U.S. Virgin Islands: Permanent Makeup & Nano Brows Licensing and Regulation

Verified against official sources, 2026-11-11.

How can you check Nano Brows providers in U.S. Virgin Islands?

No online lookup located: As of 2026-11-11, we did not locate a public online lookup. You may ask the provider for the credential's name and issuing agency.

A lookup result reflects only the information shown by the issuing agency. Directory inclusion does not certify a provider's credentials or legal compliance.

Who regulates it

U.S. Virgin Islands — HYBRID, no dedicated board or codified body-art law: VI Dept of Health (DOH), Division of Environmental Health issues the Environmental Health Permit + operator Health Cards for 'Tattoo Parlor and/or Permanent Cosmetics Salon' facilities under an ADMINISTRATIVE terms-and-conditions instrument (not a codified regulation — the enabling-statute citation is STILL UNRESOLVED, but now SEARCHED rather than merely unexamined: the two most plausible homes in the free 2025 code were checked and ELIMINATED on 2026-11-11 — 19 V.I.C. ch. 53 (Sanitation), whose §1404 does give the Commissioner of Health rulemaking power with 'the full force and effect of law', confines that power by its own terms to 'subchapters I and II of this chapter', and §1431's subchapter-II definitions are about water, sewage, restaurants and frozen desserts — not body art; and 19 V.I.C. part I (General Provisions), whose nine chapters are communicable disease, venereal disease, Hansen's disease, maternal/child health, electronic health records, child abuse, terminally ill, health-care consent and cardiac arrest — no establishment-permit power); VI DLCA issues the generic territorial business license. DLCA's own board-certification inventory (10 professions) contains NO tattoo/body-art/PMU category; the Barbers/Beauticians/Manicurists Board's statute (V.I.C. tit. 27 §451) covers hair/scalp/eyebrow-SHAPING only — clean cosmetology split

Does it cover permanent makeup / nano brows?

Coverage: explicitly-covered

'Permanent cosmetics' is NAMED throughout the territory's operative instrument (the DOH terms document treats tattoo + PMU as one regulated activity) — BUT the naming is ADMINISTRATIVE, not statutory/codified (prominence caveat; unique posture in the DB). Techniques (nano brows/microblading/eyeliner) not individually named — generic 'tattoo and/or permanent cosmetic' framework. Physician exemption for PMU APPLICATION: unaddressed either way (UNRESOLVED); removal is physician-only (explicit). A third-party aggregator's claim that PMU requires a VI cosmetology license was checked against §451 and DISCARDED (template text; site disclaims government affiliation). THE SPLIT NOW HAS OFFICIAL, CURRENT CORROBORATION the 2019 mirror could not give: in bill 36-0244 (introduced 2026-02-10) the Legislature itself enumerates every licence category chapter 17 issues — 'cosmetologist, barber, esthetician, nail technician, natural hair stylist, or apprentice' — and there is NO tattoo, body-art or permanent-cosmetics credential among them. A 2026 enumeration by the licensing chapter's own legislature is better evidence of the split than a 2019 secondary copy of the definitions.

Artist requirements

License required	No individual artist license at this level
Training	NO artist license exists — facility-level permit CONDITIONS instead: proof of minimum TWO (2) YEARS apprenticeship/experience before performing any tattoo/PMU operation (self-attested — no exam, no curriculum minimum, no issuing credential); VI HEALTH CARD (DOH/DEH, stool-sample parasite test — generic sanitation credential shared with food/cosmetology/spa workers); ≥5 hours continuing education BIANNUALLY (facility condition)
Exam	none (contrast: the cosmetology board's licensed fields use PSI exams — PMU is not among them)
Bloodborne pathogen	no BBP certification requirement identified; facility sanitation standards govern (steam sterilizer 250°F/121°C or 30-min boiling, sharps-disposal contract, impervious surfaces, 4-ft observer panels, records 5-7 yrs)
Minimum age	no artist floor identified; CLIENTS: NO STATUTORY MINORS RULE — DOH permit condition only: written parental/guardian consent, records 5 years, NO AGE FLOOR (a minor of any age may receive PMU with written consent; enforcement = permit action, not prosecution) — with WV, the DB's most permissive minors posture, and the only NON-STATUTORY one
Fee	health card + business-license fees (generic); no PMU-specific fee schedule located (NAICS 81x personal-care category sheet not found — UNRESOLVED)
Renewal	annual facility inspection cycle; CE biannual

Facility requirements

License required	Yes
Inspection regime	TWO layers: (1) DLCA business license (prerequisites: trade-name registration, tax clearance, police records check, zoning, fire inspection, DOH review); (2) DOH Environmental Health Permit — INITIAL + ANNUAL inspections conducted JOINTLY by DOH and DLCA (or a DOH-appointed third party); detailed sanitation standards per the terms document; separate DEH contacts per district (St. Croix; St. Thomas/St. John) under one unified program
Fee	DLCA business-license fee by category (tattoo/personal-care category sheet unlocated — UNRESOLVED) + DOH permit
Renewal	annual

Local variation

County-level variation: No

Territory-wide law, island-level ADMINISTRATION (St. Croix vs St. Thomas/St. John district offices; DLCA license records tracked per-island). The located DOH terms document is captioned for St. Croix — whether an STT/STJ variant differs is UNRESOLVED (assumed-identical NOT asserted).

