Do hair stylists make good money?

It depends on which stylists you count. Employed stylists earn a median of $35,790 a year (BLS, May 2025, employees only), below the $50,980 median for all US workers. One-person salons average $30,831 in gross receipts before rent, products and tax (Census, 2024). Some named stylists report $100,000 or more.

How much do hair stylists make an hour?

Employed hair stylists earn a median of $17.21 an hour, BLS May 2025. The lowest 10% earn under $13.00 and the top 10% over $34.23. These are employee wages only: the 48% of stylists who are self-employed are not counted, and their hourly pay depends on how full their book is.

How much do hairdressers make a year?

Employed hairdressers earn a median of $35,790 a year, BLS May 2025, counting employees only. One-person salon businesses average $30,831 a year in gross receipts before rent, products and tax, Census 2024, part-timers included. Where you work changes both; the ZIP tool above shows your area.

How much do hair stylists make with tips?

The official figures on this page do not separate tips. Two stylists who published a week's takings including tips reported $4,255 (Brett Ryan, 11 clients, a week he called average) and $2,315 (Beajah Renee, Valentine's week). Those are single weeks, gross. The calculator above has a tip line you set yourself.

Do you tip a hairstylist who owns the salon?

That is the client's call. The tax rules apply either way: a tip is income to the stylist who receives it, the occupation is on the IRS list of tipped occupations, and a self-employed stylist reports tips with their business income. The federal tips deduction covers employees and the self-employed.

How does commission work at a salon?

The salon provides the chair, the products and usually the clients, and the stylist keeps a share of each service price. An Atlanta stylist reported a 50/50 split. Kelsey Arielle said most salons she worked at paid 60/40, with 60 to the stylist. Commission stylists are employees, paid on a W-2.

Is booth rent or commission better?

This page does not pick; the fork above sets out both. Booth rent keeps the whole ticket and the client list, with rent due whether anyone books. Commission trades about half of each ticket for the chair, products and clients. Jaybl00m earned more after switching to booth rent. Marissa went back to commission.

How much do salon owners make?

One owner's figure: Lee Cannon, who owns Flourish Curls Salon in Arlington, Texas, takes home $100,000 to $150,000 a year after business expenses and taxes, CNBC Make It reported in 2024. Her salon has 11 stylists and brought in $1.1 million in 2023. That is one owner, not a typical one.

How much do salon suite owners make?

No official figure covers suite renters on their own. Census puts one-person salon businesses at $30,831 a year in average gross receipts, before rent and products, part-timers included. Marissa, a suite renter for five years, said she paid herself about $3,000 every two weeks after costs, until her bookings fell.

How much do hair stylists make in California, Texas or New York?

State medians for employed stylists, BLS May 2025: California $38,660 a year, New York $35,760, Texas $30,680, against $35,790 nationally. These count employees only, not the self-employed. Cities inside each state differ, so type a ZIP code into the tool above to see your area.

How much do cosmetologists make?

BLS counts hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists as one occupation, so the figure is the same: a median of $35,790 a year, or $17.21 an hour, for employees in May 2025. The 48% who are self-employed are not in it. For one-person salons, Census reports $30,831 in average gross receipts.

Can hairstylists make 6 figures?

Some report it. Meg Cianci's salon owner puts her take home at $200,000 a year, and owner Lee Cannon takes home $100,000 to $150,000. In Qnity's 2022 data, W-2 pay reported by 330 participating salons, 24% earned over $48.08 an hour, $100,000 at 40 hours. They averaged 27.8 hours a week.

Do barbers make more than hairdressers?

Employed barbers earn a little more an hour: a median of $18.37, against $17.21 for hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists, BLS May 2025. Both figures leave out the self-employed, and that matters more for barbers: 80% of barbers are self-employed, against 48% of hairdressers.

How much do salon assistants make?

The BLS tables on this page publish no separate figure for salon assistants. What stylists said about their start is in the first-year section above: Lee Cannon made close to $30,000 in her first year, and Beajah Renee took seven months to build a steady client base.

