Opening a studio in Mississippi: the four-month line and a $25,000 bond

October 14, 2026

This is for anyone opening a Pilates, yoga, barre or boutique fitness studio in Mississippi. The state's health spa law turns on one number. Offer any contract longer than four months and you must register with the Attorney General before you sell and keep a $25,000 bond. Offer nothing longer than four months and the law does not reach you.

The health spa law reaches class studios

Chapter 83 of Title 75 of the Mississippi Code regulates health spas. The Attorney General's office calls it the Health Spa Act. A health spa is a for-profit business whose services “purport to improve the user's physical condition or appearance through weight control, exercise, dieting or a combination of these.” Services include “exercise instruction, exercise programs and the structure of classes.” A Pilates, yoga or barre studio fits.

There is no exclusion for yoga or dance. The exclusions are nonprofits like the YMCA, self-defense schools, nonprofit schools and colleges, and this one from section 75-83-1:

Any organization, business, establishment or person which does not offer a contract with a duration in excess of four (4) months.

So the four-month line is the whole question. A studio that sells drop-ins, packs that run out within four months and memberships of four months or less is outside the act. A six-month or annual membership or a year of founding membership paid up front brings the studio in, and we would assume a pack good for longer than four months does too. One such product is enough, because the exclusion is for a business that “does not offer” a longer contract.

Two questions the statute does not answer

The first is the one most studios will hit. It is unsettled whether a month-to-month membership that renews on autopay with no end date is a contract “with a duration in excess of four (4) months.” We found no court decision and no Attorney General guidance on it. Each month can be read as a one-month term, or the membership can be read as lasting as long as it renews. We cannot tell you which reading Mississippi follows. Ask the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division, or a Mississippi lawyer, before you sell a monthly membership.

The second is class packs. The act defines a contract as “a written agreement by which one becomes a member of a health spa.” Whether a pack buyer is a member in that sense is unsettled too, so we would treat a long pack as if it counts.

If you are in: registration and the bond

Section 75-83-3 says to file a registration statement with the Attorney General's Division of Consumer Protection “prior to the sale of any memberships.” It lists your owners and officers, your facilities, every plan and its price, and any litigation in the last three years. Section 75-83-7 says you show every prospective member the list of plans and prices, and you may not sell a plan that is not on it. Cutting a price does not mean registering again.

Section 75-83-3 also requires a $25,000 bond from a surety authorized in Mississippi, with a copy filed with the State Treasurer. Instead of the bond you can deposit $25,000 with the Treasurer as cash, insured certificates of deposit or bonds. Nothing in the act exempts a new studio or monthly billing. The only bond exemption, in section 75-83-15, is for spas operating before July 1, 1985.

What the member contract must say

• In writing, signed by the member, the entire agreement, with a completed copy handed over at signing.
• In at least 10-point boldface: “NOTICE TO THE BUYER: DO NOT SIGN THIS CONTRACT UNTIL YOU HAVE READ ALL OF IT. ALSO, DO NOT SIGN THIS CONTRACT IF IT CONTAINS ANY BLANK SPACES.”
• A right to cancel by written notice by midnight of the fifth business day after purchase, with all money refunded, and the statute's cancellation notice in 10-point boldface with your mailing address.
• A term of 36 months or less.
• A death or disability clause: the member and the estate stop paying for services not yet received, and any unused prepayment is refunded promptly.

Section 75-83-5 makes a contract that does not comply “void and unenforceable as contrary to public policy.” Under section 75-83-9 a member with a loss can sue in chancery court for actual and punitive damages, with attorney's fees if damages are awarded. Under section 75-83-13, knowingly breaking the registration, contract or misrepresentation sections is a misdemeanor: a fine up to $2,000, up to a year in county jail, or both.

What that means for your products

In Frontmat, class packs can expire after a number of days you set, or never. Four calendar months are never shorter than 120 days, so an expiry of 120 days or less keeps a pack inside the line. Memberships bill monthly on the member's card through Stripe with no end date, so they sit in the unsettled row.

A membership can be sold before you open with billing starting on opening day, and founding spots can be capped. A founding member signed that way pays nothing until the doors open. Mississippi has no escrow rule for presales. But if monthly memberships turn out to be covered, registration comes before the first sale, founding sales included.

