Where are the nail salons? Nail-specialty license density across Texas counties

nail-specialty establishment licenses on the Texas roster — one for every 3,647 Texans

Texas licenses nail-specialty establishments — the Manicurist Establishment and Manicurist/Esthetician Establishment classes — separately from full-service salons. The state roster carries 8,580 of them, alongside 71,250 cosmetology establishment licenses of all classes and 81,791 individual manicurist-class practitioner licenses.

Per capita, the densest nail-salon county in Texas isn't in a big metro: Gregg County leads at 4.42 nail-specialty establishments per 10,000 residents — against a statewide rate of 2.74.

Source: Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR), "TDLR - All Licenses" open dataset, dataset 7358-krk7. TDLR last regenerated the dataset on 2026-04-12; we retrieved our snapshot on 2026-07-01. County populations: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 County Population Estimates (co-est2024-alldata.csv) (retrieved 2026-07-01).

Query logic:we downloaded every row whose license type is one of TDLR's cosmetology establishment classes (Full Service Establishment, Mini Establishment, Manicurist/Esthetician Establishment, Esthetician Establishment, Manicurist Establishment, Eyelash Extension Establishment, Mobile Establishment), kept the 71,250 rows with a parseable Texas business address (of 71,402 downloaded; 34 out-of-state and 118unparseable-address rows excluded), and computed all expiry figures against the dataset's own generation date. "Nail-specialty" means the Manicurist Establishment and Manicurist/Esthetician Establishment license classes. County analyses use TDLR business_county reconciled to Census county names; rows with blank or OUT OF STATE county are excluded from county tables (but included in statewide totals).

Limitations:

• TDLR last regenerated this dataset on 2026-04-12; all "expired as of" figures are computed against that date, not the retrieval date (2026-07-01). A license shown as expired may have been renewed after the file was generated.
• The dataset has no license-status field, no issue dates, and no disciplinary or inspection data. Nothing here measures cleanliness, inspection results, or safety.
• An expired license on the roster does not mean the business is operating: it may have closed, relocated, or renewed after the file date. Texas allows late renewal (with higher fees) for up to three years after expiration.
• Nail-specialty counts cover the Manicurist Establishment and Manicurist/Esthetician Establishment license classes only. Full Service Establishments may also offer nail services, so these figures undercount where nail services are available.
• Counts are of licenses on the roster, not confirmed open businesses.

Every figure on this page is computed by scripts/research/analyze-tdlr.mjs from the committed snapshot data/research/tdlr-establishments-2026-07-01.json.gz— the analysis is re-runnable end to end. Cite as: "SafePedicures analysis of TDLR licensing data, 2026-07-01" with a link to this page.