Hair stylist pay

How Much Do Hair Stylists Make?

There are three honest answers to how much hair stylists make, because three different groups of stylists get counted. The government counts employed stylists in one survey and one-person salon businesses in another. Working stylists who publish their own pay are a third group.

Which group you land in depends mostly on one choice: being employed by a salon, or being booked as your own business. It also depends on where you work. Type your ZIP code below to see the official figures for your area.

$35,790 a year

Median for employed stylists, $17.21 an hour, across 305,710 jobs (BLS, May 2025)[1]

Counts employees only. The 48% of stylists who are self-employed are not in it.

$30,831 a year

Average gross receipts of a one-person salon business, across 867,242 businesses (Census, 2024 data)[3]

Rent, products and taxes still come out of it, and part-timers are counted too.

$51,000–$150,000 a year

What named working stylists report, from an Atlanta commission stylist to a Texas salon owner[21]

Only stylists who chose to publish their pay, which tilts it toward busy ones.

The rest of this page is about which of these you would be.

Hair stylist pay near you

Pay for employed stylists runs from about two-thirds of the national median to 1.7 times it, depending on the area

Type a ZIP code to see what stylists earn where you work. The figures come from official pay data for 451 metro and rural areas and Census records for 3,026 counties, matched to all 40,767 US ZIP codes.

Your ZIP code

New York metro pays employed stylists the national median; Seattle pays 67% more

BLS May 2025 medians for employed stylists: $36,120 a year in the New York metro, against $35,790 nationally, and $59,810 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue.

In Austin and Miami, one-person salons gross more than the national figure while employed stylists earn less

Census puts one-person salons at $40,851 a year in Travis County (Austin) and $34,713 in Miami-Dade, against $30,831 nationally. Employed stylists in those metros earn medians of $35,220 and $29,790 (BLS).

Washington and Oregon pay employed stylists more than any other state

BLS May 2025 state medians: Washington $59,510 a year, Oregon $57,580, against $35,790 nationally. Self-employed stylists are not in these figures.

Sources: BLS May 2025 area wages for employed stylists; Census 2024 Nonemployer Statistics by county; the Census 2020 ZIP-to-county file; USDA rural-urban codes. Official area pay data covers employed stylists; for self-employed earnings the calculator uses the same local pay level, because no agency publishes self-employed pay by area. The lookup runs in your browser. It loads a small file for the first three digits of your ZIP code from this site and sends nothing else.

Hair stylist pay by state

Washington pays employed stylists the most, Louisiana the least

The two columns measure different people. The first is the median pay of employed stylists. The second is the average gross receipts of one-person salon businesses, before rent, products and tax, with part-timers included.

State	Employed stylists, median a year (BLS)	One-person salon, average gross a year (Census)
United States	$35,790	$30,831
Highest five
Washington	$59,510	$44,031
Oregon	$57,580	$39,812
District of Columbia	$54,570	$25,082
South Dakota	$49,800	$40,908
Vermont	$48,650	$41,792
Lowest five
Louisiana	$26,030	$21,783
Mississippi	$27,560	$20,601
Arkansas	$28,830	$25,521
Alabama	$29,150	$24,013
Wyoming	$29,170	$34,551
Most stylists employed
California	$38,660	$36,817
Florida	$29,530	$31,404
Texas	$30,680	$29,918
New York	$35,760	$29,289
Pennsylvania	$36,790	$28,154
New Jersey	$36,150	$30,494

BLS May 2025 state medians for employed stylists; Census 2024 Nonemployer Statistics by state. Puerto Rico is left out of the ranking because Census publishes no one-person salon figure for it. BLS suppresses Virginia's median, so Virginia is not ranked.

Commission or booth rent

The biggest pay decision: work for a salon, or rent a chair and work for yourself

Most of the gap between the three numbers at the top of this page comes from this choice. Employed stylists are in the BLS number. Booth and suite renters, and salon owners working alone, are in the Census number. Two stylists went opposite ways: Jaybl00m left commission for booth rent and says she earned more, and Marissa left a suite after five years and went back to commission.

