Georgia Esthetician Scope of Practice 2026: What a Skin Licence Actually Permits

Ask ten Georgia med spa owners what their estheticians may do and you will get ten answers, most borrowed from another state. That is a rational response to the fact that Georgia never published the document everyone is looking for: a list of permitted and prohibited esthetician services.

What Georgia wrote instead is a short statutory definition of esthetics, a separate licensing statute for anyone who fires an energy-based device, and a medical practice act drawing the outer boundary. Those three answer nearly every question an operator has. This guide walks the menu one treatment at a time and gives a verdict on each, with the citation where Georgia has spoken and a plain statement where it has not.

Three Boards Decide What an Esthetician May Touch in Georgia

Georgia has no single med spa regulator. Three bodies each own a piece of the answer, and almost every scope dispute in the state is really a dispute about which of them is in charge of a particular treatment.

The Cosmetology Board Writes the Licence, Not the Menu

The Georgia State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers issues the esthetician licence. It sits within the Professional Licensing Boards Division of the Secretary of State's office, which is where its rules, its disciplinary actions and its renewal machinery live. The board sets entry requirements, approves schools, inspects facilities and disciplines licensees.

What it has never done is publish a treatment list. Its authority runs to who may hold the licence and how facilities must be kept, not to a catalogue of procedures. An operator who calls the board hoping to hear whether a specific peel is allowed is asking a question the board's own rules do not answer.

The Composite Medical Board Owns the Outer Boundary

The Georgia Composite Medical Board matters twice over. It enforces the Medical Practice Act at O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 34, which is what makes a treatment medical rather than cosmetic and therefore off limits to a cosmetology licensee. And, unusually among the states, it directly licenses cosmetic laser and energy-device operators under Article 9 of that same chapter. So the medical board is both the body that says an esthetician may not do something on their esthetician licence, and the body that can issue a second licence letting the same person do it.

The Board of Nursing Only Matters When Staff Wear Two Licences

The Georgia Board of Nursing, operating under O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 26 and the Chapter 410 rules, has no jurisdiction over estheticians as such. It becomes relevant in one recurring situation: a staff member who holds both an esthetician licence and an RN or APRN licence. That person's medical acts are governed by the nursing rules, including Chapter 410-10 on standards of practice and unprofessional conduct. Which licence they are working under at any given moment is a documentation question, and one Georgia med spas answer badly more often than any other.

What Georgia's Statute Actually Says an Esthetician Does

Everything begins with O.C.G.A. Section 43-10-1, the definitions section of the cosmetologists and barbers chapter. It is short, and it repays a literal reading.

The Definition, Read Literally

An esthetician or esthetics operator is a person who, for compensation, engages in one or more listed practices, described collectively as esthetics or cosmetic skin care: massaging the face, neck, decolletage or arms; trimming, tweezing, shaping or threading eyebrows; dyeing eyelashes or eyebrows or applying eyelash extensions; and waxing, threading, stimulating, cleansing or beautifying the face, neck, arms, torso or legs, by hand or by mechanical or electrical apparatus. The statute adds that an esthetician is considered to be practising the occupation of a cosmetologist for purposes of the chapter.

That last limb is the one Georgia operators overlook, and it is the most useful sentence in the chapter. Cleansing and beautifying the skin by mechanical or electrical apparatus is written into the licence by statute — a far stronger footing for the machine-facial menu than the "nothing forbids it" reasoning most protocol binders rely on.

The Exclusions Are the Whole Ballgame

The same definition then carries the sentence that decides most real cases. The practice of esthetics shall not include the diagnosis, treatment or therapy of any dermatological condition, or medical esthetics, or the use of lasers. A second carve-out clarifies that the licence requirement does not reach a person whose activity is limited to applying cosmetics that are marketed and readily commercially available to consumers.

