What license do you need to open a dog grooming, daycare or boarding business? (state-by-state)

The federal Animal Welfare Act does not reach these businesses.

The Act regulates a short list of categories — dealers, exhibitors, research facilities, intermediate handlers and carriers — and grooming, boarding, daycare, walking and pet sitting are not among them.

USDA APHIS puts it plainly in its own licensing guidance: anyone housing animals for others, boarding kennels included, is exempt from Animal Welfare Act licensing, except for intermediate handlers and holding facilities.

So there is no federal license application for the facility itself — a grooming salon, a dog daycare or an ordinary boarding kennel is not an Animal Welfare Act category.

(The transportation exceptions are in section five.)

That is not the same as saying nothing applies.

Two other layers govern you:

• State facility and kennel licensing. Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Connecticut license pet care businesses at the state level, through their agriculture departments, each with its own license names, fees and thresholds — the next section.
• Local business licensing, zoning and building rules. These can apply everywhere — including in states with no state facility license, and to a business run from home. Section three covers them.

One distinction before the detail: the licenses on this page belong to the business and its facility.

They are not a groomer's personal credential — a voluntary certification, however rigorous, is not a license.

The same paid service can be a licensed facility in one state and not the next, and the license names differ — commercial kennel, boarding kennel, pet animal facility, grooming facility.

These states show the range.

Iowa.

Iowa's commercial-kennel law is written around services.

A "commercial kennel" is a kennel that performs grooming, boarding or training services for dogs or cats for a fee, so a paid grooming salon falls within it.

A commercial kennel may only operate under a state license from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and boarding kennels need their own state license.

The fee for issuing or renewing a state license for a commercial establishment is $175.

Pennsylvania.

The Dog Law requires a kennel license from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to keep or operate any kennel — and any boarding kennel is a kennel.

The boarding-kennel definition expressly includes dog daycare: an establishment available to the general public that takes control of a dog from the owner for part of a day for exercise, day care or entertainment, with each entry counting as one dog.

A kennel is also any establishment where at least 26 dogs are kept or transferred in a calendar year.

Licenses are separate for each kennel type and location, they expire December 31, and boarding-kennel fees are tiered by capacity: $125 a year for 1 to 10 dogs, $200 for 11 to 25, $325 for 26 or more.

Colorado.

The Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act (PACFA) requires anyone operating a "pet animal facility" — any premises used to keep pet animals for boarding, grooming, handling, selling, sheltering, trading and more — to hold a license from the Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture.

Paid boarding or training needs the license once you are paid to care for or house more than three pet animals at one time, and people who exclusively provide dog and cat nail trims, oral hygiene, ear cleaning or anal gland expression are exempt.

The PACFA rule fee schedule effective July 15, 2025 lists $400 a year for a pet grooming facility and $500 for pet boarding and training.

House Bill 26-1183, approved May 28, 2026, continued the Act to September 1, 2034 and raised the statutory fee cap from $700 to $1,500 per license, so confirm the current schedule with the Colorado Department of Agriculture before you budget.

Connecticut.

Connecticut licenses boarding and grooming separately, both through the Commissioner of Agriculture.

A commercial kennel — a place maintained for boarding or grooming dogs or cats — needs a commercial kennel license at $400, effective until the second December 31 after issuance and renewed biennially.

Grooming carries its own license: the state requires one to engage in the business of grooming or maintain a grooming facility — $200 as of October 2026, on the same biennial cycle.

The state draws a home line, too: a resident who boards three or fewer cats or dogs in their residence is not required to obtain a commercial kennel license.

Ohio runs the other way.

The state's dog-kennel law licenses high volume breeders, dog brokers and pet stores that sell dogs; it defines a for-profit "boarding kennel" but creates no boarding-kennel license.

County kennel registration — $10 per kennel payable to the county auditor, due by January 31, unless a county sets a higher fee — covers breeding kennels only since House Bill 247 took effect on March 20, 2026.

Boarding, daycare and grooming businesses are not "kennels" under that amended definition.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture inspects a boarding kennel only when it receives information that the kennel is breeding dogs and may need a breeder license.

Louisiana has a statewide "kennel license" that is not a facility license.

It is an optional parish or municipal license: the owner or keeper of five or more dogs may buy it instead of individual dog licenses.

The parish or municipality sets the fee by ordinance, with statutory minimums of $15, $25 and $30 depending on how many dogs you keep.

It does not license the boarding or grooming business itself.

Alabama shows the quiet version.

The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries describes its Animal Industries Division as livestock and poultry disease control plus meat and poultry inspection, and its pages list no licensing program for boarding kennels, daycares or grooming salons.

Our research did not confirm whether another Alabama agency licenses these businesses — ask the department, your city and your county before you open.

Rhode Island licenses kennels, pet shops, breeders, dealers and auctions under its Animal Care chapter, and its definitions contain no grooming category, so a grooming-only salon there has no state facility license to seek.

The kennel definition covers places where animals not owned by the proprietor are sheltered, fed and watered for a fee — so boarding is the part of a salon business that lands in kennel licensing.

Thresholds decide who is in and who is out: Connecticut's three-dog home line, Colorado's three-animal line, Pennsylvania's 26-dog count.

State licensing is the layer people research; the local layer is the one that catches operators.