Choose one

AEmployed by a salon (commission or hourly)

+The salon provides the clients, the products and the chair

+W-2 pay, with tax withheld by the salon

+Qnity's employed sample worked 27.8 hours a week on average

−Splits stylists report run from 50/50 to 60/40 for you

−The clients are the salon's, not yours

BBooked as your own business (booth, suite or your own salon)

+You keep the whole ticket and the client list

+Self-employed stylists usually set their own schedules, says BLS

+Jaybl00m puts her costs under 10% of her service income

−Rent is due whether anyone books or not

−Products, card fees, self-employment tax and quarterly estimates are yours

The calculator below runs both.

Hair stylist income calculator

Work out what you would take home before tax

Put in your own numbers to see a year three ways: employed on commission, renting a booth, or renting a suite. If you entered a ZIP code above, prices and rent follow local pay levels.

Average ticket$100What one client pays you for the service, before tip. $100 is an example.Clients a day5A colorist doing long services sees fewer.Days a week4Weeks worked a year48Take off holidays and slow weeks.Average tip15%An example. Use your own.

Services you do in a year$96,000
Your share$48,000
Tips+ $14,400

Before tax, a year$62,400about $1,200 a week

Example figures from the sources named, checked in October 2026. Supplies of $14 a client come from Jaybl00m's roughly $1,000 a month of color; 3% card fees are close to a card processor's published US rate, 2.9% plus 30 cents a payment. Tax is not taken off. Commission stylists usually pay no card fees or products. With a ZIP code entered, the ticket and the rent follow that area's pay level.

Do hair stylists get tips

Tips are taxed income, and a new federal deduction covers stylists from 2025 to 2028

Tips are the most-asked pay question about this trade: 108 phrasings on our chart, more than per hour, per year or commission. These are the federal rules as the IRS states them, not tax advice.

Stylists are on the IRS list of tipped occupations[7]

Entry 603 on the IRS list of occupations that customarily and regularly received tips is "Barbers, hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists." It covers hair colorists, hair cutters and wig stylists too.

Up to $25,000 of qualified tips can be deducted, for tax years 2025 through 2028[8]

Employees and the self-employed can both claim it. It phases out above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income, or $300,000 for joint filers. For the self-employed it cannot exceed the net income of the business. Tips must be paid voluntarily.

Employees report cash tips of $20 or more a month to the salon[9]

An employee who receives cash tips of $20 or more in a calendar month reports them in writing to the employer by the 10th of the following month.

Booth renters report all income, tips included, on Schedule C[10]

The IRS treats a booth renter as an independent contractor running their own business. They report all income, including tips, on Schedule C, and may need to make estimated tax payments during the year.

Real hair stylist income

What working stylists say they made, in their own words

These stylists published their own numbers on video, on a podcast or in the press. Every figure is theirs, unverified, and labeled gross or net, and by period, as they said it. A single week stays a single week.

About half of $102,000

a year: $102,000 in services, 50/50 commission split

Atlanta stylist (not named)

YouTube, Salary Transparent Street · 2025-06-16 · Atlanta

Commission

Ten years a stylist. She said the salon provides space and product, her boss gets half, and she does not feel well paid. About $51,000 is our arithmetic. Tips not discussed.

$100,000 to $150,000

a year, take home after business expenses and taxes

Sess "Lee" Cannon

CNBC Make It · 2024-09-01 · Arlington, Texas

Salon ownerCurly and natural hair

Owns Flourish Curls Salon: 11 stylists, $1.1 million in 2023 revenue per CNBC. She declined to give an exact salary and sees only a few clients a month.

$13,000 more

first booth-rent year against her last commission year, after tax

Jaybl00m

YouTube · 2025-04-13

Booth renterColor

Her account of what her CPA found. Four days a week, four to five clients a day, costs about $1,300 a month. Her video argues for booth renting.

About $3,000

every two weeks, paid to herself after costs, plus tips, in her suite years

Marissa

The Go Ham Podcast · 2025-06-09

Suite renter, now commission

After COVID and maternity leave it fell to about $900. Nine years on commission, five in a suite, now back on commission at the hosts' salon company.