Read that exclusion carefully, because it names three different things and most summaries quote only the first. The dermatological limb bars diagnosis, so an esthetician may not name a client's condition; it bars treatment, so a service may not be offered as the remedy for a named condition; and it bars therapy, reaching ongoing programmes aimed at resolving a pathology rather than improving appearance. A glycolic peel sold as a brightening facial is cosmetic. The identical peel sold as a course of treatment for a client's rosacea is not, and no amount of product selection fixes that.

The second limb, medical esthetics, is undefined in Georgia law and is the vaguest thing in the statute. The third is not vague at all: the use of lasers is excluded from esthetics by name. Georgia did not leave the laser question to inference the way it left peel depth to inference, which is why the laser section below reaches a firmer conclusion than any other in this guide.

Georgia Has No Master Esthetician Licence, and That Matters

Georgia issues one skin credential. There is no master esthetician, advanced esthetician or medical esthetician licence in Georgia law. The phrase master esthetician does surface in the board's apprenticeship provisions, where it describes an experienced licensee qualified to supervise an apprentice through the 2,000-hour route, but that is a supervisory designation, not a wider scope.

This distinguishes Georgia from Washington, Virginia, Oregon and Utah, all of which run two-tier systems where the advanced credential unlocks additional procedures. In Georgia, extra training does not enlarge the licence. A practitioner who wants to do more must obtain a different licence, which in practice means the laser practitioner credential discussed below or a nursing or medical qualification. Marketing yourself as a Georgia master esthetician is not merely inaccurate, it is a title problem the board can act on.

What the Rule Book Does Not Contain

The board's regulations sit at Chapter 240 of the Georgia Rules and Regulations. The chapter list is worth reading because of what is absent: organisation, violations and fines, continuing education, facility requirements, apprentices, licensure by examination, cross-over licensing, instructor licensing, application by endorsement, salon and shop applications, school requirements, and then five chapters of school equipment and curriculum by discipline.

There is no scope-of-practice chapter and no permitted-services rule. Rule 240-4-.03 on general health and safety and Rule 240-4-.04 on cleansing and disinfection of implements and equipment are the closest the rules come to touching technique, and they are about sanitation rather than permission.

The School Curriculum Rule Is the Nearest Thing to a Service List

One rule does describe skin services concretely, and it is the only Georgia instrument that names equipment. Rule 240-16-.02 sets the esthetician school curriculum: a course of at least nine months and 1,000 hours, split into 250 hours of Level 1 theory and 750 hours of Level 2 service application. Facials account for 115 service application hours, divided into 75 hours of spa facials and 30 hours of machine facials. The machines contemplated are galvanic, high frequency, brushing, vacuum and vaporisers.

The rule also contains a single, precise device restriction: use of the microdermabrasion machine in the school or student environment is not included unless the device meets FDA class 1. That is the only place in Georgia's cosmetology rules where a device class appears. A curriculum rule is not a scope rule and should not be cited as one, but it tells you what the state expects a Georgia-trained esthetician to be competent in, and competence is half of any defence to a complaint.

The 2026 Continuing Education Change

One genuinely new obligation landed this year. From 1 January 2026, Georgia cosmetology and barber licensees must register with CE Broker and report their continuing education and proof of completion through that system; a free basic account satisfies the registration requirement. The underlying hours are unchanged: after the first renewal, estheticians complete five hours per two-year cycle, of which three must be health and safety coursework developed by the Technical College System of Georgia, with the remaining two available from a trade or product show or other approved courses. Upload as you go rather than on renewal day, because a lapsed licence turns every treatment performed after the lapse into an unlicensed act regardless of scope.

Chemical Peels: Permitted, With No Number Anywhere in Georgia Law

The Verdict

Superficial chemical exfoliation is within a Georgia esthetician's scope, without physician involvement. Peels intended to reach the papillary dermis or deeper, peels using prescription-only agents, and peels sold as the treatment for a diagnosed condition are medical acts requiring a physician, an APRN under a nurse protocol agreement, or a PA under an approved job description.

