What it costs to buy a hair salon in Australia

Most hair salons in Australia are listed between $40,000 and $250,000, with fully managed multi-chair salons reaching $340,000 to $650,000 and fitted shells from $20,000. Price runs at 1.5 to 2.5 times owner earnings when staff and clients stay, and much less when the owner is the business.

There are around 290 hair salons on bsale, 390 hair listings on anybusiness and 130 salons plus 61 barbershops on businessforsale.com.au right now, and the asking prices run from $20,000 for an empty fitted shop to $1.5 million for a spa group. The spread is not about the chairs. It is about whether the clients belong to the business or to the person selling it, and that one question decides whether you are paying for goodwill or just for plumbing and mirrors.

What hair salons sell for

Here is a cross-section of live listings from the four main marketplaces on 25 September 2026. Where the seller published chairs, stations or takings we show them; most do not, which tells you something about how the sector is sold.

Two patterns fall out of that table. First, owner-run salons with no published takings sell for $5,000 to $13,000 per station: the Adelaide Hills salon is nine stations for $47,500, North Melbourne is six chairs for $75,000. The buyer is paying for a fitted, trading site and hoping the clients stay. Second, once the owner is off the floor and the takings are on the listing, the price jumps to roughly $28,000 per station (the managed Adelaide salon) and the market prices on turnover instead: $200,000 on about $408,000 a year is 0.49 times revenue, Broadbeach is about 0.8 times, the $2 million WA salon is 0.32 times. Managed salons are being sold as businesses. Owner-run salons are being sold as jobs with a lease attached.

How the price is built: goodwill, plant, stock

Salon sales bundle the plant into the goodwill price. The businessforsale.com.au valuation guide is explicit that unencumbered chairs, mirrors, basins and the front desk are included in the one headline figure, and stock (professional colour, retail product) is added at valuation on settlement day, typically written as "+ SAV" or "+ stock" on the listing. So a $150,000 + SAV salon might settle at $160,000 to $175,000.

The guide puts established salons at 1.5 to 2.5 times seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), which is profit plus the owner's wage and personal expenses added back. Its worked example is a $900,000 revenue salon with $175,000 SDE sold at 2.2 times: $385,000 goodwill plus $25,000 stock, $410,000 all up. It bands the market at $30,000 to $80,000 for home and mobile operators, $100,000 to $350,000 for suburban high street salons and $500,000 to $1.5 million plus for premium CBD salons and medispas.

A second broker view is blunter. Business Sales Info argues most NSW and Victorian salons actually change hands at 0.5 to 1.5 times SDE, and the low end is far more common than sellers expect. Their tiering is the most useful thing in the sector:

• Owner cutting with a personal clientele: goodwill under $50,000, whatever the takings.
• Owner plus one or two staff, some brand loyalty: 0.5 to 1.0 times SDE.
• Owner managing, not cutting, staff stylists carry the book: 1.0 to 1.5 times SDE.
• Multi-chair, strong brand, absentee owner: 1.5 to 2.0 times SDE, and rare.

They put typical owner-operated salons in Sydney and Melbourne at $30,000 to $150,000 and premium multi-chair salons at $150,000 to $300,000, which matches the listing table above almost exactly. The reason for the discount is simple: clients are loyal to the stylist, not the shop, and when the owner leaves the clients often follow. A buyer paying 2 times SDE for a salon where the seller does 40% of the cuts is buying a book that walks out the door with her.

Barbershops price differently

Barbershops are cheaper to fit, carry less stock and rebook faster, and the listings reflect it. The 61 barbershops on businessforsale.com.au span $49,000 (Richmond, Melbourne, opposite a hospital) to $280,000 plus stock (a high-footfall Melbourne lifestyle precinct), with a Perth premium men's grooming business at $550,000 plus stock on anybusiness sitting above the pack.

The Canning Vale shop is the useful benchmark: $100,000 on roughly $350,000 of annual takings is 0.29 times turnover, and the Monterey two-chair shop at $40,000 on about $155,000 a year is about the same ratio. Barbers are priced closer to 0.3 times turnover than the 0.5 to 0.8 times a managed ladies salon can command, because the trade is cheaper to replicate: a competitor can fit out four chairs across the road for well under $100,000. What you are paying for in a barbershop is the position and the lease, which is why the CBD listings carry the big numbers.

What the fit-out is worth on its own

The floor under every salon price is the fitted shell, and the market tells you what that is worth because sellers list it separately. Ocean Reef, WA is a shopping centre hair salon fit-out with no business for $20,000. Kalgoorlie is a fitted hair and beauty salon at $25,000 walk in walk out. Mitcham, VIC is a fully fitted main road salon, walk in and start trading, at $40,000. Wolli Creek in Sydney is four stations and a basin for $23,000. Anything in the $20,000 to $40,000 band is plant and a lease; there is no goodwill in the price and you should not pay for any.

