How do I renew my cosmetology license in Texas?
Texas cosmetology licenses are renewed through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Renewal has two parts: the continuing education your license type requires, and the renewal application and fee in TDLR's online portal. The education has to be finished first, because TDLR checks it before the renewal is granted.
What Texas asks for
- Hours required
- 4 hours of approved continuing education
- How often
- Every 2 years
- Who is exempt
- TDLR treats barber and cosmetology CE as interchangeable: hours taken for one license satisfy the other, and you do not repeat them.
- Reporting
- We file your completion electronically with TDLR within 7 days of the date you finish, and your completion certificate is issued within 15 days.
Made up of
- Sanitation 1 hour
- Human trafficking awareness 1 hour Required since 1 September 2025.
- Barber or cosmetology topics of your choice 2 hours
Since 1 September 2025, TDLR requires only 2 hours (1 sanitation and 1 human trafficking awareness) from anyone who has held a Texas license for 15 years or more. If that is you, this 4-hour course is more than you need to renew.
Checked against the board's own pages on 2026-08-09.
If you have held your license 15 years or more, you need 2 hours, not 4
This is the part most licensees do not know, and it changed on 1 September 2025. If you have been licensed for 15 years or longer, your requirement drops to 2 hours: the sanitation hour and the human trafficking awareness hour. The two general cosmetology hours are no longer required of you.
We sell one 4-hour course, so a licensee of 15 years or more who buys it is buying more than the state asks for. The extra hours still count and the course still satisfies the requirement, but you should know that before you pay. If you are in that group and want only the 2 hours, TDLR's approved provider list has providers who sell a 2-hour course.
A barber license and a cosmetology license share the same hours
TDLR treats continuing education for barber and cosmetology licenses as interchangeable. Hours you take for one satisfy the other, so if you hold both you do not take the requirement twice. What you cannot do is claim the same course twice in the same renewal, or reuse a course you already claimed in an earlier one.
The renewal itself
- Finish your hours first. Take them from a TDLR-approved provider. Ours is the Texas cosmetology CE course, under TDLR provider number 2268.
- Let the reporting happen. Your provider files your completion with TDLR electronically. Ours goes in within 7 days, and your certificate reaches you within 15 days. You do not send TDLR a certificate yourself.
- Renew in TDLR's online portal. Sign in, or create an account if this is your first online renewal, and open the renewal for your license.
- Pay the fee. The amount depends on your license type, and TDLR publishes the current figure on the renewal page for that type. We do not quote it here, because a stale fee is worse than no fee.
- Check it went through. TDLR's license search will show the new expiry date once the renewal is processed. If your CE is not showing, that is the thing to chase with your provider, not with TDLR.
Do not wait for the expiry date
Reporting and processing both take days rather than minutes, so finishing your hours in the last 48 hours of your cycle leaves nothing in reserve if something goes wrong. Practicing on an expired license is a separate problem from being short of hours, and it is the more expensive one.
