Puerto Rico: Permanent Makeup & Nano Brows Regulation

Verified against official sources, 2026-07-16.

How can you check Nano Brows providers in Puerto Rico?

No online lookup located: As of 2026-07-16, 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

Puerto Rico Departamento de Salud — Secretaría Auxiliar para la Regulación de la Salud Pública (SARSP, renamed 2024 from SARAFS) — licenses individual 'Artistas Dermatógrafos' (Registro de Artistas Dermatógrafos) AND tattoo studios under Ley 318-1999, implemented by Reglamento del Secretario de Salud Núm. 118 (2005-02-17; regulation TEXT UNRECOVERED — high-priority retrieval queued). The cosmetology board (Junta Examinadora de Especialistas en Belleza, Ley 431-1950, Depto. de Estado) covers non-invasive beautification only — no needle/pigment act in its statute (boundary is reasoned inference; Reglamento 8663-2015 is a scanned PDF, unverified)

Does it cover permanent makeup / nano brows?

Coverage: covered-as-tattoo

The dermatógrafo definition is TECHNIQUE-BASED (needles/scalpels introducing colorants beneath the epidermis) with no cosmetic-purpose carve-out — machine PMU/nano brows/microblading fall within it on its face. NO official document naming 'maquillaje permanente'/'micropigmentación'/'microblading' was located (industry sources treat PMU/SMP/areola work as covered under the dermatógrafo license — secondary, corroborative; the unrecovered Reglamento 118 may name PMU — UNRESOLVED). PHYSICIAN EXEMPTION: NONE in the statute (full text read — Art. 3's 'Ninguna persona' is unqualified); no ruling either way located (UNRESOLVED-ABSENCE). Federal FDA pigment posture applies as elsewhere. Spanish-language texts are the primary sources; translations in this entry are ours (labeled).

Artist requirements

License required	Yes
Training	no hour/apprenticeship requirement in the statute — application documents (Art. 4): certified birth certificate, photo ID (2x3), SSN/passport (+ work-authorized immigrant status if foreign-born), and HEPATITIS VACCINATION CERTIFICATE (statutory); practice-level detail (secondary, 2025): applications via saluddigital.salud.pr.gov; $75 asepsis/infection-control talk certificate (40-question exam); background + CRIM/ASUME/Hacienda no-debt certificates reportedly requested — unverified against Reglamento 118
Exam	statutory ASEPSIS EXAM (Art. 5 — Department-administered, infection-control techniques; implemented in practice as the asepsis-talk certificate exam)
Bloodborne pathogen	hepatitis vaccination certificate (statutory) + detailed statutory sanitary code (Art. 7: surgical garb, antiseptic handwashing, disposable gloves/gauze/sterile needles, no tattooing over drug-use marks/lesions/dermatologic disease, germicidal stencil processing, tattoo-specific non-toxic pigments, labeled sharps containers as high-risk biological material, biomedical-waste bags)
Minimum age	artist minimum age NOT SPECIFIED in the statute (UNRESOLVED); CLIENTS: FLAT BAN UNDER 21 — Art. 9 verbatim: 'Se prohíbe realizar tatuajes a personas mentalmente incapacitadas o a menores de veintiún (21) años de edad' (researcher's translation: tattooing mentally incapacitated persons or persons under twenty-one (21) years of age is prohibited) — THE HIGHEST CLIENT AGE FLOOR IN THE DB, no parental-consent exception; violation = indefinite license revocation (the Art. 22 cross-reference is a drafting holdover — flagged); also bans tattooing mentally incapacitated persons. B10-CLASS display item
Fee	renewal $125 per 2-year term (+$50 if filed within the 90-day window; expired = treated as new original application); initial-application fee shown online as $125 (secondary)
Renewal	biennial (file 90 days before expiration)

Facility requirements

License required	Yes
Inspection regime	studio license from Depto. de Salud (Art. 10); application: address, owner/administrator majority-age proof + conduct/criminal certificate (see discrepancy flag), owners/50%+ shareholders list, equipment list, services + sanitary-measures description, $300 fee (Art. 11); inspections BEFORE licensure, DURING the term, and AT renewal; refusing entry = denial/revocation; 6-MONTH REAPPLICATION BAR after denial/revocation (Art. 14); ownership change CANCELS the license (Art. 13); bound sequential client registry ≤500 pages, inspectable anytime (Art. 18); biomedical waste per Junta de Calidad Ambiental (Art. 19); ultrasonic cleaning 10-min immersion, daily solution change (Art. 15)
Fee	$300 initial; $150 renewal per 4-year term
Renewal	every 4 years

