“I don’t have a recognised diploma — does that mean I simply can’t work here?” Almost every artist who has moved to Munich asks herself this question at some point — whether she arrived with a certificate from a short course or with no paperwork at all, just hands that know how to do a clean lash extension. The answer is simple, even though it’s rarely stated plainly: a brow or lash artist can legally work in Germany without a diploma — recognition isn’t required for this profession at all. It belongs to the non-regulated professions: since July 2021, Kosmetiker/in has been officially classified under Anlage B1 of the German Handwerksordnung (Trade and Crafts Code) as a zulassungsfreies Handwerk — a licence-free craft. In plain terms: no mandatory master craftsman exam, and no recognition of foreign qualifications required.
The confusion usually starts at the next step. “No recognition needed” absolutely does not mean “nothing needs to be registered” — and that’s exactly where half the advice circulating in migrant chats falls apart. In this article we’ll unpack what actually separates diploma recognition from business registration, which documents you’ll need in Munich, how much it costs, and what income you can realistically expect.
Regulated or not — the distinction you need to understand first
Doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers — these are reglementierte Berufe (regulated professions), where recognition of qualifications is a legal requirement. Brow and lash artists aren’t on that list, and here’s why.
In Germany, professions fall into two broad groups, and which one yours belongs to determines whether diploma recognition is needed at all. The first group is regulated professions: practising without official recognition of your qualification is prohibited by law, no exceptions. This includes medicine, teaching, law, part of the engineering professions, and a few dozen others set out at the federal-state level. The second group is everything else — and that’s where cosmetology in the broad sense falls, brow and lash artists included.
The specific rule reads as follows: Kosmetiker/in is classified under Anlage B of the Handwerksordnung, and since 1 July 2021, specifically under Abschnitt 1 — a zulassungsfreies Handwerk. That change was confirmed by a ruling of the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BVerwG 8 C 34.20 of 26 October 2021), and the Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria (Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern) confirms the same, explicitly naming Kosmetiker as an example of a licence-free craft. Before 2021 the profession was classified as a handwerksähnliches Gewerbe (craft-like trade) — a slightly different formal status, but with the same practical result: no mandatory proof of qualification is required to work independently.
In plain terms, the status of “Kosmetiker ohne Ausbildung” — a cosmetologist without formal German training — is entirely legal from a regulatory standpoint. The law doesn’t ask where your skills came from: a state college, a private school in Ukraine, or years of practising on your own. Only the tax office and the Chamber of Crafts ask about registering the activity — not about an education certificate sitting in a drawer.
Do you need diploma recognition to work as a brow/lash artist?
No. Recognition (Anerkennung) is mandatory only for regulated professions and for a separate category — zulassungspflichtiges Handwerk, crafts that still require a master craftsman exam (for example, hairdressing, Friseurhandwerk, which falls entirely under Anlage A of the Handwerksordnung with a mandatory Meisterpflicht). Brow and lash artists don’t fall into that category.
The distinction between regulated and non-regulated professions is exactly where most guides for migrants get tangled up: they mix the rules for doctors and nurses with the rules for cosmetologists, even though these are fundamentally different legal regimes. One profession requires years of confirmed diploma recognition through the Central Office for Foreign Education (Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen); the other simply requires registering a business activity with the local authority.
Does recognition improve your chances of finding clients? Legally, no — a Gewerbe can be opened without it. In practice, documented proof of skills builds client trust and standing with the Chamber of Crafts, even without a formal requirement. More on that in the certificate section below.
Step-by-step guide to a legal start in Munich
A legal start consists of five steps: registering the Gewerbe with the KVR, automatic registration with the Chamber of Crafts, the questionnaire with the tax office, liability insurance, and a hygiene plan. None of them require a recognised diploma — each step is broken down below.
Step 1. Gewerbeanmeldung at Munich’s KVR
This is business registration with the Kreisverwaltungsreferat (KVR) — the same process that’s often confused with diploma recognition, even though they’re two completely different procedures: one concerns education, the other your right to run a business. The cost in Munich is roughly €47–60 — slightly above the nationwide minimum, as the Munich KVR is one of the pricier trade offices in the country. It’s completed in person, with your passport and proof of address (Meldebescheinigung); an in-person appointment is currently mandatory, as the Munich KVR doesn’t offer a fully online registration. Book your appointment well in advance — free slots at the Munich KVR fill up fast, especially in spring and autumn.
Step 2. Automatic registration with the Chamber of Crafts
After the Gewerbeanmeldung, your details are passed automatically to the Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern, and you’re entered on the list of licence-free crafts — no additional application is required. For anyone registering their own activity for the first time as a private individual, the first year of membership is fee-free (§113(2) Handwerksordnung: in the year of registration, neither the base fee nor the additional fee is charged; in years 2 and 3, only half the base fee applies). This concession lasts as long as profit doesn’t exceed roughly €25,000 a year — which is usually realistic at the start anyway, since the first months tend to go toward building a client base rather than profit.
Step 3. Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung at the tax office
This is the questionnaire for tax registration, after which you receive a tax number (Steuernummer) and, if applicable, Kleinunternehmer status — a simplified tax regime for small turnovers at the start, which exempts you from charging VAT on client invoices. The form can be submitted online via the ELSTER portal, but for the first time it’s easier to do it together with an adviser or tax consultant who speaks at least some Ukrainian or Russian.
Step 4. Berufshaftpflichtversicherung — professional liability insurance
This insurance isn’t always formally mandated by law for this specific profession, but in practice, without it, any allergic reaction in a client or an eye injury after a lash extension becomes a personal financial liability rather than an insurance claim. The annual cost of such a policy for cosmetic services is generally modest relative to the potential risk — it’s worth getting quotes from several insurers at once, since rates vary depending on the scope of services.