Zoning is controlled locally, and zoning ordinances can still apply even to a business run from your home — the Small Business Administration's advice is to check with your city planning department.

Cities and counties issue their own licenses, and some name pet care directly.

Baltimore County, Maryland, issues "Holding Facility Licenses" covering commercial kennels, fancier kennels, grooming parlors, pet shops, riding or boarding stables and nonprofit holding facilities.

In Maryland's Anne Arundel County, a pet care business run as a home occupation needs a county pet care license, and the home-occupation rule requires a lot of at least 20,000 square feet and no outdoor kennel boarding.

Registration with a state revenue department is a separate line again.

Iowa imposes its 6% state sales tax on pet grooming as an enumerated taxable service; where a service is taxable, the revenue department — not the agriculture department — registers you to collect.

Rules stack: a salon can hold a state grooming-facility license, a county holding-facility license and a city or county business license at once.

And they change — confirm each layer with the office that issues it, the state agriculture department for facility licensing and your city or county for business licensing, zoning and building, before you sign a lease.

Where a state licenses pet care facilities, inspections come with the license.

Pennsylvania's dog wardens must inspect all licensed kennels at least twice per calendar year.

Iowa's Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship may inspect a licensed commercial establishment's premises and records at any time during normal working hours, and can obtain an administrative search warrant if entry is refused.

Standards ride along with the inspections.

Pennsylvania boarding kennels must have a veterinarian-approved exercise plan, smoke alarms or fire extinguishers, and structurally sound primary enclosures with no gaps that let a dog's limbs extend into another enclosure.

Colorado's PACFA rules require facilities that commingle dogs from different households to have written owner consent, at least one human supervisor aged 16 or older for every 15 dogs in each common area, and no more than 60 dogs in one area.

Cameras, windows or staff busy grooming do not count as supervision.

Rhode Island's rules require dogs exercised in groups to be behaviorally compatible and observed the entire time.

Its department recommends — but does not require — no more than 15 behaviorally compatible dogs per attendant in group settings.

The ADA applies whether or not a state licenses the business.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, businesses that provide goods or services to the public are public accommodations.

All new facilities must be accessible to and usable by people with disabilities.

Existing facilities must remove architectural barriers when it is readily achievable — easily accomplishable without much difficulty or expense.

Vaccination policy is yours to set.

The American Animal Hospital Association's canine guidelines list core vaccines for all dogs — distemper, adenovirus, parvovirus (± parainfluenza), leptospira and rabies — and were updated in 2024 to add leptospirosis as core, with Bordetella, canine influenza and Lyme treated as lifestyle and risk-based.

They are one association's recommendations, not a state rule — but they explain why an intake form asking only about rabies, DHPP and Bordetella may predate the update.

Confirm with the agency.

Standards get amended and inspection programs change.

Before you open, renew or expand, confirm the current requirements with your state's agriculture department — and with your city or county for building and occupancy rules.

The van changes which rules reach you.

Colorado defines a "groomer facility" as any permanent or mobile establishment where owners pay to have a pet's skin, coat, hair or feathers cleaned, styled or maintained, and mobile grooming vans are covered.

Connecticut's grooming facility definition expressly includes any vehicle or trailer maintained as a grooming business.

In those two states, expect the facility license to apply to the van itself; elsewhere, ask the state agriculture department whether a van counts as a licensed premises.

Wash water is a local question.

One example of the pattern: Snohomish, Washington expects mobile pet services to contain the wash area, protect downstream storm drain inlets, strain out fur and sediment, and manage wash water through closed-loop recycling or discharge to the sanitary sewer.

It is one city's rule — ask your city or county stormwater program what applies at your addresses.

Federal registration holds two surprises.

A boarding kennel that takes responsibility for shipping animals on public carriers, or receiving them during or after shipment, must register with APHIS as an intermediate handler.

And anyone hired to transport animals — to and from pet stores or veterinary offices, like a pet taxi — must register as an Animal Welfare Act carrier.

Pet sitting and dog walking start with the local layers: city or county business licensing, zoning — including for a business run from home — and any local permits.

Boarding pets in your own home can bring in state licensing too.

Colorado's PACFA license applies once you are paid to care for or house more than three pet animals at one time.

In Connecticut, a resident who boards three or fewer cats or dogs at home does not need the commercial kennel license, so boarding more can bring it in.

Whether any state licenses visit-only sitting or dog walking was not established in our research — ask your state agriculture department.

If the sitting business adds transportation for hire, the federal carrier registration above is the line to ask APHIS about.

Each state page in this series answers the operator's question for one state.

It covers the state facility, kennel or grooming-business license and who needs it, the agency, fees and inspections behind it, and the county and city layer.

Home and mobile rules, sales-tax registration and a closing checklist tied to that state's own rules finish the page.

State pages will be listed below as they are verified and published.

If yours is not built yet, start with two calls: your state agriculture department, about facility and kennel licensing, and your city or county clerk, about the business license, zoning and building.

Ask each office what applies to the services you will sell, at the address you will occupy.

When the licensing is in motion, the staffing question is next: the hiring hub covers how to hire and pay the groomers, bathers and kennel and daycare staff these businesses run on.

Owner and employer information, not legal, tax, insurance or veterinary advice. The agencies named here set the rules — confirm current licensing, zoning and tax requirements with your state agriculture department, your revenue department and your city or county before you open.