26 August 2026 · Team EaseSeat

Which Licences a Singapore Salon or Spa Actually Needs

Opening a salon in Singapore is administratively light — until you add a massage bed. Then a Police licence, a floor-area minimum, nationality rules for staff and a consumer-protection accreditation all arrive at once. Here is where the lines sit. (General information, not legal advice; check the current SPF and GoBusiness pages before applying.)

Hair, nails, lashes: no trade licence

There is no hairdressing licence in Singapore. A hair salon needs its ACRA business registration, the landlord’s approval for the premises and the usual renovation and signage permits — and that is the list. Manicure, pedicure, light and electric treatments and baths are explicitly exempt from massage licensing, provided no massage is offered.

The Massage Establishment licence

The Singapore Police Force licenses any premises “used or intended to be used for the reception or treatment of persons seeking massage”, and defines massage broadly: “the act of rubbing, kneading or manipulating the human body”. A spa with body massage clearly needs it. A hair salon offering a 15-minute head-and-shoulder massage as an add-on is in grey territory that the word “manipulating” does not resolve in your favour — ask SPF before you print the menu.

Two categories:

Category I — premises in HDB shophouses, shopping centres and hotels. Staff must be Singapore citizens, permanent residents or Malaysians. Minimum floor area 100 m².
Category II — premises away from residential zones, schools and places of worship. Staff of any nationality holding a valid work pass. Minimum floor area 50 m².

The applicant must be 21 or over and “fit and proper”. Fees are S$290 for one year, S$440 for two, S$590 for three, with small charges for layout or uniform amendments, and SPF quotes roughly four weeks to process. Older guides still quote S$525 a year — that is out of date.

The catch most first-time spa owners miss: in both categories, the full licence (as opposed to a provisional one) requires CaseTrust accreditation.

CaseTrust for spa and wellness

CaseTrust is CASE’s accreditation scheme, and for spas it comes with teeth. Accredited businesses must buy prepayment-protection insurance so customers’ package money is covered if the business closes, must give a cooling-off period of at least five working days for a full refund on packages (used trial sessions excluded), and must not sell in treatment rooms. Per CASE’s 2025 information kit, the application fee is S$535, the first-outlet assessment S$856 (S$642 for further outlets), and there is an annual management fee. Budget it as part of the licence, because for an ME licence it effectively is.

The aesthetic line

Facials, cosmetic peels and non-invasive skin treatments sit outside medical licensing. But under the Healthcare Services Act, “clinical procedures” may only be provided by a licensee and performed by registered doctors, dentists or oral health therapists — and MOH has said beauty salons performing them can be prosecuted as unlicensed providers. Injectables, medical-grade lasers and anything that breaks the skin belong to a clinic. If a supplier tells you a device is “salon-grade” and it plainly is not, that is your liability, not theirs.

What most vendors won’t tell you

No software gets you a licence. Where software earns its place is in the paperwork the licence generates for years afterwards: a staff roster you can show an inspector, with each person’s pass type against a Category I nationality rule; package balances tracked precisely, because CaseTrust’s refund and insurance obligations are computed on sessions unredeemed; and treatment records per customer for the day a complaint lands. A licence is a one-off; the record-keeping it demands is permanent.

Sequence, so nothing waits on anything

ACRA registration, then premises approval.
If massage: decide the category by location, check the floor-area minimum before signing the lease, apply to SPF.
Start CaseTrust in parallel — it gates the full licence.
Set up records: staff and passes, packages and balances, customer treatment history.

On EaseSeat, step 4 lives in one place — staff, memberships and packages, customer records — see the platform. If you are opening a treatment room next quarter, book a demo and see where each record sits.

Sources

All figures retrieved 4 September 2026.