You passed both exams. Now what?
Passing is not the license, and the license is what makes it legal to work for compensation. Three things sit between the two, and the first one catches people who assume the hard part is behind them.
⏳ Passing one exam is not passing
Florida licensure is two separate written examinations and no hands-on practical. Each is 65 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes, and each must be passed at 75% in its own right — a strong score on one does not carry the other. If you passed one and failed the other, you retake only the one you failed. There is a window for completing both, so check the current DBPR candidate information bulletin for the deadline that applies to your first attempt rather than assuming it is open-ended.
⏳ The exam result is not permission to work
Completing the 1,200 hours made you eligible to sit the examination. Passing it makes you eligible to be licensed. Neither one authorizes practicing cosmetology for compensation — that requires the license itself, and there is no grace period while a result or an application is pending. Working in that gap is unlicensed activity regardless of how briefly it lasts or how well supervised it is.
Apply to the Board of Cosmetology
The application goes to the Board of Cosmetology within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which licenses and disciplines cosmetologists and salons under Chapter 477 of the Florida Statutes. Fees and the current application steps are published by DBPR — confirm them there, because published third-party figures disagree with each other and with the department.
Two small duties that cause big problems
Once licensed, the license is displayed conspicuously at the station where you work — not filed in the office and not produced on request. And if you move, the department must be notified of the address change. That second one sounds trivial until a renewal notice goes to an old address: a missed notice does not excuse an expired license, and an expired license does not authorize practice.
The renewal clock starts now
Florida cosmetology licenses renew on a two-year biennial cycle, and continuing education must be completed within each biennium — 16 hours covering Board-specified subjects including sanitation, laws and rules, and workplace safety. Both the hour count and the subject list are set by rule in Chapter 61G5 and are revised from time to time, so confirm the current requirement there rather than trusting any study guide, this one included.
What a cosmetology license does not include
A full cosmetology license already covers nails, facials and hair removal by wax, so the specialty registrations are narrower credentials rather than steps up from here. These are the three directions that actually add something.
A salon license of your own
A salon holds its own license, separate from every individual license inside it, with its own facility requirements — hot and cold running water and adequate sanitation facilities among them. Practicing in an unlicensed establishment is a violation by the licensee as well as by the owner, which is worth knowing whether you plan to own one or just work in one.
Electrolysis
Permanent hair removal by electrolysis destroys the follicle and requires its own separate Florida license. A cosmetology license never authorizes it, no matter how much hair-removal work you already do — which is exactly why electrolysis shows up as the wrong answer whenever an exam item lists hair removal methods.
Licensure in another state
Florida licenses people from other states by endorsement, and other states have their own versions of the same route. Required hours differ substantially from state to state, so a Florida license does not transfer automatically anywhere — but repeating full training is generally not required either. Ask the destination state's board before enrolling in anything.
Requirements change, and this page deliberately quotes no fee. Published third-party figures for the Florida cosmetology examination and application fees contradicted each other when this was written, so confirm everything here against the DBPR candidate information bulletin and the current text of Chapter 477 F.S. and Chapter 61G5 F.A.C. before relying on it. This is study material, not licensing advice.