license without examination, and the rule adds no exam condition. The only exam question Wyoming asks is about your home state, being whether it requires a board examination at all.

Wyoming ran a real one. Its rule effective September 6, 2016 required an arriving licensee to have passed a board administered theory and practical examination, with no alternative. A one year work history cure was added effective June 15, 2018. The entire exam clause was deleted from the rule effective January 13, 2023, and the current version conditions endorsement on nothing but the statute. Licensing aggregator sites still publish the 2018 version as current, which is a stale copy of a real repealed rule rather than an invention.

The way through: Nothing to cure on the endorsement route. If the statutory bar for a no examination state does catch you, the board's endorsement form says you take the Wyoming exams instead, which is the NIC theory and written practical delivered by ProV at testing centers around the state.

Working in Wyoming while your application is pending

No. The board's endorsement form says you must have your license before you become engaged in any practice regulated by Wyoming and that it must be posted at your place of employment. There is no temporary permit for a civilian applicant. The word temporary appears once in the whole Cosmetology Act, in the fee list, referring to a temporary location license for a venue, and the matching rule says every licensee working at one must already hold a current Wyoming license. Military service members and spouses are the exception and get a fee free 90 day temporary license under W.S. 33-1-117(m).

What a Wyoming cosmetology license costs

$273 in your first year.

The $273 is a $225 endorsement fee plus a $48 first year license fee, both set by Board Rules Chapter 13 effective January 2024. Money order only, and fees are never refunded. No examination fee, no fingerprint fee, no required course and no continuing education cost. Add whatever your current state charges for its certification of licensure, and $75 per year if you will booth rent as an independent contractor.

Military spouses moving to Wyoming

W.S. 33-1-117 requires an expedited license within 30 days for a service member or spouse who has held a license in good standing for five consecutive years, and a fee free temporary license good for 90 days for one who has held it three consecutive years. Board Rules Chapter 1 Section 13, added April 2026, declines to issue the longer three year temporary practice permit the statute also authorizes.

Watch out in Wyoming

One year of full time practice is the whole ballgame

The equivalence test in the transfer statute applies only to an applicant who has not practiced full time for at least one year before applying. Cross that line and your training hours are never compared to anything. Fall short of it and the board decides whether your state's requirements were at least equal to Wyoming's, with no rule, no chart and no published standard telling you what that means. Neither the statute nor the rules define full time, so part time practitioners have no published answer either.

Wyoming wants certifications from two states, not one

The board asks for an official certification of record from the state of your original license and from the state where you currently hold a valid license, and the application form asks both questions separately. If you have already transferred once, that is two requests to two boards, and they email the certifications to the board directly. Forgetting the original state request is an easy way to lose weeks.

Money order only, notarized, and mailed on paper

The endorsement fee must be paid by money order, the application signature must be witnessed by a notary, and the board states plainly that it does not accept emailed applications. Only the photograph may be emailed. Fees are not refundable under any circumstances.

Published hour figures for Wyoming are often a decade out of date

Wyoming required 2,000 hours from 1987 until September 6, 2016, when a rule amendment cut it to 1,600. No statute changed, because the statute never carried a number, so the change produced no legislative news. Some current comparison pages still print 2,000. It matters less here than it would elsewhere, because the figure does not govern a transfer, but it is worth knowing which number is real.

The interstate compact

Not enacted. The phrase Cosmetology Licensure Compact returns zero matches in the official Title 33 compilation, in a title that carries the nurse, advanced practice nurse and emergency medical services compacts. The board's own minutes of May 2026 record that a bill was expected to reintroduce it and that the board was not interested before, citing cost and the loss of endorsement fee revenue. In any case no multistate license is being issued in any state today, and the compact's own site says it is not yet active.

What you actually do

Confirm you have practiced full time for at least one year under your current license, since that is what switches off the hours test.
Ask both the state that first licensed you and the state that licenses you now to email a certification of record to the board.
Fill in the Application for Endorsement and have your signature notarized.
Buy a $273 money order and mail the package with a copy of your current license, proof of lawful presence and a passport style photo.
If you or your spouse is an active military member, say so on the form, because a 30 day decision deadline and a fee free 90 day temporary license open up.
Do not book clients until the license is in your hand and posted at your workplace, because there is no permit to work under while it pends.
If you will pay booth rent rather than be employed, apply for the independent contractor license as well.

What we have not verified

We would rather name a gap than fill it with a guess. For Wyoming we have not established:

whether Wyoming runs the federal military spouse lane that lets a spouse practice with no state license
how long Wyoming takes to decide

Everything else on this page is sourced below. If you need one of these answered before you move, the board is the fastest route, and we are working through them.

Official links for Wyoming

Verified August 2026. 11 questions about Wyoming 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.

Every jurisdiction

Alabama · Alaska · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Connecticut · Delaware · District of Columbia · Florida · Georgia · Hawaii · Idaho · Illinois · Indiana · Iowa · Kansas · Kentucky · Louisiana · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Minnesota · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada · New Hampshire · New Jersey · New Mexico · New York · North Carolina · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · Pennsylvania · Rhode Island · South Carolina · South Dakota · Tennessee · Texas · Utah · Vermont · Virginia · Washington · West Virginia · Wisconsin · Wyoming