Sales tax: memberships are out, drop-ins are unclear

Section 27-65-22 taxes admissions to amusements at 7 percent of gross income, and amusement includes “recreation or pastime.” The Department of Revenue's rule says taxable admissions include “cover charges or one time fees for admission to museums, restaurants and bars, galleries and gyms or fitness centers.” The same rule says “Admission charges do not include membership fees.”

So membership dues are not a taxable admission. Drop-ins and class packs are the open question. The statute reaches payments made “in return for other than tangible property or specific personal or professional services.” An instructor-led class looks like a personal service. A drop-in also looks like a one-time fee for admission to a fitness center. We found no rule or ruling that decides it for a class studio. A Department of Revenue letter ruling would. We checked the state rate only, not local levies.

If you do collect it, the rule says the tax is added on top of the admission price. Frontmat does not add a sales tax line to packs or memberships today, so a studio collecting on drop-ins would do that with other tools.

Your waiver

Mississippi is hard on releases. In Turnbough v. Ladner (1999), the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to enforce a preprinted release signed for a scuba course. The court said these agreements are “subject to close judicial scrutiny,” are not upheld unless intent is “expressed in clear and unmistakable language,” and will not be enforced unless the limitation is “fairly and honestly negotiated and understandingly entered into.” It said it does not sanction “broad, general ‘waiver of negligence’ provisions.” That release did mention negligence. The court still held that the student had not knowingly waived claims for his instructor’s “failure to follow basic safety guidelines.” Four of the nine justices dissented.

A studio waiver is a preprinted form too. Have a Mississippi lawyer write yours so it names the risks of your classes and your own negligence in plain words, and expect that even a good one may not hold.

We found no Mississippi decision that squarely settles whether a parent can sign away a child's injury claim, and on our reading two cases lean against it. In Quinn v. Mississippi State University (1998), a father and his 12-year-old son signed a baseball camp's release. The Mississippi Supreme Court would not let the release end the case. It said a jury should decide what the release covered, and that “A party can not use an anticipatory release to escape liability for tortious acts.” A separate opinion by Justice McRae went further: “Neither Brandon nor his father can be held to a release from liability for prospective, unspecified injuries.” In Colyer v. First United Methodist Church of New Albany (Miss. Ct. App. 2016), a 17-year-old's grandmother, who was his legal guardian, signed consent forms for a church mission trip, and the teen signed a release. He drowned on the trip. The court held the teen “could not legally sign a contract of this nature to waive liability” because of his age, and that neither document bound his mother's wrongful death suit, because she had signed neither. In a separate opinion, Judge Carlton and three colleagues wrote that “Public policy prohibits the use of preinjury waivers of liability for personal injury due to future acts of a defendant's own negligence.” If you teach teens, do not count on a parent's signature.

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 a later edit never changes what an earlier member agreed to. It is plain text, so emphasis is done in CAPITALS. We never supply waiver language.

Workers' comp and texts

Workers' comp is required from five employees regularly in the business (section 71-3-5) and optional below that. The Workers' Compensation Commission says independent contractors are ordinarily excluded, so by our reading true 1099 instructors do not count toward the five.

The Mississippi Telephone Solicitation Act covers “any voice or text message communication” sent to sell. A solicitor registers with the Attorney General every year, in May or June, and posts a $75,000 bond. The penalty is up to $10,000 per violation, and each text counts as one. The act does not apply to people you have an established business relationship with: someone who asked about classes or bought from you, where the relationship is current or ended within six months. A promotional text to a bought list, or to a member who left eight months ago, is covered.

Frontmat sends booking texts only (waitlist offers, confirmations and cancellations) to members who opted in, and stores the time and wording of each opt-in. It sends no marketing texts.

Before you sign anything

1. Set your menu against the four-month line: packs that expire in 120 days or less, and no term longer than four months.
2. Ask the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division whether a month-to-month autopay membership is covered, before you sell one.
3. If you are covered, file the registration statement with every plan and price and get the $25,000 bond or make the Treasurer deposit. Do it before the first sale, founding members included.
4. Write the member contract with the two boldface notices, the five-day cancellation, the death and disability clause and a term of 36 months or less.
5. Ask the Department of Revenue whether your drop-ins and packs are taxable admissions before you price them.
6. Have a Mississippi lawyer write the waiver, naming your own negligence plainly.

This is our reading of the statutes, rules and agency pages as of October 14, 2026. It is not legal advice. Confirm the health spa questions with the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division and the tax questions with the Department of Revenue.

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