San Diego body-art fees, 2026
Quick reading: San Diego County’s 2026 fee schedule lists $469.00 for a body art facility permit and $179.00 for a practitioner registration, plus event, plan-check and consultation fees.[1] This page transcribes every body-art line and offers it as a CSV.
What does the County charge in 2026?
The table below transcribes every body-art line from the County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health and Quality fee schedule for the Food, Water, and Housing Division, which is marked “Fee schedule effective July 10, 2026” and revised 9 September 2026.[1] Fees are in US dollars as printed. Nothing has been adjusted, averaged or estimated.
| Fee item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Body art facility (annual health permit) | $469.00 |
| Body art practitioner registration (annual) | $179.00 |
| Body art temporary event sponsor | $814.00 |
| Body art temporary event booth | $95.00 |
| Temporary event late submittal, less than 14 days before the event (added to the base fee) | $302.00 |
| Single-use needle mechanical ear-piercing facility notification | $51.00 |
| Plan check: body art facility | $648.00 |
| Body art field consultation (one appointment) | $413.00 |
| Body art office consultation (one appointment) | $206.00 |
| Body art facility complaint response | Hourly rate |
Download: san-diego-county-body-art-fees-2026.csv (the same rows with the County fee codes). Last updated 9 November 2026.
How to read the numbers
Two fees matter to every permanent tattoo shop in the county. The facility pays the body art facility health permit, listed at $469.00, and each artist who tattoos there pays the practitioner registration, listed at $179.00.[1] The County describes both as annual: practitioners must pay for registration annually and repeat bloodborne pathogens training every year, and facilities must hold a valid health permit to host practitioners.[2]
For a shop the size of Remington Tattoo Parlor, which lists seven resident artists on its official directory, the arithmetic is straightforward but worth stating carefully.[3] If each resident were registered in San Diego County at the 2026 rate, seven registrations would total $1,253.00, and with the facility permit the annual County total would be $1,722.00. That is an illustration from the public fee schedule, not a figure from the shop: this wiki does not know which artist pays which fee, whether guests register for their visits, or what the shop’s actual permit invoices show.
Temporary events and conventions
Tattoo conventions and art shows use the temporary-event lines. The sponsor of a temporary body-art event pays $814.00, each booth $95.00, and a sponsor who submits or modifies an application less than 14 days before the event pays a further $302.00 on top of the base fee.[1] The County also publishes a Temporary Event Sponsor Packet for these events.[2] Remington’s own archive includes posts about art shows, which is one reason the event fees are kept in this table, though no event fee paid by the shop is claimed here.
Opening a new studio
Someone opening a body-art facility in the county’s jurisdiction pays a plan check fee of $648.00, and can book a field consultation ($413.00) or an office consultation ($206.00) with the program.[1] The County lists a starting-a-business booklet, a plan-check guide and checklist, an infection prevention control plan template and a sterilization log among its publications for new facilities, and says that new certification statements took effect on 1 January 2026.[2]
Method and limits
Source: the County’s fee schedule PDF, downloaded on 9 November 2026. Each body-art line was copied with its fee code into the CSV. Food, pool, housing and massage lines on the same schedule were left out. The complaint-response line is billed at an hourly rate that the schedule does not fix on that line, so it is shown as “Hourly rate.”[1] Fee schedules change, often on 1 July; check the live County PDF before relying on these figures for a permit application. These are government fees only, not tattoo prices: Remington Tattoo does not publish a price list on the pages reviewed.
Common questions
How much is a body art practitioner registration in San Diego County?
$179.00 on the fee schedule effective 10 July 2026.
How much is a body art facility permit?
$469.00 on the same schedule.
Are these tattoo prices?
No. They are County permit and registration fees. The shop does not publish tattoo prices on the pages reviewed.
See also
Sources cited
- ^ a b c d e f Fee Schedule effective July 10, 2026 (Food, Water, and Housing Division; Rev. 09/09/2026). County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health and Quality. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ^ a b c Body Art Program. County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health and Quality. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ^ The Artists – Remington Tattoo. Remington Tattoo Parlor (remingtontattoo.com). Retrieved 9 November 2026.