The question is not what it costs, but what you buy first
Most salon startups begin with a total. They search for what fitting out a salon costs, find figures a factor of ten apart, and then start calculating with a number that has nothing to do with their own premises.
What actually shapes your first months is a different question: in what order do you buy. You do not have one decision worth tens of thousands, you have fifty decisions worth a few hundred, and the mistake is nearly always in the timing. Building two workstations while you work alone. Buying an expensive counter before the wash unit is plumbed in. Getting a bargain on precisely the piece of equipment you should never buy used.
So this guide covers only the buying order and the buying decision. What your whole start costs, including rent, insurance and monthly overheads, is set out in the separate guide on the cost of starting a hair salon. Read that one for your budget and this one for your order list.
The priority list per area
Do not put your fit-out on one pile. Put it in three columns: what must be there on day one, what can wait until month three, and what you only buy once your diary is genuinely full.
| Area | Day one | Can wait to month three | Only once fully booked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workstation | 1 chair, mirror, task light, tool trolley, scissors and clipper set, dryer | Second workstation, child booster seat, spare dryer | Third and fourth workstation, electrically adjustable chairs |
| Wash area | 1 wash unit with hot water and drainage, neck rest, towels plus a washing machine | Second wash unit, massage function, colour bar with its own basin | Head-spa setup, separate colour room |
| Counter and waiting area | A way to take payment, phone, somewhere to write, 2 waiting chairs | A real counter, coat rack, cloakroom, coffee machine | Lit retail display, bespoke counter |
| Back room | Washing machine and dryer, storage cupboard, lidded bins | Staff corner, lockers, separate break space | Stock room with colour scales and mixing station |
| Hygiene | Disinfectant, gloves, separated clean and dirty storage, sharps container where relevant | Steriliser or autoclave for cutting work | A second set of instruments so you can keep working during sterilisation |
| Systems | Booking system and calendar, bookkeeping, liability insurance | Music subscription with the right licences, shopfront lettering | Till system with integration, an extra device per staff member |
If you work as a beauty specialist, nail technician or pedicure, only one thing shifts. The treatment chair or couch and the lighting move into column one, and the wash unit disappears or becomes a hand basin. What arrives instead is extraction: for nail work kvk.nl explicitly flags filing dust and fumes and the need for good ventilation, checked September 2026. For you that is not a month-three comfort but a day-one item.
The rule behind the table: everything in column one makes revenue possible, column two makes it more comfortable, column three is capacity you are not filling yet. Never buy capacity ahead. An empty second chair earns nothing and gets in your way.
New or second-hand: what the market is asking right now
Complete salon fit-outs are offered second-hand in the Netherlands continuously, and the amounts are not a small discount but a different order of magnitude.
A snapshot from 6 September 2026. On Marktplaats the search "complete kapsalon inrichting" returned 37 adverts. Among them: a complete set with 2 workstations and a wash unit at 1,250 EUR, a complete salon fit-out at 2,850 EUR, a salon clearance including products at 2,995 EUR, 5 barbershop styling tables with trolleys at 2,300 EUR, and full interiors at 5,500 EUR and 6,500 EUR. In the business category for shop fittings, "kapsalon inventaris" returned 22 adverts, including an upmarket salon interior at 6,900 EUR. For beauty salons the supply was thinner: 7 adverts, with a complete fit-out at 2,500 EUR.
Set the new prices beside that. At Dutch salon wholesaler Salon For All, hairdressing chairs that same day ran from roughly 791 EUR to roughly 2,210 EUR excluding VAT, with an AYALA TIGER at 1,009.80 EUR and an electric Gabbiano Duke at 1,448.17 EUR. Kappershandel.nl advertises entry models from 233.10 EUR.
The comparison that falls out of this is stark: a complete second-hand set with two workstations and a wash unit was going that day for roughly the price of one new mid-range chair.
Two warnings attached to those figures. They are asking prices observed on a single day, not sale prices and certainly not a national average. And supply is erratic: what is there today is gone in a fortnight, and quality ranges from a salon that was refitted last year to one that ran hard for a decade. Look for yourself, on the day you buy.
What to buy used, and what never to
The dividing line is not between expensive and cheap but between furniture and technology.
Used without hesitation. Chairs, mirrors, styling tables and units, cabinets, counters, waiting chairs, trolleys, coat racks, footrests. These wear where you can see it. You can look at them, sit on them and judge the damage yourself, and a scratch costs you no clients.
