Fayetteville, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Tattoo & Body Modification (2026)

Section 17-20 requires every licensed tattoo operator and every individual who actually tattoos another person within Fayetteville's corporate limits to obtain a health certificate from the county health department. The certificate must confirm the tattooist is free from syphilis, gonorrhea, or other venereal disease and free from tuberculosis or other communicable disease. It must be renewed as often as once every six months, and it automatically becomes void six months after issuance regardless of when it was last checked. Working on a customer without that certificate physically in hand is a violation on its own, separate from whether the artist is actually infected.

Section 17-21 layers on a recordkeeping duty: anyone tattooing under a license issued through this chapter must keep an ongoing record of the name, address, and age of every person tattooed. That record is not private; it must stay open at all times to inspection by the Fayetteville Police Department. Both sections trace back to the city's 1961 Code (§ 21-48 and § 21-49), and Fayetteville still layers its own health-certificate and inspection duty on top of any state cosmetic-art license the artist already holds.

Neither section sets a minimum age for the customer or restricts tattoo placement; both are narrowly about the operator's health documentation and the client log.