New York Cosmetology & Barber Licenses - NYS DOS Registry

Every appearance-enhancement and barber license issued by the New York State Department of State, straight from the state's open data. 221,437 individual licenses for cosmetologists, barbers, nail specialists, estheticians, waxers and natural-hair stylists, plus 32,522 licensed shops and area renters - verify a license, screen a licensee, or profile the industry.

Low cost

From $0.00005 per record, down to $0.00003 at Gold. Pay only for the records you actually receive - the whole register stays queryable, you are never billed for the scan behind it.

What you get

One row per license. Two registers, chosen with corpus:

• corpus="individual" (default) - 221,437 operator, apprentice and trainee licenses. Holder name, license type, effective term and expiration.
• corpus="business" - 32,522 shop and area-renter licenses. Holder name, business name, full address, city, state and ZIP, plus the license issue date and the related business UID.

Both carry the license number, license type, effective term and expiration date with a common schema.

Filter it

• Type - licenseType="Barber - Operator" (individual) or licenseType="DOSAEBUSINESS" (business).
• Name - name="GOLDSMITH" for a licensee (matches the business name too, on the business register).
• One license - licenseNumber="BO-15-00043".
• Place - city="Brooklyn", zip="11206", state="NY" (business only).
• Expiry - expiresFrom="2026-10-01", expiresTo="2026-12-31" for the renewals coming due this quarter.

Example inputs

All licensed barbers - the operator tier.

{ "licenseType": "Barber - Operator", "maxResults": 100 }

Licenses up for renewal this quarter - a date window.

{ "expiresFrom": "2026-10-01", "expiresTo": "2026-12-31", "maxResults": 200 }

One license by number - an exact lookup.

{ "licenseNumber": "BO-15-00043" }

Shops in Brooklyn - the business register, by city.

{ "corpus": "business", "city": "Brooklyn", "maxResults": 100 }

How it breaks down - mode=aggregate counts per license type.

{ "mode": "aggregate", "groupBy": "licenseType" }

Or roll it up

Set mode=aggregate and get a count by licenseType (either register) or businessState (business register). Every group comes back - this mode is not cut off by maxResults.

Then use it

• Verify a professional - confirm a cosmetologist's or barber's license and its expiry before hiring or booking.
• Screen a shop - pull the licensed businesses in a city or ZIP, with the holder behind each one.
• Renewal tracking - list the licenses expiring in a window, for outreach or compliance monitoring.

Example output

One licensed area renter on the business register:

{
 "platform": "ny-appearance-barber",
 "source": "ny-appearance-barber-business",
 "corpus": "business",
 "mode": "rows",
 "groupKey": "",
 "groupCount": "",
 "groupBy": "",
 "licenseNumber": "AEAR-18-00828",
 "licenseType": "DOSAERENTER",
 "licenseTypeLabel": "Appearance Enhancement Area Renter",
 "holderName": "Brousseau Cheryl",
 "businessName": "Sassy Images II",
 "address1": "2 Booth Dr",
 "address2": "",
 "city": "Plattsburgh",
 "state": "NY",
 "zip": "12901",
 "licensedState": "NY",
 "issueDate": "2018-09-25",
 "effectiveTerm": "2030-09-25T00:00:00.000",
 "expirationDate": "2034-09-25T00:00:00.000",
 "relatedBusinessUid": "AEB-18-01407",
 "sourceUpdatedAt": "2026-10-07"
}

mode=aggregate, groupBy=licenseType (individual register) - one count row per type:

Appearance Enhancement Operator - Cosmetology                118,465
Appearance Enhancement Operator - Nail Specialty              40,330
Appearance Enhancement Operator - Esthetics                    30,300
Barber - Operator                                              13,405
Appearance Enhancement Operator - Waxing                       10,784
Barber - Apprentice                                             2,681
Appearance Enhancement Operator - Cosmetology (Temporary)       2,039
...

Notes on the data, from the source

• Cosmetology dominates. 'Appearance Enhancement Operator - Cosmetology' is 118,465 of the 221,437 individual licenses (53.5%). The licensed-barber tier ('Barber - Operator') is 13,405.
• Raw license numbers encode the tier - BO- barber operator, BA- barber apprentice, AENS- nail specialty, AEB- appearance-enhancement business.
• The business register keys on the shop, with the holder alongside. Each row has both businessName and holderName, plus relatedBusinessUid linking an area renter back to the parent shop (e.g. AEB-18-01407).
• licenseType differs by register. The individual register uses readable labels; the business register uses four DOS codes. A type that belongs to one register is rejected on the other, so you never get a silent empty result. Codes are decoded into licenseTypeLabel.
• Business license_issue_date is text in MM/DD/YYYY - it is parsed to ISO (issueDate) on output; a value that will not parse comes back blank.
• The business register is almost entirely New York (32,397 of 32,522 licences carry state="NY").
• The register refreshes daily; sourceUpdatedAt carries the dataset's own refresh date.