Flagstaff
Flagstaff's minimum wage is $18.35 an hour from January 1, 2026, and the city lists $18.95 for January 1, 2027. It covers anyone who works, or is expected to work, 25 hours or more in a calendar year inside city limits, and every employee gets the full rate whether or not they earn tips. Arizona's 2026 state rate is $15.15.
Flagstaff counts its threshold across a calendar year, and the bar is 25 hours inside city limits. Below are the city rate and who it reaches, how Arizona's transaction privilege tax treats cleaning, and what the Flagstaff wage means for your books. Payroll registration and the employee or subcontractor test live on bookkeeping for Arizona cleaning businesses.
The City of Flagstaff's minimum wage is $18.35 an hour effective January 1, 2026, and $18.95 an hour effective January 1, 2027. The city adjusts it each January 1 by the Consumer Price Index. Tips don't lower it: the city says all employees must make the full minimum wage regardless of whether they regularly earn tips.
The wage came from Proposition 414 in 2016 and sits in Title 15 of the Flagstaff City Code. It covers all individuals who work or are expected to work 25 hours or more in any calendar year within the city limit, and complaints go to the Office of Labor Standards at Flagstaff City Hall. Whether a given employee falls inside that is a question for the city or an employment attorney.
Source: City of Flagstaff, Minimum Wage
Arizona's own floor is lower. The Industrial Commission of Arizona labels $15.15 an hour the 2026 state minimum wage.
Source: Industrial Commission of Arizona, Labor Information
Arizona's statewide tax is the transaction privilege tax, and at the state level residential and commercial cleaning appear not to be taxable under it. That reading is inferred. It rests on a 2008 private ruling, which binds only the business that asked for it and dealt with a non-residential project, and on the October 2026 state rate table, which has no cleaning classification. City transaction privilege tax wasn't checked, so Flagstaff's own treatment isn't covered here. The conditions are on my page about how Arizona taxes cleaning services, and whether a particular job is taxable is a question for your CPA.
Source: Arizona Department of Revenue, Private Taxpayer Ruling LR08-011 (October 29, 2008)
A calendar-year threshold means hours add up quietly across months, so your books need hours by employee and by job location, not just a pay-period total. I'm the sort of person who finds counting hours across twelve months relaxing, which tells you a lot about how exciting my weekends are, but that kind of counting is exactly what a 25-hour line asks for. I tag each job with where it was done, record payroll at the wage actually paid, and when $18.95 arrives on January 1, 2027, the job profitability estimator shows what it does to a single job.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep hours, wages, and job locations recorded; who the Flagstaff wage covers is a question for the city or an employment attorney, and tax questions go to 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 Flagstaff 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
Flagstaff measures its wage threshold in hours worked inside the city across a whole calendar year, so jobs in the books carry their location and payroll goes in at the wage actually paid. When the rate moves to $18.95 on January 1, 2027, your labor costs move with it. Book a short call below and we'll look at how your Flagstaff hours are recorded.
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 your crews take jobs in Flagstaff, show me how hours get logged now and we'll check whether the books can count them by place. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
