Montana tanning laws for salon owners

What Montana's tanning law covers

Montana has no statewide tanning law. On September 29, 2026 we searched the 2025 Montana Code Annotated, the current edition, for "tanning" with the Legislature's own site search (a Google custom search of the Legislature's pages), filtered to the code. It found no section on tanning salons, tanning devices or minors. Because that search relies on Google's index of the Legislature's pages rather than on the code itself, it can miss a page Google has not indexed. The same filter finds "ultraviolet" deep inside the definitions in 50-79-103 and 37-26-103 MCA, so the search reads section text and not only headings.

The rules side is the same. A full-text search of the Administrative Rules of Montana and the Montana Administrative Register returns 41 results for "tanning". The only current rule among them is ARM 42.21.155, a Department of Revenue property-tax rule that lists tanning among commercial equipment for depreciation. It does not regulate how a salon runs. The same search finds "microdermabrasion" inside the text of the cosmetology board's rules, so it reads rule text too.

Montana does license some personal-care shops. The Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists licenses barbering, cosmetology, electrology, esthetics and manicuring under Title 37, chapter 31, MCA, and tanning is not in that list. The state also registers sources of ionizing radiation, but 50-79-103(5) MCA excludes ultraviolet light from that term. City and county rules are outside this page, so check with your local government and health department before you open.

At the front desk

With no state tanning law, what happens at your desk is your own policy. Most salons in states like this still run the same basics:

1. Pick a minimum age and write it down. Montana sets none, so the choice, and whether a parent can sign for a younger client, is yours.
2. Take a date of birth for every client before their first UV session, so your age policy can be checked.
3. Have each client sign a warning statement before their first session. No Montana law requires one; our tanning consent form guide covers what one usually contains.
4. Follow the exposure schedule and maximum time on each unit's label. Federal rules cover the equipment itself; see our FDA tanning bed rules guide.
5. Keep your own visit and incident records. No state retention period or injury-report deadline applies.

What changed recently

Nothing has become law. Montana lawmakers introduced seven bills on minors and tanning between 2009 and 2019, and the Legislature's bill records show each one died. Three passed one chamber first:

No 2021 or 2023 bill has tanning in its title, and none of the 4,495 bills and draft requests of the 2025 session does either. These bill searches match titles only, so a bill that touched tanning under another title would not show up. The Legislature's bill system lists no session between the 2025 regular session and the 2027 session.

How TanVision helps

TanVision's minimum age is 18 by default, and a session cannot start without a date of birth on file. If your house policy bars minors from UV beds, set Minors and UV rooms to No at Settings > Tanning rules: check-in then refuses UV rooms to a client under the minimum age even with guardian consent on file, while consent still opens spray and red light rooms. At Yes, the default, consent on file lets a younger client start a session in any room, UV included, with only a warning on screen. With a USB 2D barcode scanner, Scan ID reads the barcode on the back of a US or Canadian driver's license or ID card, fills in the client's details and records the day the ID was checked; it does not compare the photo with the person.

Clients sign your warning statement on their own phone or a tablet with consent forms, and each signed record keeps the signature and the exact wording. A session cannot start without a signed statement on file. Exposure safety refuses any typed time above the room's own maximum, and the gap between UV sessions is yours to set at Settings > Tanning rules. Each client record shows recent visits newest first, consent status and notes. Compare other states on the tanning laws by state page.