Oxnard, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Massage Establishments (2026)

Article IX of Chapter 11 regulates massage businesses citywide. Section 11-233 bars anyone from performing massage or massage therapy without a valid massage therapy certificate issued under Cal. Business and Professions Code section 4601, and bars operating a massage business unless every person performing massage there holds that certificate. An owner or operator who owns 5% or more of the business and lacks a certificate must instead submit a background check application to the license collector, defined in section 11-232(D) as the police chief or designee, including fingerprints and five years of employment history.

While providing massage, technicians must display an identification badge issued by the license collector between the shoulder and waist on the front of their outer clothing. Section 11-234 exempts state-licensed healing-arts professionals such as physicians, chiropractors and physical therapists, and licensed barbers and cosmetologists performing massage limited to the neck, face, scalp, feet, lower limbs to the knee, hands and arms. Section 11-237 requires the owner or operator of any massage business described in Business and Professions Code section 4612(b)(1), plus the permittee, to hold a city business tax certificate under Article I of Chapter 11; a traveling technician who works away from a licensed business must obtain a separate business tax certificate.

Section 11-238 requires the business to keep on file a copy of each worker's massage therapy certificate and to notify the license collector within 15 days of any rename, change of management or conveyance of the business, and within ten days of any technician's address change. for permits issued or renewed after the article's effective date, section 11-240 bars advertising a non-certified worker as a 'massage therapist' or 'massage practitioner,' and section 11-241 makes it unlawful to employ or massage anyone under 18 absent a parent or guardian's request.