Buy a spa or med spa: join the buyer list

How do you finance buying a spa?

Expect a spa seller to ask how you will pay before sharing provider compensation, client retention or the balance of prepaid packages still owed to clients. For a med spa, expect the next question to be whether state law lets you own it at all.

This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm SBA terms with your lender, and have healthcare counsel in the spa's state review any med spa ownership structure.

How much cash do you need to buy a spa with an SBA loan?

The median spa sale reported to BizBuySell in 2025 was $277,500, well under the $5 million cap on a standard SBA 7(a) loan. In BizBuySell's second-quarter 2026 survey of buyers across all industries, 78% said they expected to use SBA financing to complete an acquisition.

Under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, which governs 7(a) applications that receive an SBA loan number on or after October 1, 2026, a purchase that makes you the new majority or largest owner, when you were not an owner before or have worked at the spa for fewer than 24 months, is an “initial acquisition.” It requires an equity injection of at least 10% of the total project cost, and the lender cannot reduce or eliminate it. Applications submitted through September 30, 2026 stay under SOP 50 10 8, which also requires at least 10% of total project costs when a 7(a) loan finances a complete change of ownership.

Total project cost means all costs required to become operational, whatever the source of the funds, except lines of credit and 504 loans. For example, if a day spa purchase has a total project cost of $350,000 (an example figure), the minimum injection is $35,000.

If the spa owner agrees to carry a note, it counts toward your injection only if it is subordinated to the lender and on full standby, with no principal or interest payments for the term of the 7(a) loan. Seller debt and other limited sources, such as standby debt, can supply no more than half of the required injection. In the example above, at least $17,500 would have to come from somewhere else.

Do not assume the spa owner will carry part of the price at all. In the same BizBuySell report, which covers all industries, 90% of buyers expected seller financing to be part of their acquisition strategy, while only 29% of business owners planned to offer it.

If you already own a spa, the math can change. When your existing business has operated for at least two full fiscal years under its current ownership and buys 100% of another business in the same four-digit NAICS industry group, SOP 50 10 8.1 treats it as a “business expansion”: the minimum is still 10%, but the lender may reduce or eliminate it if you have enough liquidity and working capital to keep operating after the deal and your business did not have a negative net worth at its last fiscal year-end. Ask the lender how it classifies both businesses; do not assume a day spa and a med spa share an industry group.

Who can get an SBA loan to buy a spa or med spa?

SBA 7(a) and 504 loans are now limited to businesses whose owners are all U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals living in the United States, which removes green-card holders from the SBA-financed buyer pool. A med spa faces a second test: SOP 50 10 8.1 uses med spas as its example of a business that needs professional licenses to operate and is eligible only if its ownership structure meets state requirements, and the lender must document that compliance. Confirm both with your lender before you make an offer.

Which other SBA rules shape a spa purchase?

• The lease. In a spa, much of what you pay for is built into the leased space, from treatment rooms to the plumbing behind them. If the lesser of $500,000 or 30% of the loan goes to leasehold improvements, or the same share of the collateral is improvements, fixtures or equipment attached to the leased space, the lender must get the lease. Its term, including renewal options only you can exercise, should run at least as long as the 7(a) loan, and must if the lender cannot get an assignment of the lease or a landlord's waiver. Under SOP 50 10 8.1, a change-of-ownership 7(a) loan may not amortize over more than 10 years, except for any real estate bought in the same deal.
• No earnouts. SBA prohibits seller earnouts in 7(a) change-of-ownership loans, under both SOP versions. If a med spa seller wants part of the price to depend on whether the top injectors stay, it cannot be structured as an earnout. SBA does allow a buyer rebate tied to business performance.
• The seller's exit. In an initial acquisition or business expansion, the seller cannot stay on as an officer, director, stockholder or employee. Under SOP 50 10 8.1 the business may contract with the seller as a consultant for up to 24 months in total, including extensions, up from 12 months under SOP 50 10 8. If clients book with the seller, plan the handover of those clients inside that window.
• Larger deals. Under SOP 50 10 8.1, in an initial acquisition or business expansion where the business purchase price (not counting owner-occupied real estate) is $3 million or more, the lender must also get a quality of earnings report. It may not be prepared by or for the seller, and it must include a cash proof that reconciles bank statements to the income statement and tax returns for the trailing 12 months and the last two fiscal years. With the median 2025 spa sale on BizBuySell at $277,500, you are most likely to meet this rule when buying a multi-location med spa.