Georgia Never Wrote a Percentage or a pH

This is the single most important thing for a Georgia operator to understand, and the thing most often got wrong by managers who trained elsewhere. Georgia has published no acid list, no concentration cap and no pH floor for estheticians. If your protocol binder cites a percentage or a pH as a matter of Georgia law, that language came from another state's rulebook and does not describe your legal position here. The line is drawn by purpose and effect, through the dermatological exclusion in Section 43-10-1, rather than by a number.

Where the Cosmetic and Medical Line Actually Falls

Four questions decide it in practice, and they are the questions a board investigator or a plaintiff's expert will ask:

• What tissue is the product designed to affect? A formulation intended to shed the stratum corneum is cosmetic exfoliation. One intended to produce controlled injury into the dermis is a medical procedure.
• Is the agent available without a prescription? An esthetician applying a prescription-only active is administering a prescription drug, which no cosmetology licence permits.
• How was the service sold? Notes and marketing copy promising resolution of a named condition convert a cosmetic service into treatment, which the statute excludes.
• What did the client's skin actually do? A protocol that routinely produces frosting, sustained oedema or extended downtime is producing a medical-depth result whatever the bottle says.

None of these turns on the acid itself. A well-buffered lactic preparation and an aggressive layered application of the same acid family sit on opposite sides of the line.

How to Document a Peel Menu Georgia Cannot Argue With

Because the state gives no number, the burden shifts to your own records. A defensible Georgia peel file contains a written protocol per product naming the intended depth of effect, the manufacturer's professional-use documentation showing the product is not prescription-only, a Fitzpatrick screening record, a patch-test policy, a consent form describing expected shedding and downtime, and a chart entry recording product, layers, contact time, neutralisation and observed endpoint. That file is the answer to a complaint. Nothing else is.

Dermaplaning: Permitted, and Georgia Has Never Said Otherwise

The Verdict

Dermaplaning is within scope for a Georgia esthetician when performed as mechanical exfoliation of the stratum corneum with removal of vellus hair. No physician involvement is required.

Why It Sits Inside the Licence

Georgia has no rule mentioning dermaplaning by name, so the analysis runs through Section 43-10-1. Skimming a sterile blade across intact skin to remove dead cells and fine hair is cleansing and beautifying the skin by hand, which the statute names, and it does not diagnose or treat a dermatological condition. Nothing in the Medical Practice Act reaches it either, because nothing is cut, excised or penetrated. The absence of a rule changes the evidence you rely on if challenged — your protocol and training record rather than a citation — not the conclusion.

Where the Blade Crosses the Line

Dermaplaning leaves the licence the moment the blade stops exfoliating and starts operating. Each of the following is a surgical act reserved to medical practitioners in Georgia:

• Excising, shaving or removing a mole, skin tag, wart or any raised lesion
• Debriding a wound, an abrasion or a burn
• Working over active acne with the intention of opening lesions rather than exfoliating around them
• Deliberately passing the blade to the point of pinpoint bleeding

The most common failure here is not technique but triage: an esthetician who notices an irregular lesion and removes it, or comments on what it might be, has crossed into diagnosis and surgery in the same motion. The correct protocol is to stop, document, and refer.

Microdermabrasion: Permitted, With One Real Georgia Anchor

The Verdict

Microdermabrasion is within scope for a Georgia esthetician when performed with a device operating at the level of the stratum corneum. Crystal and diamond-tip systems marketed for professional cosmetic use sit comfortably inside the licence.

The Curriculum Rule Gives Georgia a Position

Microdermabrasion is the one advanced modality Georgia's own rules reference. Rule 240-16-.02 excludes use of the microdermabrasion machine from the school and student environment unless the device meets FDA class 1, the lowest-risk tier. That is a training rule, not a practice rule, so it does not directly cap what a licensed esthetician may run. But it gives a sensible internal standard: a device regulated above class 1 because it goes deeper than surface abrasion is a signal you have left cosmetic territory.