Step 5. Hygiene plan under §36 IfSG
The hygiene plan is drawn up in accordance with §36(2) of the Infektionsschutzgesetz (IfSG, Infection Protection Act): this is the very provision that gives the local health authority (Gesundheitsamt) the right to carry out infection-hygiene oversight of cosmetic studios, and it requires you to describe instrument disinfection procedures, disposal of single-use materials, and workplace standards. The municipal Gesundheitsamt can inspect this plan on site, sometimes without notice — keeping it up to date isn’t a formality, it’s day-to-day practice.
German bureaucratic language is the most intimidating part — but in reality most KVR and tax-office forms are standardised, and basic B1 German with the right keywords (Gewerbeanmeldung, selbstständige Tätigkeit, Kosmetikstudio) is usually enough to get through the appointment on your own. In trickier cases, start-up advisers (Existenzgründungsberatung) can help — often free of charge through the IHK or Chamber of Crafts, and that’s the right place to ask any questions specific to your situation.
Home studio, mobile service, or renting a chair — what to choose at the start
The three starting formats differ both in the investment required and in risk, so it’s worth comparing them before your first client, not after.
Mobile service (travelling to the client) requires minimal investment: a set of tools and insurance — that’s it. It’s the simplest way to test demand in your area without any additional permits for premises, though it limits how many clients you can see in a day because of travel time.
Renting a chair in an existing salon (Platzmiete) removes the question of hygiene requirements for the premises entirely: the studio owner has already met them, leaving you to focus purely on practice and clients. It’s also the fastest way to get your first clients through the salon’s existing footfall — and the place where a documented certificate genuinely affects whether the studio owner agrees to rent you a chair.
A home studio is the riskiest option in terms of paperwork. In many municipalities, commercial use of residential premises requires separate approval — and if the flat is rented, that also becomes a question for the landlord, since tenancy agreements often explicitly prohibit commercial activity at home. Commercial use of housing is regulated at the municipal level, and there’s no single nationwide rule covering it.
Check your Mietvertrag before your first client: a penalty for breaching your lease terms costs far more than a lost month of work. It’s also worth informing your insurer (Hausrat- and Haftpflichtversicherung) about the commercial use of your home — otherwise it may not cover an incident, even a minor one.
Receiving clients at home in a rented flat is technically possible if the landlord has given written consent and the municipality doesn’t require a separate Gewerbe permit for residential zones. Without that, it’s a legal grey zone best not tested on yourself — the risk is too high for the money saved on renting a chair at a salon.
What does a brow/lash artist earn in Munich: a realistic picture
There’s no direct answer in the form of an “average salary for a brow/lash artist in Munich” — that kind of narrow statistic simply isn’t collected separately from other beauty professions. But there are concrete reference points: service prices and related labour-market data that together give a realistic picture.
According to indicative pricing from one German lash school, a full set of lash extensions costs between €80 and €340 depending on the technique — classic, 2D, or volume variants. This isn’t official market statistics, just a benchmark from one particular provider, so treat these figures as a rough range rather than a guaranteed price. Munich is traditionally one of Germany’s more expensive cities in terms of cost of living and services, so it’s reasonable to expect pricing toward the upper end of this range — though there’s no direct, verified data specifically on brow/lash prices in Munich.
A self-employed artist’s income doesn’t depend on an “industry average salary” but on three things: how many clients come back regularly, which techniques you offer (add-on services like brow lamination raise the average ticket — more on that in the certificate section below), and how quickly your reputation builds in your particular part of the city.
For reference — not as a direct comparison, but as background on the labour market — related employed positions in the beauty industry in Munich show an average income of around €39,500 a year for make-up artists and around €43,400 for nail designers. This is employed-role data from adjacent fields, and applying it directly to a self-employed brow/lash artist in Munich wouldn’t be accurate: in self-employment, income is shaped differently — through client numbers and pricing rather than a fixed rate. These figures aren’t a promise or an income benchmark for your own business — just context on the labour market in a related industry.
How realistic it is to live on this income in Munich depends more on how quickly you can build a steady client base than on the profession itself. The first three to six months are usually the slowest; after that, if word of mouth and reputation are working in your favour, income tends to stabilise. That’s why it makes sense to plan the first few months as “months of building a client base” rather than “months of income,” and to budget accordingly.
The certificate that actually matters: why qualification counts even without a legal requirement
The law doesn’t require a diploma. Clients do — even without realising it: they’re trusting their face and eyes to someone with demonstrated training, not just someone with tools.
There’s a nuance that often gets lost in legal texts: the absence of a mandatory requirement doesn’t mean qualification is irrelevant. The Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern is more inclined to trust entries from artists with documented training — this matters, for example, in negotiations over renting a chair at a salon. And clients in Munich, as anywhere, choose an artist not by legal status but by portfolio and the certificate on the studio wall.
An international certificate from MONLIS becomes exactly that kind of practical tool, rather than paperwork for its own sake. The short intensive courses are built around the real pace of migrant life — 1–3 days, taught in Ukrainian, with an emphasis on supervised practice rather than theory for its own sake. For those who already know how to do brows but want confirmation and supervised practice, there’s the Brow Shaping and Tinting course and the Lash Extension course — both end with an international certificate you can show clients and, if needed, the Chamber of Crafts.
The main thing you actually need to do to start legally is to properly complete the Gewerbe registration at Munich’s KVR, register with the Chamber of Crafts, submit the tax questionnaire, and arrange insurance and a hygiene plan. And the document that confirms your qualification, despite there being no legal requirement for it, remains a practical tool for building trust with clients.
If you already know how to do brows or lashes but want your skills confirmed with an international certificate and supervised practice — get in touch with us, and we’ll find the nearest intensive course in Munich for you.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace consultation with a lawyer or migration law specialist.
