Business by Industry
The rules that actually apply to your trade: owner-operator trucking, booth rental in a salon, real estate agents, cleaning and landscaping, childcare, restaurants and food trucks, construction liens, photography and creative work, fitness, pet care, home care, and consulting. Every industry has its own licensing layer — most of it is state and local, so confirm yours with that state’s board and your city.
All Business by Industry guides
- Consultants and Coaches: The Legal Basics
The contract clauses, insurance, FTC advertising rules, scope-of-practice limits, and worker-classification issues every consultant or coach should know.
- Home Health and Caregiving Businesses
Starting a home care business? Learn the health-vs-companion license split, the DOL wage rules for agency caregivers, and classification traps.
- Booth Rental vs. Employee in a Salon or Barbershop
Is your stylist a booth renter or an employee? What a true rental looks like, what each side owes, and the misclassification risk for salons.
- Starting a Trucking Business as an Owner-Operator
What owner-operators must file with FMCSA, the IRS, and your state before hauling under your own authority, and the truth about lease-purchase deals.
- Starting a Food Truck or Mobile Food Business
Food trucks answer to more regulators than restaurants: health permits per city, a commissary kitchen, fire inspection, vehicle rules, and where you can legally park.
- Real Estate Agents: Running Your Practice as a Business
Real estate agents are usually self-employed by federal tax rule, not by choice. Here is what that means for taxes, entities, and insurance.
- Photography and Creative Services as a Business
Who owns client photos and designs, licensing vs. assignment, releases, event contracts, drone Part 107 rules, and sales tax basics.
- Landscaping and Lawn Care Business: Legal Basics
What separates mowing for cash from a real landscaping business: insurance, sales tax, pesticide licensing, DOT rules, and crew classification.
- Construction Contractors: Liens, Bonds, and Getting Paid
How contractors actually protect payment: mechanics liens, bonds, lien waivers, retainage, and prompt-payment rules -- and why the deadlines vary by state.
- Pet Grooming, Boarding, and Pet Care Businesses
Legal basics for pet groomers, boarders, and sitters: bailment duties, licensing, insurance gaps, intake contracts, and bite liability.
- Opening a Restaurant: The Legal Checklist
The real order of restaurant permits and licenses, plus the tip-credit, overtime, and dram-shop rules that create the most legal risk.
- Personal Trainers, Gyms, and Liability Waivers
A gym waiver can limit liability for ordinary negligence in most states, but generally not for gross negligence — and it's no substitute for real insurance.
- Starting a Childcare or Daycare Business
Childcare is one of the most heavily licensed small businesses. What triggers licensing, the federal background-check floor, and where the rules really vary by state.
- Starting a Cleaning Business: The Legal Basics
Cleaning business legal basics: liability insurance vs. bonding, the employee-or-contractor trap, disinfectant label law, OSHA chemical duties, and contract terms.