SafePedicures Research — Texas licensing data

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

8,531

nail-specialty establishment licenses on the Texas roster — one for every 3,668 Texans

Texas licenses nail-specialty establishments — the Manicurist Establishment and Manicurist/Esthetician Establishment classes — separately from full-service salons. The state roster carries 8,531 of them, alongside 71,213 cosmetology establishment licenses of all classes and 82,513 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 2.73.

The 10 densest counties (100k+ residents)

Gregg
4.42 per 10k
Galveston
3.86 per 10k
Midland
3.65 per 10k
Nueces
3.57 per 10k
Smith
3.57 per 10k
Comal
3.37 per 10k
Rockwall
3.36 per 10k
Taylor
3.36 per 10k
Harris
3.25 per 10k
Lubbock
3.18 per 10k

Nail-specialty establishment licenses per 10,000 residents, counties with at least 100,000 residents.

The five biggest counties, compared

CountyPopulation (2024)Nail-specialty licensesPer 10k residentsAll establishment licenses
Harris County5,009,3021,6293.2511,491
Dallas County2,656,0287542.847,367
Travis County1,363,7673712.723,183
Bexar County2,127,7375752.74,813
Tarrant County2,230,7085812.66,626

Full ranking

All 43 Texas counties with 100,000+ residents, ranked by nail-specialty licenses per 10,000 residents.
#CountyPopulation (2024)Nail-specialtyPer 10k
1Gregg County126,679564.42
2Galveston County367,4071423.86
3Midland County183,587673.65
4Nueces County353,1251263.57
5Smith County249,091893.57
6Comal County201,628683.37
7Rockwall County137,044463.36
8Taylor County148,813503.36
9Harris County5,009,3021,6293.25
10Lubbock County327,3941043.18
11Brazoria County413,2241283.1
12Williamson County727,4802152.96
13Jefferson County253,948752.95
14Fort Bend County958,4342742.86
15Dallas County2,656,0287542.84
16Hidalgo County914,8202582.82
17Johnson County210,547582.75
18Brazos County249,624682.72
19Travis County1,363,7673712.72
20Bexar County2,127,7375752.7
21McLennan County270,358722.66
22Tom Green County120,103322.66
23Ector County170,022452.65
24Collin County1,254,6583262.6
25Tarrant County2,230,7085812.6
26Guadalupe County195,166482.46
27Montgomery County749,6131842.45
28Bell County399,578962.4
29Randall County150,547362.39
30Wichita County129,984312.38
31Parker County179,707422.34
32El Paso County875,7842002.28
33Hunt County118,729272.27
34Grayson County150,532342.26
35Potter County114,649252.18
36Cameron County431,874912.11
37Hays County292,029612.09
38Denton County1,045,1202172.08
39Liberty County115,042232
40Ellis County232,387441.89
41Bastrop County114,931211.83
42Kaufman County197,829361.82
43Webb County272,823491.8

Full-service establishments also offer nail services in most markets, so this measures the specialty-licensed segment, not everywhere you can get a pedicure.

What this data does — and doesn't — tell you. These figures count license records on the state roster. They say nothing about cleanliness, inspection results, or safety — Texas publishes no establishment-level inspection or disciplinary data in this dataset. A licensed establishment is not certified safe, and an expired license on the roster does not mean a business is operating unlawfully: it may have closed, relocated, or renewed after the state generated the file.

Methodology

Source: Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR), "TDLR - All Licenses" open dataset, dataset 7358-krk7. TDLR last regenerated the dataset on 2026-07-16; we retrieved our snapshot on 2026-08-02. 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 71,213 rows with a parseable Texas business address (of 71,350 downloaded; 33 out-of-state and 104unparseable-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 2026-07-16; all "expired as of" figures are computed against that date, not the retrieval date (2026-08-02). 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-2026-08-02.json.gz— the analysis is re-runnable end to end. Cite as: "SafePedicures analysis of TDLR licensing data, 2026-08-02" with a link to this page.

Data update history

When we refresh the snapshot and a published figure changes, the change is recorded here with the prior value — numbers on these pages are never silently replaced.

Related

Looking for a salon in a specific city? See our directories for Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and Plano — the six Texas cities where we publish per-salon public license records.

← All SafePedicures research · Free pedicure safety checklist · How we build our listings