Used with reservations. A wash unit: the furniture lasts, but the tap, the hoses and the drain are the weak points and they are hidden. Only take one if you have seen it working where it currently stands.
Preferably new. Anything that heats, cuts, sterilises or carries current all day: dryers, clippers, sterilisers, IPL and laser equipment, and anything a client lies under or against. In this category you are not buying the device but the warranty, the manual and the liability the supplier carries. If something goes wrong during a treatment and your client is harmed, you pay, and a classified-ad receipt will not help you.
Practically: take someone who knows the trade with you to a full clearance, ask why it is being sold, and agree that you pay on collection. Ask explicitly whether the seller dismantles, because disconnecting a wash unit from water and drainage is not a Saturday afternoon job.
Leasing as an alternative, and when it fits
For the expensive lines in column one, leasing is a third route beside new and used. According to kvk.nl the difference comes down to one question: do you become the owner or not.
With operational lease the leasing company stays the owner. You use the asset for an agreed period and hand it back. The instalments are booked as costs, you cannot depreciate and you have no right to an investment allowance. Maintenance and risk sit with the leasing company, which is exactly why this form is more expensive than financial lease or a bank loan. The asset does not appear on your balance sheet.
With financial lease the leasing company finances the purchase value and you are the owner. The asset goes on your balance sheet, VAT is charged on delivery and is deductible as input tax, and you may depreciate and deduct the interest. The repayments themselves are not deductible, and an investment allowance is possible here.
Source: kvk.nl, its pages on leasing and on leasing and taxation, checked September 2026.
For a starting salon, leasing is rarely interesting for furniture, where the second-hand market is simply cheaper. It becomes a real choice for one expensive machine you need in order to offer a treatment, when you do not yet know whether that treatment will take off. Then operational lease is mostly buying flexibility, and you repay that in the monthly price.
The items that fall outside every order list
This is where budgets tear, and it appears on no quote from a salon wholesaler.
Water and drainage to the wash units. Premises that were never a salon have no hot-water point and no drain where you want your wash unit. Running pipework through a concrete floor is a separate job at a separate price, and it often dictates the layout of the whole place.
Extra electrical circuits. Several dryers, a washing machine, a tumble dryer, lighting and later a second workstation do not fit on the installation of a former clothes shop. Have an installer look at it before you sign, not after.
Ventilation and extraction. With colour work and certainly with nail products this is not a comfort item. For nail work kvk.nl names the fumes and the filing dust and the need for good ventilation.
Shell or turnkey. This is the first question to ask and the one that moves the most money. There is no legal definition of casco, so what is and is not included sits in your lease and in the demarcatielijst attached to it. Kvk.nl advises checking that list carefully before signing, and notes that you must consult your landlord about any renovation. Ask for the list, go through it line by line asking who pays, and get it in writing what happens to your investment if you leave in five years.
Do these four checks before you order a single chair. They set your costs, and they set your opening date too, because installers and landlords work to their own diaries.
How to work through your order list
Four steps, in this order.
Step 1: walk the premises with an installer and the demarcatielijst. Water, drainage, circuits, ventilation. Only once you know what the place needs do you know what is left of your fit-out money.
Step 2: buy column one, and nothing else. One workstation, one wash unit, hygiene, and a way to take bookings.
Step 3: within column one, buy furniture used and technology new. Bookmark the second-hand sites and watch for two weeks before you strike, so you know what a normal asking price looks like.
Step 4: put columns two and three on a list with a condition behind each item rather than a date. "Second workstation once I have three consecutive weeks above sixty percent occupancy." That way you buy on numbers instead of on feel.
You only have those occupancy numbers if your appointments land somewhere you can look back at. That is the cheapest line on your whole list, and with CelerBook it is also one that moves with your diary rather than with your budget. You get a booking page on your own subdomain, a calendar for you and your staff that writes every appointment through to your Google Calendar, automatic confirmation emails and an SMS reminder ahead of time at 0.11 EUR ex VAT per appointment, and figures on revenue per service and per staff member, which is exactly the number step 4 rests on. The first 5 appointments each month are free, then 0.25 EUR excluding VAT per completed appointment, capped at 30 EUR a month for a solo operator plus 5 EUR per additional active staff member. No contract, and no usage means no cost. Try CelerBook for free.