$200,000

a year, take home as described by the owner of the salon she works at

Meg Cianci

The Go Ham Podcast · 2024-09-09

Salon employeeColor

She said she works two days a week and sees 13 to 16 clients a day. The host owns her salon and presented her as a top earner.

$4,255

one week, gross, including tips

Brett Ryan

YouTube, Brett Ryan Hair Artistry · 2024-03-16

Color, blonding, some tape-in extensions

Eleven clients in Valentine's week 2024. He called it an average week and said the total is before rent, product and tax.

$2,315

one week, gross, including tips

Beajah Renee

YouTube · 2026-02-19

Self-employedWigs and sew-ins

Valentine's week 2026, over 15 clients. She said not every week is this busy. Self-employed for five years.

On stylist forums, the numbers range from about $19,000 part time to $180,000

On stylist forums, people post their own numbers. A part-timer of five years said she made about $19,000. One commenter put mid-level stylists at their salons at $50,000 to $60,000 and top stylists at $80,000 to $100,000. Stylists with long experience reported $130,000 and $180,000 in a year. One described paychecks swinging from $250 to $3,000. January and February came up as slow months.

How much do new hair stylists make

The first year pays the least: one salon owner made about $30,000 in hers

The first-year row is one of the four most-asked on our chart: 101 phrasings, and 82 more that name a place. The BLS figures on this page do not break pay down by experience, so this is what stylists who published their start said.

Lee Cannon made close to $30,000 in her first year as a stylist[12]

She was licensed in 2009 and kept working as a waitress for two more years. She now owns a salon in Arlington, Texas, and takes home $100,000 to $150,000 a year.

Beajah Renee took seven months to build a steady client base[17]

She said it took about a year to master her own technique. She has been self-employed for five years.

Every state requires a license, and Lee Cannon's school cost $22,000[2]

BLS says all states license hairstylists and cosmetologists, usually after a state-approved program and an exam. Lee Cannon's cosmetology school took about 18 months and cost $22,000.

What people ask about hair stylist pay

Each bar counts the distinct ways people phrase the question in Google's suggestions, from three fixed starting points per row, each extended letter by letter through the alphabet: 81 queries for every row, so the numbers compare. Phrasings that name a place are counted separately.

about payaround the edgesthe control

Tips

108

Owning the salon or suite

107

First year and assistants

101

Per year

Taxes and 1099

Color, extensions, specialties

Is it worth it

Per hour

Commission

Booth rent

Per day, week or client

The top end

Self-employed or freelance

By state or city

Domain and email

People ask about tips three times as often as about hourly pay

Tips drew 108 distinct phrasings, the top row on the chart. Pay per hour drew 36. Commission drew 32 and booth rent 24.

People ask what salon owners make about as often as what stylists make a year

Owning the salon or suite drew 107 phrasings. Pay per year drew 96. Salon owner pay is answered in the questions below.

About 300 phrasings name a place, most of them on the yearly and first-year rows

We counted phrasings that name a state or city separately: 310 in all. Per year had 86, and first year and assistants had 82. That is why the ZIP tool sits near the top of this page.

Measured by us in October 2026, from Google's US suggestions. A row on cosmetology school cost was measured too, at 182 phrasings, and left off because it is about what training costs, not what the work pays.

Hair stylist pay questions

Booking software for salons and barbersFor a stylist booked as their own business: the booking side of the second road in the fork above.How much do barbers makeThe same research for barbers, four in five of whom work for themselves.

If you work for yourself, take bookings and deposits from day one.

The free plan takes your first 100 bookings without a credit card. It is a permanent plan, not a trial.

A booking page that works as the link in your Instagram bio
Each service with its own length and price: a cut, a single-process color, a balayage
A deposit at booking, or a card on file charged with the customer's permission, into your own Stripe account
Tap to Pay on iPhone, to take a card at the chair with no reader

Free to start. No credit card needed.

