How Do I Renew My Cosmetology License In Florida

How do I renew my barber license in Florida?

Florida barber licenses are renewed through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and the continuing education requirement is 2 hours of HIV and AIDS education. That is a far smaller requirement than Florida cosmetologists carry, and the reason is that barbers answer to a different board.

What Florida asks for

Hours required
2 hours of approved continuing education
How often
Every 2 years

Subjects the board names

  • 2 hours HIV/AIDS

The HIV/AIDS course must come from a provider approved by the Florida Barbers' Board specifically.

Checked against the board's own pages on 2026-08-09.

The Barbers' Board is not the Board of Cosmetology

This is the single most important thing on this page. Florida has a Barbers' Board and a separate Board of Cosmetology, and they set different requirements. Cosmetology renewal is 10 hours. Barber renewal is 2 hours of HIV and AIDS education.

It follows that your provider has to be approved by the Barbers' Board specifically. A provider approved for cosmetology is not automatically approved for barbers, and hours taken under the wrong approval do not count toward your renewal. If you hold both a barber and a cosmetology license, check that the approval covers each one you are renewing.

Why we do not print your expiry date

DBPR's own pages do not agree on Florida renewal dates. One describes licenses expiring on 31 October on an alternating group cycle, another gives 30 November of even-numbered years. Rather than choose one and present it as fact, we tell you to take the date from the only authoritative place: look your own license up in DBPR's licensee search and use the expiry date on your record.

The renewal itself

  1. Complete 2 hours of HIV and AIDS education with a provider approved by the Barbers' Board. Ours is the Florida barber CE course.
  2. Confirm the hours reached your record before you renew, not after.
  3. Renew in DBPR's online portal before the expiry date on your own license record, and pay the current fee that DBPR publishes.
  4. Keep the certificate in case you are asked for it.

If you are getting licensed for the first time

Initial Florida licensure carries its own HIV and AIDS course requirement, which is a different thing from this renewal requirement. If you are not renewing an existing license, that is the course to look for, and completing it does not remove the renewal requirement later on.

How this guide is kept accurate. The hours, deadlines and exemptions above are rendered from the same record that drives the course pages, and each was read from the board's own site rather than from another provider. Where a board publishes something we cannot verify, or contradicts itself, we say so here instead of guessing. Continuing education rules change, so check your own license record for the date that governs you, and call us on 1-800-260-2355 if you find something here that no longer matches your board.