Compare that to building one. Canopy Fitouts, a Melbourne shopfitter, puts beauty and barber fit-outs at $1,500 to $3,000 per square metre in 2025, so a 60 square metre salon is $90,000 to $180,000 before furniture, with a mop sink from $1,000, a facade change up to $30,000 and a 30% contingency for hidden services. Wemu's August 2026 Australian guide splits it as $15,000 to $150,000 plus for building work (basin plumbing is the big item, an ex-salon site saves tens of thousands), $8,000 to $60,000 for chairs, basins, mirrors, trolleys and dryers, and $5,000 to $25,000 for the lease bond and first rent. A small salon on an existing site opens for $30,000 to $60,000 all in; a new site with plumbing runs to several multiples of that. See the laser clinic cost guide for the same maths on a beauty fit-out with machines.

That is why a fitted shell at $25,000 is genuinely cheap and why a seller asking $150,000 for a three-year-old fit-out with no published takings is asking you to fund their build. Ask for the original fit-out invoices and the depreciation schedule; the plant on the books is usually a fraction of the price being asked for it. If the fit-out is tired, the cost to refresh comes straight off your offer, and fit-out finance can carry a refresh separately from the purchase.

The four things that move the number

Who is behind the chair. Every broker source says the same thing: the owner needs to have been off the floor, or moving off it, for at least 12 months before the sale, with bookings spread across the staff rather than sitting on the owner's column. The businessforsale.com.au guide wants the owner producing under 10% of revenue and a client rebooking rate of 65% or more. If the owner is the top biller, price the salon as a fitted shell plus a modest premium for staff in place and stage the rest as an earn-out tied to retained revenue.

Margins and wages. The ATO's small business benchmark for hairdressers expects a salon turning over $300,000 or more to report 75% to 86% of turnover as expenses, from 2023-24 tax returns. Take the low end of that as the achievable case: a $500,000 salon leaves $70,000 to $125,000 before the owner's wage. Wages are the item that swallows the rest, so ask for the payroll by staff member and whether stylists are employees or chair renters.

Chair rental changes the business. A lot of salons on the market now run partly or fully on rented chairs. Lyvi's 2025 rate card has a chair at $450 to $750 a week in inner Sydney, $400 to $700 in Melbourne, $350 to $600 in Brisbane, $300 to $520 in Perth and Adelaide and $200 to $400 regionally. A nine-station salon fully let at $350 a week is $163,800 a year of rent with almost no staff risk, which is exactly how the Adelaide rental precinct at $260,000 on $4,596 a week (with $6,835 a week potential) is being pitched. The trade-off is that the renters own their clients, so the goodwill is thinner and the valuation guide notes an employed-stylist model earns the higher multiple.

The lease. As with a cafe purchase, the lease is often the most valuable transferable asset. Buyers want 3 plus 3 or 5 plus 5 year terms, landlord consent to assign, and rent that fits the takings: the Monterey barbershop pays $795 a week on $2,500 to $3,500 of takings, which is 23% to 32% of revenue and leaves almost nothing after two barbers are paid. Shopping centre salons (Berwick, Redcliffe, Ocean Reef) carry higher rent and outgoings but steadier walk-in trade; strip salons live and die on parking and the tenant next door. If you are weighing a branded option instead, the franchise costs guide covers what the salon chains charge to open.

Financing a hair salon purchase

Lenders treat a salon in three parts. The plant (chairs, basins, joinery, dryers) is real but low value second hand, so it writes on equipment or fit-out finance only up to what a valuer would give it, often well under the seller's number. Goodwill is the hard part: it cannot be repossessed, and as broker.com.au puts it, lenders are wary of an intangible that can evaporate if the handover is botched, so unsecured goodwill lending is limited and priced up. The rest comes from the buyer's equity or property.

In practice, a $150,000 suburban salon is usually funded by a buyer deposit of 30% to 50%, a secured business loan against the buyer's home or an investment property at major bank rates typically between 7.5% and 9.5% p.a. (July 2026, RBA cash rate 4.35%), and the plant on a chattel mortgage. Buyers without property are looking at non-bank unsecured facilities at 12% to 25% p.a. with caps around $250,000, which only make sense on a managed salon with two years of clean BAS. A first-time operator buying a $25,000 fitted shell is a startup borrower in the lender's eyes; see the new-ABN guide for how that is handled.

Approval is subject to lender assessment. To get a number from Ventas, send the listing, two years of financials and BAS, the payroll by stylist, the lease and the fit-out schedule, and tell us whether you own property. Start at business acquisition finance.

This is general information only and not financial, credit, or tax advice. Figures are indicative market data from the sources listed, not Ventas offers, and move with the market. Consider your own circumstances and speak to a professional. All finance is subject to lender assessment and approval.

This article is general information only and not financial, credit, or tax advice. Ventas Asset Lending is a finance broker, not a lender. Approvals are subject to lender assessment. Consider your own circumstances and speak to a qualified professional, including your accountant for any tax questions.