SOP 50 10 8.1 takes effect October 1, 2026. Confirm with your lender which version governs your loan and how these rules apply to your deal.

What does not transfer when you buy a spa?

Some of what lets a spa operate stays with the seller or needs someone else's approval before it is yours.

Does a spa license transfer to a new owner?

Check the state before you assume the establishment license comes with the spa. In the three states below, it does not.

• Texas. A barbering or cosmetology establishment license cannot be transferred to a new owner; the new owner submits a completed initial license application and pays the non-refundable application fee. A massage establishment cannot begin operating until its license application is approved. TDLR's June 2026 application form has an “Ownership Change” option and says all owners, officers, directors and registered agents must submit fingerprints.
• Florida. State law bars transferring a cosmetology salon or specialty salon license, or a massage establishment license, to another owner. Massage establishment owners must also meet the state's background screening requirements.
• California. When a salon is bought, the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology requires the previous owner to file an Establishment Closure form and the buyer to submit a new Establishment Application.

Build the application time into your closing date.

Can a non-doctor buy a med spa?

It depends on the state. Many states prohibit the corporate practice of medicine: a company not owned by physicians cannot directly employ a physician or control the medical side of the practice, as a law firm writing on med spa sales explains. In California and New York, the rules reach ownership itself.

• California. The Medical Board of California's med spa guidance, an undated document from the late 2000s that the Board still posts, says laypersons may not own any part of a medical practice, citing Business and Professions Code section 2400. The same guidance says a physician serving as “medical director” of a lay-owned business is aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine. Under Corporations Code 13401.5, registered nurses, physician assistants and the other licensees it lists may together own no more than 49% of a medical corporation's shares, and the number of them holding shares is limited; lay investors are not on that list.
• New York. Under Business Corporation Law 1507, a professional service corporation may issue shares only to individuals licensed to practice the profession it is authorized to practice. Stevens & Lee, a health-law firm, wrote in 2024 that non-licensed individuals cannot own a New York med spa but can own and operate a management services organization (MSO) that supports it, with fees that are fixed, reasonable, agreed in writing and not based on the volume or value of business.
• Texas. A physician may delegate cosmetic procedures only after approving the business's existing written orders in writing or writing their own, and the orders must identify the delegating physician, patient screening criteria, appropriate care and procedures for complications and emergencies (22 Tex. Admin. Code 169.27, effective January 9, 2025). Plan for the delegating physician before closing.

Confirm the structure with healthcare counsel in the state where the med spa operates before you sign a letter of intent. Our guide to how med spa sales are structured covers the seller's side of the same rules.

Does the franchisor have to approve you?

Read the transfer section of the franchise agreement before you make an offer; terms differ by franchisor. The franchise agreement in Massage Envy's April 2026 disclosure document, for example, conditions a resale on, among other things, the buyer completing the Initial Training Program required of new franchisees, proving minimum net worth and liquidity, and getting the landlord's consent to assign the lease (or franchisor-approved substitute premises). Its right of first refusal requires the seller to submit a bona fide written offer at a fixed dollar price with no contingent payments such as earnouts, and gives Massage Envy 30 days to buy on that offer's price and terms (it may substitute cash for any form of payment). In practice, the franchisor can step into the deal you negotiated.

Hand & Stone writes on its franchise blog that it has steered experienced multi-brand franchise operators toward buying existing spas: in 2024 and 2025, a Take 5 Oil franchisee and the operator of a 100-plus-unit franchise group that includes VIO Med Spa bought established Hand & Stone locations in Georgia and Florida.

What do you take on when you buy a spa?

If you take over the spa's prepaid packages, memberships and gift cards, those are treatments you owe clients after closing. VMG Health, a diligence firm, gives the example of a December sale of prepaid neurotoxin packages that shows up as December revenue on cash-basis books for treatments delivered the next year. Ask for the unearned-revenue report and the package and membership details a diligence firm would review, and settle those balances in the price. Our guide to how prepaid balances are handled in a spa sale covers the mechanics.