Where It Becomes a Medical Procedure

Dermabrasion proper, which removes epidermis and reaches into the dermis, is not microdermabrasion and is not within any cosmetology licence in Georgia. The distinction is depth, not spelling. A protocol that produces bleeding, remodels scar tissue, or treats a diagnosed condition has crossed into the practice of medicine.

Hydradermabrasion and Infusion Devices

Hydradermabrasion systems combine gentle abrasion with a serum infusion. The abrasion is unproblematic; the serum is where attention belongs. An over-the-counter cosmetic serum keeps the service cosmetic, while a compounded or prescription-only preparation makes it a delivery of a prescription drug, which no esthetician licence permits. Get the regulatory status from your distributor in writing.

Microneedling: Cosmetic Depth Only, and Nothing That Draws Blood

The Verdict

Only superficial cosmetic needling is available to a Georgia esthetician, using a device that does not deliberately puncture living tissue or draw blood. Clinical-depth microneedling, radiofrequency microneedling and all platelet-rich plasma work are medical procedures requiring physician delegation to an appropriately licensed operator.

Where the 0.3 mm Line Comes From

The working threshold used across the industry is roughly 0.3 mm, and its provenance matters because operators routinely cite it as though a Georgia board wrote it. It comes from the FDA, which treats needling instruments that do not penetrate living tissue as cosmetic devices and regulates deeper instruments as medical devices. Georgia has never adopted that number or written any needle-depth rule of its own.

What Georgia has is the dermatological exclusion, which does the same work by a different route. A device that deliberately creates channels into the dermis to provoke a wound-healing response is producing a therapeutic injury, and that is treatment, not cosmetic skin care. Our fuller treatment of this sits in the Georgia microneedling and PRP scope guide.

Radiofrequency Microneedling Changed Category in 2026

RF microneedling was already out of reach on depth grounds. As of 25 May 2026 it is out for a second, independent reason: the Composite Medical Board expanded the definition of cosmetic laser services to reach radiofrequency devices, among others. An RF needling device now sits inside a licensing scheme a cosmetology credential does not satisfy.

PRP Is Not a Depth Question at All

Platelet-rich plasma involves drawing blood, processing it and returning it to the body. Venipuncture is a medical act in Georgia and no cosmetology licence reaches it. An esthetician doing the needling pass while someone else handles the blood is still participating in a medical procedure, and PRP runs at medical depth anyway.

Laser, IPL and Energy Devices: Georgia Licenses the Operator

This is where Georgia departs most sharply from the states operators reason from, and where confident industry advice is most likely to be wrong.

The Verdict

An esthetician licence alone does not permit laser or IPL work in Georgia, and here the statute says so outright rather than leaving it to inference: O.C.G.A. Section 43-10-1 excludes the use of lasers from the practice of esthetics by name. But the esthetician licence is not a disqualification either. Georgia licenses device operators under a separate statute, and a Georgia esthetician is expressly eligible to apply for that licence and then perform cosmetic laser services under supervision.

Both are true at once, and most Georgia advice gets this wrong in one direction or the other. The cosmetology statute forbids lasers on the esthetics licence; the medical practice chapter names esthetician as a qualifying credential for a different licence permitting exactly that work. Two licences are being distinguished, not contradicted.

The Cosmetic Laser Services Act in One Paragraph

Article 9 of O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 34 (Sections 43-34-240 to 43-34-253) creates a licensing scheme administered by the Composite Medical Board, with implementing rules at Chapter 360-35. Section 43-34-242 defines cosmetic laser services as nonablative elective cosmetic light-based skin care, photo rejuvenation or hair removal using FDA-approved lasers or pulsed light devices, and states that such services are not to be considered the practice of medicine. That clause is the hinge of the scheme: Georgia carved nonablative cosmetic device work out of the practice of medicine and built a dedicated licence around it. Ablative resurfacing was not carved out and remains medical.

The Assistant Laser Practitioner Pathway an Esthetician Can Use

Section 43-34-244 creates two levels of cosmetic laser practitioner licence. The senior tier is genuinely medical: a current or former licence as a physician assistant or nurse, at least three years of clinical or technological medical experience, and three years of licensure or national board certification.

