Sales tax
Yes, with exceptions. Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Arkansas as cleaning and janitorial work under Ark. Code Ann. 26-52-301(3)(D)(i)(b), and a 2018 Department of Finance and Administration opinion says these services are generally taxable regardless of the type of customer. Cleaning streets, sidewalks, driveways, or other areas that aren't part of a building is generally not taxable under Rule GR-9.4(A).
Arkansas calls it a sales tax and administers it as the gross receipts tax. The cleaning rules come from one statute subsection, Gross Receipts Tax Rule GR-9.4, and opinions from the Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Revenue Legal Counsel. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, and what they mean for your books.
Cleaning homes is taxable in Arkansas. The statutory basis is Ark. Code Ann. 26-52-301(3)(D)(i)(b), cleaning and janitorial work, read with Gross Receipts Tax Rule GR-9.4.
Commercial cleaning is taxable too. Revenue Legal Counsel Opinion No. 20180801, from 2018, says these services are generally taxable regardless of the type of customer, so the answer generally doesn't change between a homeowner and a business.
Exception: under GR-9.4(A), cleaning streets, sidewalks, driveways, or other areas that are not part of a building is generally not taxable.
With homes and businesses both taxable, the sales tax you collect goes to a liability account, apart from income. The exceptions, and the jobs the rules address separately, get their own treatment. Driveway and sidewalk work, parking lots, and gutters each sit on an income line of their own, and I want every single one of those invoices to tie back to its line, so nobody has to guess later which jobs the rules handled differently. The rest of the Arkansas picture, from the ABC test to the minimum wage, is on my Arkansas page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can point you to what the statute, GR-9.4, and the opinions say, and keep the job lines clean. Whether a particular job is taxable, and how the tax is reported, belongs with 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 Arkansas 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
Collected sales tax on Arkansas cleaning goes to a liability account and stays out of income, since residential and commercial work are both taxable. Driveway, sidewalk, parking lot, and gutter jobs get lines of their own, with each invoice tied back to where it belongs. Grab a short call below and we'll go over how your Arkansas jobs 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 driveway, gutter, and building jobs all run through the same income line, tell me how you invoice today. We'll sort it out together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
