Local business licenses in Tennessee

Three layers, not one license

Tennessee has no single business license. What exists is a stack: a state registration, a county license, and, inside a city, a city license on top of the county one.

The state registers your entity and your business tax account. The county clerk issues the license that lets you open. The city issues its own if you operate inside municipal boundaries. Start with how the stack fits together before you pay anyone anything.

The state layer and the entity layer

Forming an LLC and getting licensed are two different errands, and neither one excuses the other.

Does an LLC need a business license? answers the question that catches most first-time owners: the Secretary of State filing creates the company, and the county license is what lets it trade. What changed recently tracks the dated rules, including the 2023 threshold change and the 2026 trade-exam handover.

What your trade adds to the stack

The stack is the same for everyone. What changes by trade is the state license bolted onto it, and sometimes a permit the city adds.

Electricians meet a state license whose reach depends on the municipality. Food trucks face a health permit plus city rules that differ between Memphis and Knoxville. Salons cannot open until a state inspector passes the shop, and the state application demands the county license first. Lawn care needs a pesticide license only for the spraying half of the work. Cleaning carries no state trade license at all, only the stack itself.

What the stack costs

The license stack is cheap. The trade licenses on top of it are where the money goes.

The cost breakdown puts every published figure in one table, from the $15 county fee to the $300 pesticide charter. It separates the fees the state sets from the ones your county sets, so you can tell which are fixed before you shop.

Where to start, and who can help

One worked example beats a checklist of abstractions, and one checklist beats a page of advice.

The Memphis walkthrough follows a single business through its SOS filing, its county license, and its city license, in order. The checklist compresses the same steps into something you can work through in one sitting. The services page lists what formation services publish about their own prices, next to the file-it-yourself route, for the paperwork half of the job.

State, county, or city?

• How to get a Tennessee business license — The order to do it in: entity filing with the Secretary of State, business tax registration with Revenue, then the county license and the city license.
• Does an LLC need a business license in Tennessee? — Forming the company with the Secretary of State and obtaining the county and city licenses are separate errands. Here is where each one starts and stops.
• What changed in Tennessee business licensing — The 2023 law that moved the standard license threshold to $100,000, and the July 2026 handover of the contractors' trade exams from PSI to Prov.

What does each trade need?

• Tennessee electrician licenses: state and city — When the state Limited Licensed Electrician license applies, what it costs, and why the electrician still has to ask the city before pulling a permit.
• Food truck licenses in Tennessee — The health permit every Tennessee food truck needs, the county and city licenses under it, and how Memphis and Knoxville each add their own permit on top.
• Opening a salon in Tennessee: the licenses — The cosmetology license, the shop license that waits on a state inspection, and the county business license the state application asks to see first.
• Lawn care licensing in Tennessee — The mowing half of a Tennessee lawn care business carries no state license; the spraying half needs a TDA license, a certification, and a chartered bond.
• Starting a cleaning business in Tennessee — What a Tennessee house cleaning and janitorial business owes the state, the county, and the city, and where the trade's real costs sit instead of licenses.

What does it all cost?

• What Tennessee business licenses cost — Every published figure in one place: the $15 local license, the LLC filing, the trade licenses, the permits, and the annual obligations that follow.

Where do I start?

• One Memphis business, three licenses — A worked example: a two-owner Memphis company from the Secretary of State filing through the county license, the city license, and the first renewal.
• A Tennessee business license checklist — Every step and fee in one list: the entity filing, the tax registration, the county license, the city license, the trade credential, and the calendar.
• Formation services for Tennessee businesses — What each formation service publishes about its own prices, for the entity filing half of the stack, next to the file-it-yourself route at $300 minimum.

Questions