Opening a studio in Arkansas: the filing, the 2-year cap and click to cancel

October 14, 2026

This is for anyone opening a Pilates, yoga, barre or boutique fitness studio in Arkansas. If your studio runs on reformers, bikes or other machines, the Health Spa Consumer Protection Act makes it a health spa. You file a registration statement with the Secretary of State before you sell a single membership. There is no bond. There is a three-day cancel right, a two-year cap on terms, and a 2025 law that reaches every monthly membership on autopay.

The Health Spa Consumer Protection Act

Section 4-94-102 of the Arkansas Code defines a health spa as a business “engaged in the sale of memberships in a program of physical exercise” that uses a sauna, whirlpool, weightlifting room, massage, steam room, or “exercising machine or device.” A reformer or a spin bike is an exercising machine. The list does not mention exercise rooms, so a mat-only yoga or barre studio with no machines is a closer question, and nobody has ruled on it. The exclusions are nonprofits such as the YMCA, martial-arts schools, nonprofit schools, country clubs and some weight-loss services. There is none for yoga or dance.

Registration, and no bond

Section 4-94-106 requires an annual registration statement with the Secretary of State “prior to the sale of any contracts for health spa services.” The form is CFD-03. It lists the studio's name and address, its officers, directors and stockholders, any parent company, and the types of facilities. It goes in on paper, in duplicate. The Secretary of State's fee table lists no fee for it. Later annual reports can be filed within 30 days of the anniversary of the first filing.

The chapter runs from 4-94-101 to 4-94-109, and nothing in it requires a bond or an escrow account.

What the member contract must say

• In writing, with a copy to the member when it is signed (4-94-104).
• Payments spread over no more than 25 months, and use of the studio for no more than two years, “with the right to renew for additional periods of equal length.” No lifetime memberships (4-94-107).
• Services start within 45 days at a studio that is open (4-94-108).
• Cancellation by written notice within three business days after the member receives a copy of the contract, returned with the contract forms and membership cards. You refund everything within 30 days (4-94-109).
• A right for the member, or the estate, to cancel on death, total and permanent disability, a move more than 50 miles from a club you operate, or your permanent closure. You refund within 30 days, less the value of what was used, and you may ask for reasonable proof (4-94-109).

A contract that does not comply is voidable at the member's option. Trying to enforce one is an unfair or deceptive practice under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. A member's waiver of the chapter is void.

What that means for your products

In Frontmat, memberships bill monthly through Stripe on the member's card, with no annual or multi-month product. Class packs can expire after a number of days you set, or never. In Arkansas we would set 730 days or fewer. A membership can be sold before opening with billing starting on opening day, and a founding membership can be capped at a number of spots. A founding member signed that way pays nothing before you open. File the registration before that first sale, and open within 180 days of it.

The 2025 autopay law

Act 652 of 2025 added section 4-86-112 on automatic renewal and continuous service. A continuous service is a paid subscription that “continues until the consumer cancels the service.” A monthly membership is one, and the law has no exemption for fitness. It requires:

• The offer terms shown clearly and conspicuously next to the request for consent: that it continues until canceled, the cancellation policy, the recurring charge and the term.
• Express consent before you charge the card, and an acknowledgment the member can keep, with the terms and how to cancel.
• Proof of consent kept for three years, or one year after the membership ends if that is longer.
• For a free trial or intro price lasting more than 31 days, a notice 3 to 21 days before it ends.
• For a price change, notice 7 to 30 days before it takes effect, with how to cancel.
• If members can join online, they can cancel online, through a prominent link or button or a ready-made termination email. A retention offer online has to sit beside a “click to cancel” button.

A violation is a deceptive practice under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, enforced by the Attorney General. Whatever software you choose, check that a member who joined online can cancel online without calling you.

Sales tax: dues are taxed, class-only fees may not be

Arkansas's state rate is 6.5 percent, and cities and counties add their own. Section 26-52-301(6)(A) taxes “Dues and membership fees to: (i) Health spas, health clubs, and fitness clubs.” Services provided through those clubs are not taxable unless the law lists them on their own. Fees “for access to or the use of” athletic or recreational facilities are taxable.

The Department of Finance and Administration's Revenue Legal Counsel applied that to a class-only gym in Opinion 20180929 (February 2020). The gym ran fitness and martial-arts classes. Members could use the equipment only during class, and there were no other amenities. The opinion treated the monthly fee as a personal training service, which is not taxed. It warned that letting clients use the equipment outside class, or adding amenities such as tanning, would make the fees taxable dues.

For a studio, our reading is that memberships and packs for scheduled classes look nontaxable, and open-studio hours, equipment rental and amenities pull you toward taxable dues. That opinion binds only the gym that asked, for three years, and we found none naming yoga, Pilates or barre. You can request your own. Frontmat does not add a sales tax line to packs or memberships today, so if anything you sell is taxable, build the tax into the price or collect it with another tool.

Your waiver

The Arkansas Supreme Court has “long stated a strong disfavor” for releases of negligence but has never held them invalid per se. In Plant v. Wilbur (2001) it said a release “must at least clearly set out what negligent liability is to be avoided.” It upheld a speedway release that named “negligence” in three passages and put key words like “releases” and “covenants not to sue” in bold, signed by a pit-crew member who knew the risks. In Trujillo v. TK Martial Arts Academy (2015), the Court of Appeals read a release strictly against the gym and still upheld it for a death tied to the inherent risks of martial-arts training, though it never used the word “negligence.”

So name negligence plainly and make the key terms stand out. We did not find an Arkansas appellate case on whether a parent can release a child's claim. If you teach teens, ask your lawyer that question by name.

In Frontmat the waiver is your own text. Members sign it once, at their first booking, with a typed name. We store the time and a fingerprint of the exact wording they signed, so an edit later never changes what an earlier member agreed to. It is plain text, so the terms that must stand out go in CAPITALS. We never supply waiver language. Get yours from an Arkansas lawyer.

Workers' comp

The Workers' Compensation Commission says most Arkansas employers with three or more employees must carry coverage. It adds that there are exceptions, so an employer with fewer should check before assuming it is exempt. No part of the premium may be paid by employees or deducted from their pay.

Before you sign anything

1. Decide whether you are a health spa. Machines mean yes. If you are mat-only, ask the Secretary of State.
2. File Form CFD-03 with the Secretary of State before your first sale, founding memberships included, and refile every year.
3. Write the member contract: a copy at signing, the three-day cancel, the death, disability, 50-mile and closure terms, and use capped at two years.
4. Set up your signup for section 4-86-112: offer terms beside the consent, an acknowledgment with how to cancel, online cancellation, consent records kept three years.
5. Keep equipment use inside classes if you want class fees treated as nontaxable, and consider asking for your own tax opinion.
6. Have an Arkansas lawyer write the waiver, with negligence named and the key terms set apart.

This is our reading of the statutes, forms, cases and agency pages as of October 14, 2026. It is not legal advice. Confirm the health spa questions with the Arkansas Secretary of State, the autopay law with the Attorney General, and the tax questions with the Department of Finance and Administration.

If you are still choosing where to open, we keep the rules in every state on one page.