Any indoor tanning customers under the age of 18 must have written permission from a parent or legal guardian before they can use your tanning services.

Parents must accompany their child on the child's first visit to your facility and sign the permission statement in the presence of one of your tanning salon operators. The witness shall provide his/her name, signature, title and date on the consent form.

Do not send the permission statement home to be signed and returned.

Determining a client's skin type helps you and your tanning salon operators decide how an individual client's skin will react to UV light. It helps you determine safe exposure times so you can help protect the client from overexposure and other potentially harmful reactions.

Skin type depends on several factors including a person's heritage, natural hair color, eye color, un-tanned skin coloration, and tanning history.

Feel free to use these charts to help figure out a customer's skin type:

Tanning Report of Change Form

You are required to report these changes to SCDES:

Change of Address, Phone Number, Contact Information

S.C. regulations state that you should notify SCDES in writing within 30 days of a change in address, phone number or other contact information. Please indicate the name of the salon and both the old and new contact information in your request. See Contact Us.

If you are planning to open a new indoor tanning salon in South Carolina, you must first register your equipment with SCDES's Bureau of Radiological Health. You must be granted a facility registration number before you begin operating your tanning equipment.

Your facility must:

Before you open a tanning facility or allow customers to use tanning equipment, you must register with the Tanning Program.

Why SCDES Regulates Tanning Facilities

There are more than 400 tanning facilities registered in South Carolina.

DHEC regulates tanning facilities to protect customers from poor sanitation and dangerous overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. Overexposure can harm a person's health, causing everything from painful sunburn to a deadly form of skin cancer (malignant melanoma).

If DHEC receives a complaint from one of your customers, our investigation may include a visit to your facility.

The easiest way to prepare for an inspection of your tanning facility is to ensure that the practices of your salon are in accordance with Regulation 61-106 - "Tanning Facilities."

Lamp Equivalency Documentation

Lamp equivalency documentation is important paperwork to establish that a tanning bed is compatible with the lamps being used. It is vital to use equivalent lamps in a tanning bed to ensure that the consumer is not being overexposed to UV radiation. This documentation must be maintained by the tanning salon if lamps other than those recommended by the manufacturer are in use and will be requested by an inspector during an inspection.