Alabama
Alabama's state sales tax is treated as not reaching residential or commercial cleaning, but that is an inference: no Alabama source found names cleaning, and the answer rests on the tax being described as a tax on retail sales of tangible personal property and on rulings about photography fees. Local city and county sales taxes are separate and weren't checked. Alabama taxes wages, and the federal $7.25 minimum wage applies, with no change announced as of October 20, 2026.
Two of the sources behind Alabama's answer on cleaning are tax cases about photographers. No Alabama source found for this page names house cleaning or janitorial work, so the state sales tax answer is built from rules and rulings about other things, and I'll show you where its edges are. On the payroll side, the unemployment registration link on the state's employer page goes to a paper form. Below I cover sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what it all means for your books.
At the state level, residential and commercial cleaning are both treated as not taxable in Alabama, by inference only. No Alabama source found names house, commercial, or janitorial cleaning. The Alabama Department of Revenue describes sales tax as a tax on the retail sale of tangible personal property, and the state's Administrative Law Division held in two cases that a fixed fee for services not based on or contingent on a sale of property is not taxable. Those cases were about photography fees, not cleaning. Local city and county sales taxes are separate and weren't checked. The rule and the rulings, with their dates, are on my page about Alabama sales tax on cleaning services.
Source: Alabama Department of Revenue, Sales Tax
Alabama's unemployment law uses the common-law, right-to-control test to decide who counts as an employee. The cite is Code of Ala. 1975, § 25-4-10(a)(1)b., as reprinted in SB150, the enrolled 2022 bill that amended § 25-4-10; the current codified text wasn't read for this page. How employees and subcontractors each land in the books is in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal question, and it belongs with your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: Alabama Department of Workforce, Employer Information (Unemployment Compensation)
Source: Alabama Legislature, SB150 (2022 Regular Session), Enrolled
Alabama taxes wages, so employers withhold state income tax. Withholding belongs to the Alabama Department of Revenue, and registration runs through its online registration site. Unemployment insurance is handled by the Alabama Department of Workforce. Its employer page links a paper Form SR-2 application for registering; that PDF itself wasn't opened for this page, and the employer page doesn't describe an online registration for new employers.
Source: Alabama Department of Revenue, Withholding Tax (April 7, 2026)
Source: Alabama Department of Revenue, Register and File Taxes
Source: Alabama Department of Workforce, Employer Information (Unemployment Compensation)
The U.S. Department of Labor's state table shows no state minimum wage law for Alabama, so the federal $7.25 an hour applies. It has been in effect since July 24, 2009, and no change had been announced as of October 20, 2026.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Minimum Wage
With the state sales tax treated as not applying to cleaning, by inference from how ADOR describes the tax and from the photography fee rulings, the books still need to hold the pieces that would matter if your CPA ever finds a local tax or a job that sits outside that inference. Residential and commercial income go on separate lines. One catch-all sales account for everything you bill. It's the worst setup for this, because the first time anyone asks how much of last year was commercial work, the books can't answer. Payroll goes in at the wage each person is actually paid, and my payroll page covers how each run gets recorded.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep income and payroll recorded so the picture is clear; whether local sales taxes reach your work, and whether any job falls outside the state-level inference, are questions for your CPA.
Rules checked against the sources above as of October 20, 2026. Rates and rules change; confirm current figures with the agency or your CPA.
About Figure Eight Financial
Figure Eight Financial is Dave Gordon’s bookkeeping practice for residential and commercial cleaning companies. I work with owners in Alabama and across the country, and I’m a Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor.
Before bookkeeping I studied computer science at Penn State and spent a career at IBM as an engineer, so I build the books as a system: data comes in once, lands in the right place, and ties back to a statement. I’m a bookkeeper, not a CPA or Enrolled Agent. I keep the books your CPA works from, and the tax decisions stay with your CPA.
Credentials and memberships reported by Figure Eight Financial.
More about DaveHow I Help
Because Alabama's not-taxable answer on cleaning is a state-level inference, built from a tax on retail sales of property and from rulings about photography fees, your residential and commercial income each get their own line so the numbers are ready if your CPA ever needs them. Payroll goes in at the wage each person is actually paid. Book a short call below and we'll walk through your Alabama setup.
The core service. Transactions recorded and categorized, every account reconciled so the books and the bank agree, and monthly reports that arrive explained, split by residential and commercial and sliceable per contract.
The full picture of how this works for a cleaning companyFor the months where nothing got entered at all. I fill in the missing periods from the ground up, pulling bank feeds, statements, and receipts until every month has a complete set of records.
How catch-up bookkeeping worksFor books that exist but can’t be trusted. I audit what’s there, fix the unreconciled accounts, duplicate transactions, and wrong categories, and tie every balance back to a statement.
How cleanup bookkeeping worksYour crews paid on time, every pay period, with each payroll run recorded in the books so labor shows up against the jobs it belongs to.
How payroll worksRecurring invoices that match your contracts, an aging report you can trust, and follow-up on slow payers handled by a process instead of your evenings. Built for net-60 commercial accounts.
How invoicing and receivables workA file built right for a cleaning company from day one, or rebuilt after the DIY version drifts, and then I teach you to run it. I’m a Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, and this is honestly my favorite part of the job.
How a proper setup worksWe start with a short call about your business and where the books stand. The first conversation doesn’t cost anything.
I take a look at what you’ve got, your QuickBooks file, your spreadsheet, whatever exists.
You get a written proposal with the price, so the decision is yours with the number in hand.
Let's Connect
If you run a cleaning business in Alabama and your income is sitting in one lump, tell me how it's set up now. We'll sort out what goes where, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
