Whether a client under 18 can get tattooed or pierced at your shop depends on your state first, and then on you. When both say yes, your waiver form has a section the parent or guardian fills in and signs in person. This page covers what it asks, what your state decides, and where you turn it on.
Can a parent sign for a minor at my shop?
3 things decide it, in this order:
- Your state's rule. Some states don't allow a tattoo under 18 at all, whatever a parent signs. Most let a parent sign for a piercing. Some set a minimum age, even with a parent, or keep certain spots off limits for a minor, like a nipple or genital piercing. A county or city can be stricter than its state.
- Your switch. It's off until you turn it on, and there's one for tattooing and one for piercing, because they're 2 different rules.
- The spot. For a piercing, the form turns away a spot your state keeps off limits for a minor.
To see what your state allows, open the compliance page, pick your state, and read Minors and Piercing a minor. Each quotes the rule.
Your waiver form takes 18 and over for a cosmetic tattoo by default, except in Ohio, Alabama, Maryland, Colorado, Virginia, Arizona, Missouri, Kentucky, Utah, Louisiana, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Connecticut, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, New Mexico, Idaho, Nebraska, Hawaii, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, where the law counts a cosmetic tattoo as a tattoo: there a client under 18 can have one on the same terms as a tattoo, and your Tattooing under 18 switch decides it (Cosmetic tattooing under 18, if you only do cosmetic work).
Everywhere else, if your state lets a parent sign for a tattoo, that default is our own protection: your state’s rules haven’t been read for a minor’s cosmetic tattoo yet. To take a minor’s cosmetic tattoo the way your form takes a minor’s tattoo, turn off "A minor’s cosmetic tattoo" under Protections in Settings. Each signed waiver then says you did, and your state’s rules for cosmetic work still apply to your shop.
What does the form ask when a minor signs?
When your client's age is under 18 and your shop takes minors for that work, a Parent or Guardian section opens on the form. The parent or guardian fills it in and signs it themselves, in person:
- Their full name, and how they're related to your client.
- Their own signature.
- A photo of their government photo ID, in place of your client's.
Where your state or county asks for more, the form asks for that too. It can be:
- A statement the parent ticks, in the exact words the rule sets.
- The minor's own ID, as well as the parent's.
- A photo of the birth certificate or guardianship papers.
- The other parent's written permission, where the rule wants both parents.
- Whether the minor is emancipated, where the state treats an emancipated minor as an adult. Then the minor signs for themselves, and brings the court decree.
- Whether the minor is married, where the state's law treats a married minor as an adult. Then the minor signs for themselves, and brings the marriage certificate.
- Whether the tattoo covers an existing one, where that's the only tattoo the state allows a minor.
The signed copy gives the parent's consent a page of its own, with what your state requires printed on it.
When your switch is off, a client under 18 is told they must be 18, and can't sign, unless your state's law treats a married or a court-emancipated minor as an adult (below).
Where your state's law treats a married minor as an adult (Alabama and Utah, Florida and Illinois for a piercing, and Iowa for a tattoo), a client under 18 is asked "Are you married, or have you been married?" ("Are you married?" in Iowa and Utah), whether or not your shop takes minors, and a yes signs as an adult. You check the marriage certificate as you check any ID. In Iowa, where the law takes no one under 18 for a tattoo, there's no minors switch to turn on, and this question is the one way in. To turn it off, go to Who can sign → Married clients under 18.
Where your state's law treats a person under 18 whom a court has emancipated as an adult (Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Nevada and Utah, Florida, Illinois and South Carolina for a piercing, and Michigan for a tattoo), a client under 18 is asked "Are you an emancipated minor with a certified copy of your court decree?", whether or not your shop takes minors, and a yes signs as an adult. You check the certified copy of the court decree as you check any ID. To turn it off, go to Who can sign → Emancipated clients under 18.
What is the ear question?
Some states write an ear piercing out of their rule for minors: the whole ear, or the lobe with no cartilage. Where yours does, you pierce minors, and the spot your client picks is an ear, the form asks one question under the spot, like "Is this an earlobe piercing, with no cartilage?" A yes takes your state's own requirements for a minor off that signing. The parent still consents and signs.
In some of those states, the ear is written out only when it's pierced with a single-use stud-and-clasp gun. There the question asks about the gun, and it's your switch, off until you turn it on: Ear piercing with a stud gun, under Who can sign. If you pierce with a needle, leave it off, and every minor's piercing follows your state's whole rule.
Where do I turn it on?
In your dashboard, open Settings → Waiver form → Who can sign. For each kind of work you do, it says what your state allows:
- Where your state doesn't allow it, it says so, with the rule, and there's no switch.
- Where your state allows it, there's a switch: We tattoo minors with a parent present, or We pierce minors with a parent present. Each is off until you turn it on.
- Where your state asks for more than a parent's signature, like a notarized form, each one is listed in the rule's words. Some of them happen outside your shop, and your form can't do them for you, so you tick each one to confirm it. The switch stays off until every one is ticked.
Also under Who can sign: Birth certificate or guardianship papers, to ask for a photo of it every time a parent signs. Where your state's rule names that proof, the form asks for it on its own, and Settings says so.
If your shop's state isn't set, Who can sign asks you to set it first, because every state answers this differently.
Who checks the ID and the age?
You do. Your waiver form takes a photo of the parent's ID, and of the minor's where your state asks. It doesn't check that an ID is real, or that the adult is the parent. Checking them the way your state requires, and deciding who you tattoo or pierce, is yours, as our terms say.
A question this page didn’t answer? Email hello@waivers.tattoo and we’ll answer it.