South Dakota tanning laws for salon owners

What South Dakota's tanning law covers

South Dakota has no statewide tanning law. On September 29, 2026 we downloaded the Legislature's full text of all 71 titles of the South Dakota Codified Laws, more than 40,000 sections including laws passed in 2026, and every title of the Administrative Rules of South Dakota, and searched both for "tanning". The statutes use the word once: SDCL 37-6-12, the trademark classes, lists "tanning substances" among industrial chemicals. The rules use it three times, all in the surface-water discharge permit rules (74:52:02:39, 74:52:02:45 and 74:52:12:01), which name leather tanning and finishing as an industry.

Those files hold each section's full text, not just its heading. The same search finds "ultraviolet" inside the definitions in SDCL 34-21-2 on radiation and 34A-7-1 on litter control. The phrases "tanning bed" and "tanning facility" and the word "sunlamp" appear nowhere in the statutes or the rules.

South Dakota does license personal-care salons. The Cosmetology Commission licenses cosmetology, esthetics and nail salons and booths (SDCL 36-15-51), and its scope-of-practice guide, dated July 3, 2017, lists tanning beds among the services its licenses do not cover. Esthetics under SDCL 36-15-2.2 includes applying lotions and cosmetic preparations to the skin for beautifying or cosmetic purposes. Neither the statute nor the guide mentions spray tanning, so ask the Commission before you offer spray tans without an esthetics license. City and county rules are outside this page, so check with your local government before you open.

At the front desk

With no state tanning law, your desk runs on your own written policy. Salons in states like this usually cover the same basics:

1. Pick a minimum age and write it down. South Dakota sets none, so whether a parent can sign for a younger client, and whether they must be present, is your call.
2. Take a date of birth for every client before their first UV session, so staff can check your age policy.
3. Have each client sign a warning statement before their first session. No South Dakota 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, lamp and incident records. No state retention period, lamp rule or injury-report deadline applies.

If you also run a cosmetology, esthetics or nail salon, that side of the business still needs its Commission license, and the Commission's rules in ARSD 20:42 apply to it. The tanning beds themselves sit outside that license.

What changed recently

Nothing. The Legislature's bill search reads the full text of every bill from the 2020 through 2026 sessions, special sessions included. On September 29, 2026 it returned no bill containing "tanning", "ultraviolet" or "sunlamp". The same search does find words deep inside bill text: "cosmetology" returns 26 bills across those years, including 2026 House Bill 1326, the general appropriations bill, where the word sits in a list of state boards. The search does not cover sessions before 2020, but the Codified Laws above hold every law still in force.

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.

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 each client record shows recent visits newest first, with consent status and notes. TanVision has no waiver expiry and no re-sign interval. 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. Compare other states, including North Dakota, which licenses tanning salons, on the tanning laws by state page.