states leave licensing regulations to each city or county. What’s confusing about business licenses is that they aren’t always at the state level like you might expect. Whether you need one could depend on your answers to these questions: Who Requires One? Each jurisdiction has its own rules about which artists need a license and when. If you’re a freelance artist earning a full-time income from selling your art, odds are you will need a business license to operate legally. Need tax help for your small business? Join Selfgood today and financial services will only be the start of the benefits you’ll enjoy. Otherwise, you might be on the receiving end of a federal audit or owe back taxes. Whether you need a city or state business license or not, make sure you file your federal taxes for your artwork sales correctly. But you can claim those losses if you’re in the start-up phase of a legitimate art business. The answer is simple: how the IRS classifies your art career will determine how to file your tax returns.įor example, you can’t report losses as a deduction for an art hobby. If the IRS doesn’t mandate business licenses for artists, why are we still talking about this? (A city, county, or state business license is an entirely different story. But you don’t need any sort of federal license to sell your artwork. So the IRS may consider your art sales a business and has the right to audit you if you’re claiming it’s a hobby. Small Business Administration doesn’t regulate artists under any particular agency. On the other hand, if you paint, sketch, or sculpt because you love creativity and simply sell your art to recoup the cost of supplies, your side gig is more of a hobby.īut unlike agriculture and television broadcasting, the U.S. If you’re selling your crafts regularly and turning a profit, you’re technically operating a business by the IRS’s standards. The IRS draws a fine line between an art “hobby” and an art “business.” In the eyes of the IRS, it depends on: Is It a Hobby or a Business? But like anything Internal Revenue Service-related, it’s not as simple as a flat “yes” or “no.” The short answer is “yes,” you do need a business license to legally sell your work as an artist. ![]() ![]() Learn more about whether you need a business license to sell your art, what types of licenses make the most sense, how to sell your art to the letter of the law, and how becoming a “business” impacts your taxes. ![]() Unfortunately, it’s not a simple yes or no answer. Such a big decision comes with plenty of unanswered questions, one of which paves the path to becoming a functional legal business:ĭo you need a business license for artists? Then, the business side creeps in such as business license for artists requirements. Turning your creative hobby as an artist into a full-time, lifestyle-supporting career is a huge and exciting step.
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