Business Licenses in St. Louis: What You Actually Need (City vs. County)
Revised July 27, 2026
Do I need a business license in St. Louis?
Missouri does not issue a general, statewide business license. What you actually need is set locally. In the City of St. Louis, anyone engaged in business inside the city limits needs a Graduated Business License — $200 to start (or $100 if you begin between January 1 and May 31), renewing from $200 a year for 0–2 employees, on a license year that runs June 1 to May 31. In St. Louis County there is no single county license: 80-plus municipalities each set their own. ⚠️ An LLC is not a license, and neither is an EIN — different governments, different purposes.
Keep reading ↓Do I need a business license in St. Louis?
Here is the part that trips people up, and it is worth saying plainly before anything else: Missouri does not issue a general, statewide business license. There is no single form you fill out with the state that makes your business legal to operate. Google’s own answer panel for this question says as much, pointing to the Secretary of State, and Wolters Kluwer puts it the same way — the state does not require a state-issued general business license.
So when someone tells you they “got their Missouri business license,” they almost certainly mean one of three different things: they registered an entity with the Secretary of State, they registered for taxes with the Department of Revenue, or they got a license from their city. Those are three separate offices, three separate forms, and only the third one is actually called a license.
Where you sit on the map decides most of it. A bakery on South Grand and a bakery in Kirkwood follow different rules, not because the state treats them differently, but because their city halls do.
What the state of Missouri actually requires
Strip away the license question and the state layer is short. Depending on how you are set up and whether you have employees, you are looking at some combination of:
- Entity registration with the Secretary of State — if you are forming an LLC or a corporation, or operating under a name that is not your own legal name. A sole proprietor working under their own name generally has no filing to make here.
- Tax registration with the Department of Revenue — a sales tax license if you sell taxable goods, and employer withholding if you have employees.
- A federal EIN from the IRS — free, and needed if you have employees or a multi-member entity.
- A professional or occupational license — but only for regulated fields. Cosmetology, healthcare, real estate, liquor, childcare and similar work go through state boards.
Notice what is missing from that list. There is no line item that says “business license.” If your trade is not one the state regulates, the state does not have a license to sell you.
The City of St. Louis: the Graduated Business License
Inside the city limits, the answer flips. Any person engaged in business within the City of St. Louis is required to have a business license, and unless specifically exempt, that means a Graduated Business License — the GBL. This one is real, it is annual, and it has teeth.
What makes it “graduated” is that the renewal amount scales with your number of city employees in the previous calendar year, not with your revenue. That surprises people who assume a small shop with high sales pays more than a quiet office with a large staff. It is the opposite.
The first year works on a different rule — a flat amount that depends only on when in the license year you started:
| When you start | Initial fee |
|---|---|
| June 1 – January 1 | $200 |
| January 1 – May 31 | $100 |
After that first year, renewals follow the employee-count schedule. A representative slice of it:
| City employees | Annual tax |
|---|---|
| 0 – 2 | $200 |
| 3 – 5 | $325 |
| 6 – 10 | $675 |
| 11 – 20 | $1,500 |
| 21 – 30 | $2,250 |
| 51 – 75 | $7,500 |
| 501 and up | $37,500 |
Source: the City’s own Graduated Business License fee schedule. For most small operations — a solo consultant, a two-person shop — the number that matters is the one at the top: $200 a year.
The dates matter more than the dollars
The license year runs June 1 through May 31. It does not follow the calendar year, and it does not follow your fiscal year. Renewal is due before June 1, and late filing carries a penalty of 5% per month up to a 25% cap, with an additional 20% if payment runs more than 60 days behind. That is how a $200 license quietly becomes a $290 problem.
Three things people forget until they are stuck
The license itself is rarely the whole errand. The city also expects:
- A state sales tax number first, if you sell a product. You need it in hand before you can register for the GBL — so the Department of Revenue step comes before the city step, not after.
- A clearance statement from the Collector of Revenue confirming your city taxes are paid. Owe anything, and the license stalls until you do not.
- An Occupancy Permit from the Building Division if your business is physically located in the city.
And a separate GBL is required for each business location or trade name. Two storefronts means two licenses, even under one owner.
St. Louis County: it is not one license, it is more than eighty
This is the single biggest source of confusion in the region, and it is why generic online guides are close to useless here. “St. Louis County” is not one jurisdiction for licensing purposes. It contains more than eighty separate incorporated municipalities — the exact count depends on whether you tally cities only or include villages and towns, which is why you will see both 84 and 88 quoted — plus unincorporated territory administered by the county itself.
Each of those municipalities sets its own business licensing. Clayton, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Florissant, Chesterfield, Maplewood: separate city halls, separate ordinances, separate fees, separate renewal dates. There is no county-wide equivalent of the city’s GBL that covers you everywhere.
Which produces a genuinely strange practical result. A mobile service business — a house cleaner, a handyman, a mobile groomer — working across ten municipalities may technically owe licensing in several of them. Most one-person operations never learn this until a city sends a letter. The honest advice is to license where you are based first, then check the ordinance in any city where you keep a physical presence or do steady, repeat work.
