California sales tax
Not under the general rule. Residential and commercial cleaning aren't taxable in California under Regulation 1501, the general service-enterprise rule, though no CDTFA source naming house cleaning or janitorial service was found. The cleaner owes tax on the supplies it buys as their consumer.
California's answer comes from a general rule about service businesses, not a rule written for cleaning. That rule tells a cleaning owner two things: the service isn't taxed, and the supplies are. Below: residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
House cleaning isn't taxable under Regulation 1501, the general rule for service enterprises, and the cleaner owes tax on the supplies it buys as their consumer. That's an application of the general rule; no California Department of Tax and Fee Administration source naming house cleaning was found.
Office and janitorial cleaning get the same answer under the same rule, supplies included. No CDTFA source naming janitorial service was found, so this rests on Regulation 1501 as well.
Source: California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Regulation 1501, Service Enterprises Generally
Source: California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Regulation 1501, Service Enterprises Generally
The service side of a California invoice stays outside sales tax under the general rule, so the place to look is the other direction. Any time a rule says not taxable, I go poking for the case that breaks it, and here it's the supply closet. The tax you owe on supplies is part of what those supplies cost you, so it's recorded with the supplies expense rather than as sales tax collected. A separately stated sale of goods gets its own invoice line too, since it would follow different rules.
If past supply purchases are scattered across the wrong accounts, cleanup bookkeeping sorts them out. The ABC test, EDD registration and the minimum wage are on bookkeeping for cleaning businesses in California.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the service income, the supplies, and any separately stated goods on their own lines. Whether a particular sale is taxable, and how anything is reported, is a question 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 California 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
With the service untaxed under California's general rule, your books put the attention on supplies, recorded with the tax you owe on them as part of their cost. Any goods stated separately on an invoice get their own line, so they never blend into service income. Grab a short call below and we'll go over your California 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
Send me a note about how your California invoices and supply purchases are recorded today, and we'll look at it together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