The assistant tier is the one that matters here. Its eligible credentials include physician assistant, licensed practical nurse, nurse, esthetician and master cosmetologist. An applicant must be at least 21, meet the board's educational requirements and possess the requisite skill, and must present at least three laser or IPL certificates from board-approved courses taught directly by a licensed physician or a certified CME or CE educator.

So the honest answer to whether a Georgia esthetician can run a laser is: not today, and possibly in a few months, through the medical board rather than the cosmetology board. That is materially different from a flat prohibition, and it is the answer an ambitious staff member deserves.

Supervision, On-Site Presence and the Hair Removal Carve-Out

An assistant laser practitioner performs cosmetic laser services under the on-site supervision of a board-licensed physician or a licensed senior laser practitioner. The rules then create a commercially significant exception: on-site supervision and a prior examination are not required for laser hair removal and pulsed light treatments. Everything else brings the requirement back.

Facility obligations run in parallel under the Chapter 360-35 rules. A facility must have a consulting physician relationship on file with the board — name, address and credentials — and must post signage identifying that physician with an emergency contact, board certification and specialty, or identifying whoever is currently supervising. The consulting physician must be licensed in Georgia, must have a principal place of business in the state or practise within fifty miles of the facility, and must be trained in laser modalities including physics, safety and the relevant surgical techniques.

In a physician's office providing cosmetic laser services other than hair removal, the physician must examine each patient before the service, or that examination must be performed by a PA under an approved job description or by an APRN under a board-approved protocol. Violating the article is a misdemeanour under Section 43-34-253, on top of board discipline. For the device-safety layer alongside all of this, including ANSI and OSHA obligations and the laser safety officer role, see our Georgia laser safety guide for med spas.

What Changed on 25 May 2026

Two amendments took effect. The definition of cosmetic laser services was expanded to include energy-based procedures using ultrasound, cryolipolysis, microwave or radiofrequency devices, including devices not intended to remove or vaporise the skin's surface but capable of damaging underlying tissue if used inappropriately. Separately, the assistant laser practitioner definition was clarified to make the supervision requirement explicit.

The first is the one that will catch Georgia med spas out. A radiofrequency skin-tightening platform, an ultrasound lifting device or a cryolipolysis body-contouring system that an esthetician was running on a cosmetology licence in April 2026 sits inside the laser practitioner licensing scheme from 25 May 2026 onward. If that describes your treatment room, the fix is a licensing project, not a wording change on the menu.

Extractions, High Frequency, LED and Enzyme Treatments

These are the treatments operators ask about most, usually because a distributor implied a device needs oversight it does not need.

Extractions: In Scope

Manual extraction of comedones is within a Georgia esthetician's scope. It is core facial work, it is what the curriculum's 115 hours of facial service application train for, and it does not diagnose or treat a dermatological condition. The line is one of characterisation: clearing congestion during a facial is cosmetic, while incising or draining an inflamed cyst is a minor surgical act belonging to a medical practitioner. Lancets have no place on a Georgia esthetician's tray.

High Frequency, Galvanic and the Classic Machine Modalities: In Scope

High frequency, galvanic, brushing, vacuum and vaporiser treatments are within scope. These are the exact modalities Rule 240-16-.02 names in the machine facial component of the esthetician curriculum, which makes them the best-supported services on the whole menu. One caution worth building into a protocol: galvanic current used for iontophoresis delivers a product into skin, so the regulatory status of the ampoule matters for the same reason it matters in hydradermabrasion.

LED and Enzyme Treatments: In Scope

LED phototherapy and enzymatic treatments are within scope. LED panels used for cosmetic purposes are non-ablative, non-thermal and fall outside the cosmetic laser services definition, which is built around lasers and pulsed light devices. The 2026 expansion of that definition is still a reminder to read the specification of anything new you buy rather than the brochure, particularly where a device combines LED with a genuine energy modality. Enzyme treatments are surface exfoliation and belong in the same category as superficial peels: cosmetic when sold and performed as cosmetic exfoliation, and something else when sold as therapy for a condition.

