Minnesota tanning laws for salon owners

What Minnesota's tanning law covers

Minnesota regulates tanning through Minnesota Statutes chapter 325H, Tanning Facilities, first enacted in 1993 and last changed in 2014. It covers any place that gives consumers access to UV tanning equipment, including salons, health clubs, apartments and condominiums, whether or not a fee is charged (325H.01, subd. 7). Equipment owned only for personal use and physicians using UV equipment in medical practice are exempt (325H.02).

The chapter names no state agency and creates no license. A violation is a petty misdemeanor (325H.09), and the chapter does not preempt a stricter local ordinance (325H.10), so check with your city and county as well. Federal rules for the equipment still apply; see FDA tanning bed regulations.

Separately, Minnesota's sales tax law treats making tanning facilities available for a fee as a taxable sale (Minn. Stat. 297A.61, subd. 3(g)(1)). Ask the Department of Revenue how that applies to your packages. The federal excise is covered in tanning excise tax.

Minors at the front desk

1. Record a date of birth for every client before their first UV session.
2. Turn away anyone under 18 from UV equipment, even with a parent standing at the desk or a signed consent. Since 2014 Minnesota has had no parental exception.
3. Post a sign at the point of sale stating that it is unlawful for a tanning facility or operator to allow a person under age 18 to use any tanning equipment (325H.05(c)).
4. Retire any old form that lets a parent sign for a minor. That route was repealed in 2014.
5. The under-18 ban does not reach spray tanning, because a spray booth is not UV tanning equipment under 325H.01. Whether you offer spray tans to minors is your own policy, subject to any local rule.

Every session

• One consumer per unit at a time (325H.03, subd. 1(b)).
• Instruct each user on body position, the safety railing, the manual shut-off and the maximum exposure time (1(i)).
• Check that the floor is dry before each use (1(j)), keep the room at or below 100 degrees Fahrenheit (1(k)), and follow the equipment maker's sanitizing procedure between users (1(l)).
• Hand out sanitized goggles and require them to be worn (325H.04). See tanning bed eye protection rules.
• Log the visit date and exposure time, and keep the log for 3 years after exposure (325H.07). See tanning salon recordkeeping.

Equipment, lamps and signs

• Use only equipment manufactured to 21 CFR 1040.20, meeting the National Electrical Code, with physical barriers around the lamps and a control the user can reach to stop the radiation (325H.03, subd. 1(a), (c), (d) and (h)).
• Stand-up booths need handrails, nonslip floors, rigid access and markings or barriers that show the correct distance from the lamps (subd. 2).
• Replace lamps with the type on the product label, with the same spectral distribution, at the manufacturer's interval, and write down each change. See tanning bed lamp replacement.
• Keep each timer within plus or minus 10 percent and no longer than the manufacturer's maximum. See tanning bed timer rules.
• Post the DANGER - ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION sign, at least 8 by 10 inches, within 3 feet of each station, where the consumer sees it before turning the unit on (325H.05).

What changed recently

The last change was Laws 2014, chapter 291, signed May 21, 2014. It added the under-18 ban and the point-of-sale sign, and it repealed the minors' warning statement and the parental-consent route. We compared the chapter's text in the 2014, 2021, 2024 and 2025 editions of Minnesota Statutes on 2026-09-29 and found them identical.

A House bill search for "tanning" in the 2025-2026 session returned seven bills, all of them tax bills, and none amends chapter 325H. A keyword search of the 2024, 2025 and 2026 session laws found no law that mentions tanning.

How TanVision helps

Minnesota requires no signed statement, but many salons still use one. With TanVision's consent forms, the salon edits the wording, so the form can carry Minnesota's DANGER text, and a session cannot start without a signed statement and a date of birth on file.

One setting matters here. With Minors and UV rooms at Yes, the default at Settings > Tanning rules, guardian consent on file lets a client under the salon's minimum age (18 by default) start any room, UV included, with only a warning. In Minnesota, set it to No: check-in then refuses UV rooms to any client under 18, even with guardian consent on file. The minimum age is one setting for every room, so at 18 TanVision also stops a minor's spray tan unless guardian consent is on file; with the setting at No, recording that consent opens spray rooms but not UV rooms.

TanVision stores each session it starts with its date and minutes. Client records show recent visits newest first, and the Client activity report totals visits and minutes per client over a date range. Compare other states on the tanning laws by state page.