Alabama sales tax
Residential and commercial cleaning are not taxable under Alabama's state sales tax, by inference only, since no Alabama source found names house, commercial, or janitorial cleaning. The basis is the Department of Revenue's description of sales tax as a tax on retail sales of tangible personal property, a rule that taxes labor or service charges only when they're incidental to making a new or different item or preparing property for sale, and two rulings on photography fees holding that fixed service fees not tied to a sale aren't taxable. Local sales taxes are separate and weren't checked.
Alabama's answer on cleaning is pieced together. A Department of Revenue description of what the tax covers, a rule on labor charges last amended in 1998, and two rulings about photographers all point the same way, and none of them is about cleaning. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and the local tax gap, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
Residential cleaning is not taxable under the state sales tax, as an inference. No Alabama source found names residential or house cleaning. The Alabama Department of Revenue's sales tax page, updated August 1, 2025, describes sales tax as a tax on the retail sale of tangible personal property, and the answer comes from what the tax is described as covering rather than from a rule about cleaning.
Source: Alabama Department of Revenue, Sales Tax
Commercial cleaning gets the same inferred answer on the same basis, and no Alabama source found names commercial, janitorial, or building cleaning. Two decisions of the Administrative Law Division, now the Alabama Tax Tribunal, are part of that basis. In Thigpen Photography (Docket S. 95-127, entered August 30, 1995) and Smith d/b/a FlipFlopFoto (Docket S. 05-1240, November 17, 2006), the Division held that a fixed fee for services not based on or contingent on a sale of property is not taxable. Both cases concerned photography fees, not cleaning.
Here is what the sources say, and what they leave out:
Exception: local sales taxes. ADOR states that local sales taxes are due in addition to the state tax and that rates vary. Its sales tax page doesn't say how cities and counties treat cleaning services, and local treatment wasn't checked for this page, so the not-taxable answer here covers the state tax only.
Source: Alabama Department of Revenue, Sales Tax
A state-level answer that rests on inference still leaves room for work that doesn't fit it. My habit with an inferred rule is to go hunting for the entry that would break it, like an invoice that bundles a sale of property in with the cleaning, and to flag it for your CPA rather than guess. Residential and commercial income stay on separate lines, so either one can be pulled out if a question comes up.
Payroll, the employee test, and the minimum wage are on my Alabama cleaning business bookkeeping page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I record your income so the picture is plain to see. Whether a particular job falls outside the state-level inference, and whether any local sales tax reaches your work, is a call 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
Alabama's state sales tax is treated as not reaching cleaning by inference, from a tax aimed at retail sales of property and from rulings on photography fees, so any invoice that mixes a sale of property with cleaning gets flagged in your books rather than buried. Residential and commercial income sit on separate lines. If you'd like me to look at how your invoices are recorded, book a short call below.
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
Tell me how your Alabama invoices are split today, and I'll show you how I'd set up the income side. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