A hair stylist in a black apron with combs and clips in the pocket cutting a seated client's wet hair, a barber using a blow dryer behind her

An empty salon with a white styling chair, a round mirror and wall shelves of hair products in rainbow colors among potted plants

Hair shears, a cutting comb and pink and yellow sectioning clips resting on a black salon chair

The kiwilaunch iPhone app showing today's bookings and payments

Services

Book now

Sources

Where every number on this page comes from, with the release or date we used.

Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists (39-5012), national, state, metro and nonmetro areas, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-05-15 Employees only. Self-employed stylists are not surveyed.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: Barbers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Self-employed shares (48% of hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists; 80% of barbers), barber wages, the all-worker median and licensing, May 2025 wages.
Nonemployer Statistics 2024: Beauty Salons (NAICS 812112), national, state and county, U.S. Census Bureau, 2026-09-29 Gross receipts of businesses with no paid employees, before rent, supplies and tax. Part-time businesses included.
2020 ZCTA to County Relationship File, U.S. Census Bureau, 2021-12-09 Used by the ZIP tool to match a ZIP code to a county.
2020 Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes, ZIP code file, USDA Economic Research Service Used by the ZIP tool to label an area urban core, suburban, small city or rural.
Qnity Institute Pro Beauty Compensation Study, Salon Today (originally posted on Modern Salon), 2023-02-15 W-2 pay of 3,391 employees, reported by the owners of 330 salons in 36 states that chose to take part. 2022 data, averages not medians. Qnity is a beauty education company.
Occupations that customarily and regularly received tips on or before Dec. 31, 2024, Internal Revenue Service, 2026-06-28 Entry 603: Barbers, hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists.
IRS Tax Tip 2026-06: How to take advantage of no tax on tips and overtime, Internal Revenue Service, 2026-01-26 The $25,000 cap, the phase-out above $150,000 ($300,000 joint) and the net-income limit for the self-employed. The 2025 through 2028 tax years are from IRS Topic 761.
Topic no. 761, Tips: withholding and reporting, Internal Revenue Service, 2026-10-12 The deduction for tax years 2025 through 2028, and employees' monthly tip reports to the employer.
Publication 4902, Tax Tips for the Cosmetology and Barber Industry, Internal Revenue Service February 2011 edition. Booth renters as independent contractors, reporting income including tips on Schedule C.
Atlanta hairstylist, street interview, YouTube, Salary Transparent Street, 2025-06-16 Commission stylist, 50/50 split.
Sess "Lee" Cannon, Flourish Curls Salon, Arlington, Texas, CNBC Make It (syndicated by NBC Chicago), 2024-09-01 Salon owner. Take home, first-year pay and school cost in her own words.
Jaybl00m, The truth about booth renting, YouTube, 2025-04-13 Booth renter, formerly on commission.
Marissa, Salon suite vs. commission, The Go Ham Podcast, 2025-06-09 Suite renter for five years, now on commission. The hosts own the salon company that employs her.
Meg Cianci, part-time stylist, The Go Ham Podcast, 2024-09-09 Salon employee. The take-home figure is as described by the salon's owner, the host.
Brett Ryan, how much I make in a week, YouTube, Brett Ryan Hair Artistry, 2024-03-16 One week, gross, including tips.
Beajah Renee, a week as a self-employed hairstylist, YouTube, 2026-02-19 One week, gross, including tips.
Kelsey Arielle, on salon commission splits, YouTube, 2023-03-12 Said most salons she worked at pay 60/40, 60 to the stylist.
A salon owner renting chairs to six stylists at $225 a week, A stylists' forum a stylists' forum, not linked
A stylist weighing a salon suite at about $300 a week, A stylists' forum a stylists' forum, not linked
Named stylists' own figures, Various the seven named stylists above
Stripe pricing, standard US card rate, Stripe, 2026-10-25 the card processor kiwilaunch uses; quoted for the 3% card fee in the calculator

Not tax, legal or financial advice. Wages, rent and what you keep vary by state and city, and the tax rules on tips have conditions. A tax professional who knows your situation can answer for you.