What are health-related businesses?
Health-related businesses include:
- Personal care and body art businesses that provide hairdressing, beauty treatment, skin penetration procedures and colonic irrigation
- Prescribed accommodation including rooming and boarding houses and motels, hostels and caravan parks.
Personal care and body art businesses
Personal care and body art businesses provide the following services:
- hairdressing
- beauty treatment, including waxing, manicures, pedicures, application or mending of artificial nails, facial or body treatment, application of cosmetics
- skin penetration procedures, including ear piercing, body piercing, electrolysis and tattooing, and
- colonic irrigation.
Current legislation does not require the registration of massage businesses.
Requirements for personal care and body art businesses
All personal care and body art businesses must register with Council under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 and must comply with the Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2009 and the Health Guidelines for Personal Care and Body Art Industries.
The principle purpose of this set of guidelines is to assist those involved in the personal care and body art industry to comply with the regulations by providing information on how infection can be associated with the procedures employed in the industry, and precautions to protect clients and employees.
Council monitors hygiene standards in personal care and body art industries by:
- assessing the plans for new businesses
- inspecting the premises, and
- investigating complaints.
The Department of Health has more information on the requirements for personal care and body art business.
See starting and registering a new health-related business for information about how Council can assist you when starting a new health-related business.
Prescribed accommodation
Motels, hotels and hostels
Motels, hotels, hostels and backpackers are prescribed accommodation and are governed by the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 and the Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2009.
In Victoria, all these premises are required to be registered with their Council in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 2010.
Caravan parks
Caravan parks have to be registered with Council. Council only registers caravan parks that comply with the Residential Tenancies (Caravan Park and Movable Dwellings Registration and Standards) Regulations 2010.
Rooming and boarding houses
A rooming house is the same as a boarding house. Rooming houses are classified as prescribed accommodation in the Health (Prescribed Accommodation) Regulations 2001.
Under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, a rooming house is a building where:
- one or more rooms is available for rent, and
- the total number of people who may occupy those rooms is four or more.
Also, in most rooming houses:
- residents share bathrooms, kitchens, laundries and other common areas
- the owner and their family generally do not live on the premises
- separate rental agreements may exist for residents.
Starting a rooming house or converting a building into a rooming house can involve multiple services within Council and may include obtaining a planning permit, building permit, occupancy permit and registering as prescribed accommodation.
For more information, see rooming and boarding houses in the Building and planning section of this site.