Devices need their own check. A med spa cannot sell a laser or device it leases, according to a 2022 article by an attorney on the AmSpa site. For devices it owns, AmSpa's CEO wrote in 2019 that some laser manufacturers require a used device to be inspected and recertified before they will support it at a new customer site, with fees that can be $50,000 or more at the high end. Ask which devices are owned, which are leased and what each maker requires before it will service them for you.

Check the supplier accounts too. Allergan Aesthetics' new-account process ties an account to a named paying entity and medical director; its page does not say how a change of ownership is handled, so ask the rep before closing.

Then the providers. Losing top injectors during diligence can quickly change how a buyer values a med spa, which is why buyers focus on provider compensation and retention, according to Skytale's president, quoted on the AmSpa site in March 2026. Ask early how injectors and estheticians are paid and whether they intend to stay.

How much does it cost to buy a spa?

BizBuySell's spa figures blend beauty spas, day spas and med spas, independent and franchised, so they describe the blended spa market, not med spas alone. Its multiples are on seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), which includes one owner's pay, so they cannot be compared with EBITDA multiples. For med spas, a sell-side advisor writing on the AmSpa site puts 2025 multiples for practices under $4 million in revenue at roughly 3x to 6x EBITDA, an estimate with no disclosed sample.

Read the 2.12x as one year's average, not the price of any one spa; local sales can differ. More detail in what a spa business is worth, by type of spa.

Who else is buying med spas?

Writing on the American Med Spa Association site in May 2026, Tommy Newton of the sell-side M&A firm Xite said private-equity-backed platforms and MSOs remained highly active in 2025, especially in Florida, Texas and California, and that deal activity stayed strong, particularly add-on acquisitions, despite fewer “mega deals.” He estimates, without a stated method, that more than 90% of med spas remain independently owned.

Newton writes that platform buyers prioritize recurring revenue, strong margins, patient and provider retention, clean financials and a team that can run without the owner, and that operators with roughly three to eight or more locations draw the most competition. The same article says memberships, subscription skincare and repeat injectable visits have become more important to buyers because they create annuity-like revenue. If you are buying your first med spa, that suggests a single location is where you are less likely to bid against a platform.

Sources

All sources accessed September 29, 2026.

1. BizBuySell (CoStar Group), Q2 2026 Insight Report
2. BizBuySell (CoStar Group), Full-Year 2025 sector table
3. BizBuySell (CoStar Group), Q1 2026 Insight Report
4. BizBuySell (CoStar Group), Undated
5. U.S. Small Business Administration (SOP 50 10 8.1), Effective 2026-10-01
6. U.S. Small Business Administration, SOP 50 10 8.1, effective 2026-10-01
7. U.S. Small Business Administration (Information Notice 5000-880695), 2026-08-14
8. U.S. Small Business Administration, 2025-06-01
9. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Not dated on page
10. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (Form MAS-LIC-005), Form rev. June 2026
11. The Florida Senate (Florida Statutes 477.025), 2025 Florida Statutes
12. The Florida Senate (Florida Statutes 480.043), 2025 Florida Statutes
13. California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, Not dated on page
14. Spencer Fane LLP (Crystal L. Howard, Hillary R. Martel), 2025-08-19
15. Medical Board of California, Undated article
16. California Legislative Information (Corporations Code 13401.5), Current code as accessed 2026-09-29
17. New York State Senate (Business Corporation Law 1507), Last modified 2024-07-26
18. Stevens & Lee (Tristan A. Potter), 2024-09-12
19. Legal Information Institute (22 Tex. Admin. Code 169.27), Eff. 2025-01-09
20. ME SPE Franchising, LLC (FDD Exhibit, Franchise Agreement Section 12.D), Issuance date 2026-04-29
21. Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa (franchisor), 2025-03-19
22. VMG Health (Lukas Recio, CPA and Jacob Mullen, CPA), 2025-06-11
23. American Med Spa Association (Patrick O'Brien, JD), 2022-03-22
24. American Med Spa Association (Alex R. Thiersch, JD), 2019-10-28
25. Allergan Aesthetics (AbbVie), Not dated on page
26. American Med Spa Association (Adam Reinebach, CEO; quoting Annie Robertson Hockey, President, Skytale), 2026-03-10
27. American Med Spa Association, 2026-05-15
28. Empower Aesthetics (PR Newswire), 2025-08-26
29. Eagle Merchant Partners / AYA Medical Spa (PR Newswire), 2025-02-24
30. Thurston Group (PR Newswire), 2026-01-07