What Crosses Into the Practice of Medicine in Georgia

The Three Tests That Get Applied

Strip away the treatment names and Georgia's boundary comes down to three questions. Does the service diagnose, treat or provide therapy for a dermatological condition, or amount to medical esthetics or laser use, all of which Section 43-10-1 excludes outright? Does it involve a prescription drug or a device whose lawful use requires a practitioner's order? Does it deliberately injure or penetrate living tissue below the epidermis? An affirmative answer to any one puts the service outside a cosmetology licence.

The Categorical Exclusions

Some services are simply not available to a Georgia esthetician on any theory, and it is worth naming them so that no one has to reason their way there under commercial pressure:

• Injectables of every kind, including neuromodulators, dermal fillers, biostimulators, mesotherapy and skin boosters. Who may inject in Georgia is covered in our guide to who can inject Botox in Georgia.
• Anything involving blood, including venipuncture, PRP and PRF preparation, and microcannula work.
• Prescription-strength topicals, including compounded preparations and prescription-only actives, whatever the delivery method.
• Medical-depth resurfacing, whether by chemical, mechanical or ablative laser means.
• Ablative laser procedures, which sit outside the nonablative carve-out in Section 43-34-242 and remain the practice of medicine.
• Diagnosis of any kind, including naming a client's condition, recommending a prescription product, or advising that a lesion is benign.

Practising medicine without a licence in Georgia is prosecutable. The penalty provision at O.C.G.A. Section 43-34-42 makes a violation of the medical practice article a felony carrying a fine and a term of imprisonment, and the board can act against any physician who allowed the arrangement. That is not theoretical in a state whose board has spent 2026 focused on supervision arrangements.

Working Inside a Physician-Owned Med Spa: What Changes and What Does Not

Delegation Cannot Enlarge a Cosmetology Licence

The verdict is no: an esthetician working inside a physician-owned med spa may not do more than the esthetician licence otherwise allows. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in the Georgia market, and it survives because it feels intuitively wrong.

Look at how Georgia's delegation machinery is built. O.C.G.A. Section 43-34-23 authorises a physician to delegate to a nurse, through a nurse protocol, or to a physician assistant, through a job description approved by the board. Section 43-34-25 and the Chapter 360-32 rules govern nurse protocol agreements in detail. Every channel is defined by the delegate's own licence, and an esthetician holds neither, so no channel reaches them. A physician cannot delegate into a licence category the statute does not name. What the med spa setting genuinely changes is the availability of colleagues who can perform the medical portion, and the quality of oversight around the cosmetic portion. Neither is a scope expansion.

Where the Liability Lands

When an esthetician performs a medical act in a Georgia med spa, exposure attaches in several directions at once, and operators consistently underestimate how far it reaches:

• The esthetician faces cosmetology board discipline and criminal exposure for unlicensed practice of medicine.
• The supervising or medical director physician faces Composite Medical Board discipline for aiding unlicensed practice and failing to supervise, whether or not they were on site or aware.
• The practice entity faces civil liability and ownership questions of its own, covered in who can own a med spa in Georgia.
• The malpractice carrier may decline the claim entirely, because most policies exclude acts outside the practitioner's licence. That is where an out-of-scope treatment stops being a compliance problem and becomes a solvency problem.

Whose licence carries it in the end? Both, and the physician usually carries more, because the board has a career-length relationship with them and documented duties to measure them against. Our guide to Georgia med spa medical director requirements sets out what those duties look like in practice.

The Two-Hats Problem

A dual-licensed staff member, typically an RN who also holds an esthetician licence, is not a loophole but a documentation obligation. Every treatment must be identifiable afterwards as a cosmetology service or a nursing service, because the standard, the required order, the consent language and the responsible board all differ. Where the chart does not say, an investigator assumes the characterisation least favourable to you.