Local variation

County-level variation: Yes

Health/safety licensing is Commonwealth-uniform (Depto. de Salud). Municipal layer is business/land-use only: Permiso Único (via OGPe or, in municipios autónomos like San Juan/Bayamón, the municipio's own permit office) + patente municipal (rates set per municipio, Código Municipal Ley 107-2020) — no PMU-specific municipal ordinance found (UNRESOLVED-ABSENCE; 78 municipios unsurveyed).

Reciprocity

Ley 102-2025 universal recognition (≥1 yr licensed + ≥3 yrs continuous practice + comparable exam/training + good standing + $100 fee; no mutuality requirement) + Salud's Reglamento 9746 (eff. 2026-03-27) textually reach ALL Depto. de Salud licensing programs — the dermatógrafo registry is plausibly included but NOT confirmed by name, and the framework sits under PROMESA Oversight Board review (2026-05-28 reporting) — treat as PLAUSIBLE-BUT-UNCONFIRMED-IN-PRACTICE. Legacy cosmetology-only reciprocity (Ley 431 Art. 7(e)) is irrelevant to PMU.

Pending / recent changes

Active changes: Yes

P. del S. 971 (filed 2026-01-20, Comisión de Salud, hearing 2026-03-10): comprehensive med-spa/aesthetic-services regulation (injectables, fillers, botox, laser, 'micropunción'...) — does NOT mention tattooing/dermatography/PMU/microblading and doesn't touch Ley 318; WATCH the 'micropunción'/'otros semejantes' ambiguity if amended. No Ley 318 amendment bill found (UNRESOLVED-ABSENCE). LIVE REGULATORY PROCESS: Reglamento 9746/Ley 102-2025 PROMESA review (reciprocity implementation unsettled).

What this means before you book

Puerto Rico licenses PMU providers as 'artistas dermatógrafos' through the Department of Health — an asepsis exam, hepatitis vaccination, and a registered, inspected studio are required, with detailed sanitary rules written directly into the law. Puerto Rico sets the strictest age rule anywhere in this database: no tattooing or PMU for anyone under 21, with no parental-consent exception. There is no online registry to verify an artist's license — ask to see the certificate, which the law requires to be displayed on the studio wall.

Statutes & sources cited

Ley Núm. 318 de 18 de octubre de 1999 (24 L.P.R.A. §§531-549; REVIEWER RE-FETCHED THE FULL OFFICIAL OGP COMPILATION (Rev. 2024-11-04) 2026-07-16 — all pivotal articles verified verbatim): Art. 2(a): "'Artista Dermatógrafo' significa la persona que graba dibujos, figuras o marcas en la piel humana, introduciendo colorantes bajo la epidermis con agujas o escalpelos..." (researcher's translation: the person who engraves drawings, figures or marks on human skin by introducing colorants beneath the epidermis with needles or scalpels); Art. 3 license+registry mandate; Art. 9 minors; Arts. 10-15 studios; Art. 21 penalties (misdemeanor, ≤$5,000 and/or ≤6 months + license action)
Reglamento Núm. 118 (2005-02-17) — cited by SARSP's own page as the implementing regulation; substantive text NOT LOCATED online (UNRESOLVED — may contain explicit PMU language)
Ley Núm. 102 de 1 de agosto de 2025 (universal license recognition) + Depto. de Salud Reglamento 9746 (eff. 2026-03-27; draft text fetched: applies to 'las secretarías, divisiones, juntas o programas del Departamento de Salud encargados de expedir licencias profesionales u ocupacionales') — textually reaches the dermatógrafo registry but NOT confirmed by name; under PROMESA Oversight Board review as of 2026-05-28 (implementation unsettled)
TEXT DISCREPANCY FLAG: current OGP compilation Art. 11(b)(2) still reads 'certificado de buena conducta' though Ley 168-2006 amended it to 'certificado de antecedentes penales' — the later amendment is likely operative; unresolved against an enrolled source