Reciprocity

Not applicable — no PMU/tattoo license exists to reciprocate (the cosmetology board's endorsement pathway covers only its own licensed fields, which exclude PMU). The 2-year experience condition accepts experience from anywhere (self-attested).

Pending / recent changes

Active changes: None identified

RE-EARNED 2026-11-11 over the CURRENT corpus, because the tracker had grown: the July check was made against 428 tracked documents and the 36th Legislature's tracker now reports 567, so the absence was re-established by enumerating ALL 57 result pages (420 distinct bill numbers, 446,226 chars of titles and status lines). ZERO occurrences of tattoo, body art, microblading, permanent cosmetic, permanent makeup, cosmetic tattoo, pigment or piercing — positive controls in the same corpus: 'an act'=768, 'amending'=398, 'virgin islands code'=328, 'title'=400, 'appropriat'=252. TWO BILLS DO TOUCH THE CHAPTER THIS ENTRY RELIES ON, and neither reaches PMU: (1) 36-0142 → ACT 9059, enacted 2025-11-10, board-membership districting only (see citations); (2) 36-0244 (Amendment 36-271), introduced 2026-02-10 and sitting in the Committee on Education and Workforce Development with no further action recorded, would add §458(g) — 'every licensee under this chapter, as a condition for renewal of a license, shall complete a minimum of six hours of board-approved continuing education with at least one hour of coursework relating to sanitation of tools and equipment' before 31 January each year. It cannot reach PMU artists, who hold no licence under chapter 17. (Note the tracker's own committee description says the bill adds subsection '(e)'; the bill text and its summary both say '(g)' — the PDF governs.) The 36th Legislature is still sitting (news of 2026-11-10), so no new-Legislature sweep is due. Still no enabling-statute or codification effort located; pending.exists stays FALSE because nothing pending reaches PMU.

What this means before you book

The U.S. Virgin Islands regulates PMU through facility permits rather than artist licenses: a 'Tattoo Parlor and/or Permanent Cosmetics Salon' needs a Health Department environmental permit with initial and annual joint inspections plus a general business license, and artists must show two years' experience and hold a territorial health card — but there is no artist license, exam, or public register anywhere. Minors may receive PMU with a parent's written consent at any age (a permit condition, not a law). Verification means asking the studio for its DOH permit and inspection history — and asking the artist directly about training.

Statutes & sources cited

DOH 'Terms and Conditions for the Operation of a Tattoo Parlor and/or Permanent Cosmetics Salon' (administrative permit-condition instrument, on-file 2020, hosted 2024; THE operative document — names 'permanent cosmetic' throughout: sterilization, sanitation, records, infection reporting apply identically to tattoo and PMU; removal must be referred to a physician and is PROHIBITED to artists)
V.I. Code tit. 27 ch. 9 §302 (generic business licensing, DLCA) + tit. 27 ch. 17 §§451-460 (Barbers/Beauticians/Manicurists — 'beauty culture' definition covers hair/scalp/facials/eyebrow arching ONLY, no needles/pigment; PMU outside the board) — CURRENCY CAVEAT, re-examined 2026-11-11 and it SURVIVES for a documented reason: a newer free edition (2025 U.S.V.I. Code) does exist on the same host, and its title 27 lists chapters 1-16 and 19 but OMITS CHAPTER 17 ENTIRELY — the 2025 chapter-17 URL redirects back to the 2019 text — so the 2019 edition remains the only free full copy of the chapter this entry relies on. The Legislature's own 'VI CODE' link goes to advance.lexis.com, confirming the gate; not paid for and not worked around. NAME DISCREPANCY, unresolved for the same reason: the 2019 §451 calls the body the 'Virgin Islands Board for the Licensing of Barbers, Beauticians, and Manicurists' while the Legislature's 2025 ENACTED act calls it the 'Board for the Licensing of Barbering and Cosmetology' — whether a rename was enacted between those dates cannot be read in a free source, because the act amends only §451a(b). ACCESS NOTE: both Justia URLs return HTTP 403 to an automated client but serve a human reader normally (verified in a browser 2026-11-11), so they are kept, not replaced — treat citations as unverified against in-force text
ACT 9059 (bill 36-0142, 36th Legislature), ENACTED 2025-11-10: the bill's own title says 'chapter 17, section 45' but its operative text amends §451a(b) — striking "two" and inserting "three", and striking "on any one island" and inserting "in any district" — i.e. it raises the maximum number of board members resident in any one district. Read from the Legislature's own bill PDF 2026-11-11; the Act PDF itself is an image-only scan (0 extractable chars) and this host has no OCR, so the enacted status rests on the tracker's status record (To Governor 10-31-2025, Enacted 11-10-2025, Act No. 9059). NOTHING in it reaches PMU
MINORS: NO statute found (tit. 14 + tit. 19 chapter-title sweeps clean) — the only rule is the DOH permit condition, verbatim: 'No tattoo and/or permanent cosmetic operations shall be performed on minors without the written consent of a parent or legal guardian; you must maintain these records for five years' — administrative, NO age floor, permit-forfeiture (not criminal) exposure