Where Georgia Is Genuinely Silent, and What That Silence Means

Silence Is Neither Permission Nor Prohibition

Georgia's cosmetology rules say nothing about peel depth, needle depth, dermaplaning, LED or enzymes. Note the contrast with lasers, where the statute names the answer outright: silence here is a real gap, not a drafting style applied across the board. Two opposite errors follow, and both are common. The optimistic error reads silence as permission, which ignores that the Medical Practice Act operates independently and does not need the cosmetology board's agreement to make something medical. The defensive error reads silence as prohibition and refuses services the licence plainly covers, costing revenue for nothing.

The correct reading is narrower. Silence means the board has not pre-cleared the service, so the analysis falls back to the statutory definition and the medical boundary, and your protocol file becomes the evidence rather than a citation. That is workable, but it is different work than looking up a number.

The Open Questions Worth Watching

Four areas are genuinely unsettled in Georgia as of August 2026, and an operator who tells you otherwise is guessing:

• Where superficial ends. Georgia has never defined the depth at which chemical exfoliation becomes medical, and no board opinion supplies a number.
• The device edges of the 2026 laser definition. The expanded definition reaches ultrasound, cryolipolysis, microwave and radiofrequency devices that may damage underlying tissue if used inappropriately. Where that leaves low-power radiofrequency cosmetic equipment has not yet been tested.
• Cosmetic-depth needling. Georgia has adopted no needle-depth rule, and the 0.3 mm figure everyone uses is a federal device classification the state has never ratified.
• Whether the legislature moves. HR 1891, introduced in March 2026, created a House study committee on advanced practice provider supervision, and the Composite Medical Board issued a position statement on supervision arrangements on 7 May 2026. Both concern medical supervision rather than esthetics directly, but they indicate an active regulatory year. Our Georgia regulatory profile for 2026 tracks the wider picture.

Where the state is silent, write your own rule down and apply it consistently. A conservative internal standard that staff actually follow defends better than an aggressive one justified by another state's rulebook.

Summary: Georgia Esthetician Scope in One Screen

1. Peels: superficial exfoliation is in scope, with no Georgia percentage, acid list or pH limit anywhere in the rules.
2. Dermaplaning: in scope as mechanical exfoliation. Out the moment the blade excises a lesion or debrides a wound.
3. Microdermabrasion: in scope at stratum corneum level. Rule 240-16-.02 and its FDA class 1 reference are the only Georgia anchor, and true dermabrasion is medical.
4. Microneedling: cosmetic depth only, nothing that draws blood. The 0.3 mm figure is an FDA device threshold, not a Georgia rule. RF needling and PRP are medical.
5. Laser and IPL: not on the esthetician licence, but an esthetician is an eligible applicant for an assistant laser practitioner licence under Section 43-34-244, then works under supervision, with a carve-out from on-site supervision for hair removal and pulsed light.
6. Extractions, high frequency, LED, enzymes: all in scope. The machine modalities are named in the state's own curriculum rule.
7. No master esthetician tier exists in Georgia. Extra scope comes from a different licence, not a higher grade of the same one.
8. A med spa job does not enlarge the licence. Delegation under Section 43-34-23 runs to nurses and PAs only, and liability lands on the esthetician and the physician together.
9. Two 2026 dates: CE Broker reporting from 1 January, and the expanded cosmetic laser services definition from 25 May.
10. Where Georgia is silent, your protocol file is the rule. Start from the Georgia med spa compliance checklist.

More Georgia guidance, including ownership, injector scope and medical director duties, is collected on the Georgia med spa resource hub. If you would rather adopt a written standard than draft one, our med spa SOP and protocol kits cover the protocols, consent forms and logs referenced throughout this guide.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Scope of practice turns on the specific service, product and device involved, and Georgia's position on several of the treatments discussed here is unsettled. Consult a Georgia healthcare attorney and confirm current rules with the Georgia State Board of Cosmetology and Barbers and the Georgia Composite Medical Board before setting or changing a treatment menu.