The merchant license, and who actually needs it
Separate from city licensing, Missouri has an old category worth knowing: the merchant license, governed by Chapter 150 of the Revised Statutes. The statute defines a merchant as someone who deals in selling goods, wares and merchandise at a store, stand or place occupied for that purpose. In St. Louis County it runs $5 through the Collector of Revenue, and businesses are also required to register with the County Assessor.
Read that definition closely, because the word doing the work is goods. A consultant does not sell goods. Neither does a lawn service, a bookkeeper, a massage therapist, or a dog walker. Plenty of service businesses get talked into hunting for a merchant license they were never required to hold. If you sell physical things, look into it. If you sell your time and skill, this is probably not your form.
If you are in the trades, the licensing question is different again
Here is where Missouri gets genuinely unusual, and it is worth stating clearly because national guides get it wrong constantly: Missouri has no statewide license for HVAC contractors, plumbers, or general contractors. There is no state board to register with and no state license number to put on your truck. Bills to create one have been introduced repeatedly and have not passed.
That work is licensed at the city and county level instead. The City of St. Louis licenses contractors directly. Individual county municipalities set their own requirements, and some require a master’s card or a bonded contractor registration on top of the ordinary business license.
For owners, that means the answer to “am I licensed?” depends entirely on where you work, and you may need more than one. For customers, it means the usual advice to “check the state license board” simply does not apply in Missouri — there is nothing to check. We wrote a separate guide on how to verify a contractor here, since the process is nothing like what most people expect.
The mistakes that cost people money
Four patterns come up again and again:
Assuming an LLC is a license. It is not. Forming an LLC with the Secretary of State creates a legal entity; it says nothing about your right to operate in a given city. Plenty of people finish their LLC paperwork, feel done, and are still unlicensed where they actually work.
Assuming an EIN is a license. Also no. An EIN is a federal tax identifier from the IRS. It is free, it takes minutes, and it has no bearing on local licensing.
Getting the jurisdiction wrong. A St. Louis mailing address does not mean you are in the City of St. Louis. Enormous numbers of addresses that say “St. Louis, MO” sit in county municipalities with entirely different rules. Check which city actually governs your address before you file anything.
Missing the June 1 renewal. In the city, this is the most common avoidable expense on this page. Put it in your calendar the day you get the license.
A sane order of operations
If you are starting fresh in the metro, this sequence avoids most of the backtracking:
- Confirm your jurisdiction. City of St. Louis, a named county municipality, or unincorporated county. Everything downstream depends on this.
- Register the entity with the Secretary of State, if you are forming one or using a trade name.
- Get the EIN from the IRS. Free, same day.
- Register with the Department of Revenue for sales tax and withholding as they apply. Do this before the city step if you sell products.
- Apply for the local license at the city that governs your address — the GBL if you are in the city, your municipality’s license otherwise.
- Handle the extras: occupancy permit, tax clearance, and any trade-specific registration.
None of it is difficult. It is just spread across more desks than anyone expects, and no single office will tell you about all the others.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a local business license if I have an LLC?
Usually yes, and they are unrelated things. An LLC is a legal structure registered with the Secretary of State — it limits liability and defines ownership. A business license is permission from a city to operate there. Forming an LLC does not license you anywhere, and in the City of St. Louis you would still need a Graduated Business License.
How much does a business license cost in mo?
There is no statewide fee, because Missouri has no statewide business license. Cost is set locally. In the City of St. Louis, the initial Graduated Business License is $200 if you start between June 1 and January 1, or $100 between January 1 and May 31; renewals begin at $200 for businesses with 0–2 city employees and rise with headcount. County municipalities each set their own.
Do I need a business license in Missouri?
Not from the state — Missouri does not issue a general one. Whether you need a local license depends on your city. In the City of St. Louis, anyone engaged in business within the city limits is required to have one unless specifically exempt. In St. Louis County, it depends on which of the 80-plus municipalities your address falls in.
How to look up a business license in Missouri?
Because licensing is local, there is no single statewide lookup. Check the licensing office of the specific city — the City of St. Louis License Collector for city businesses, or the relevant municipal clerk in the county. For entity records rather than licenses, the Secretary of State’s business search shows registered LLCs and corporations.
Can I use my EIN as a business license?
No. An EIN is a federal tax identification number issued free by the IRS for tax and payroll purposes. It grants no authority to operate and is not accepted in place of a local license. You may well need both, and they come from different governments entirely.
Is your business license number the same as your EIN number?
No. They come from different issuers and serve different purposes — the EIN from the IRS for federal tax identification, the license number from your city as proof of local authorization. If a form asks for one, do not substitute the other.
Just got licensed and now nobody can find you? The paperwork makes you legal; it doesn’t make you visible. Neither the state nor your city publishes a directory customers actually search — so the businesses that get called are the ones that show up where people are already looking. Listing your business takes a few minutes.
Still figuring out whether the idea works? Read how to test a business idea before you spend money. Or browse local pros on St Louis Near Me Directory.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.