Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale's taxable commercial cleaning carries 7%: the state's 6% and a 1% Broward County surtax that Form DR-15DSS lists from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2048. Home cleaning, carpet cleaning, and exterior pressure washing aren't taxable in Florida. The City says most businesses also need two business tax receipts, City and county, and the City's usually comes first.
Two local items shape the books for a Fort Lauderdale cleaning company: a county surtax with an end date decades out, and a pair of business tax receipts. Below are both, which jobs the surtax reaches, and what they mean for your books.
Form DR-15DSS for calendar year 2026 lists Broward County's discretionary sales surtax at 1%, effective January 1, 2019 and expiring December 31, 2048. Added to Florida's 6%, taxable work done in Broward comes to 7%. Per the Department of Revenue's cleaning brochure, the surtax applies at the rate of the county where the service is performed.
Brochure GT-800015 says residential cleaning isn't taxable. Cleaning nonresidential interiors is, including janitorial, maid, and window cleaning, and window cleaning of nonresidential buildings is taxable inside or out. Carpet cleaning and exterior pressure washing of buildings and parking lots aren't taxable. The full list is on my Florida sales tax page.
Source: Florida Department of Revenue, Sales and Use Tax on Cleaning Services (GT-800015, R. 09/22)
The City of Fort Lauderdale's business tax FAQ says any individual or entity engaging in or managing a business, profession, or occupation within city limits must pay the annual business tax, under Code Section 15-28. The FAQ also says most businesses must obtain both a City Business Tax Receipt and a Broward County receipt, and that in most cases the City receipt comes first. The county requirement on this page comes from the City's FAQ.
Source: City of Fort Lauderdale, Business Tax, Business Tax Frequently Asked Questions
Each business tax receipt is recorded as a license expense when it's paid, the City's and the county's on separate lines. Finding out there are two can feel like one more pile on an already full desk. Don't panic. Two receipts. Two lines. We'll get them in.
Home jobs, taxable commercial work, and carpet or pressure washing jobs each stay on their own income line, and every taxable invoice records the county where the work was done. Collected surtax goes to a liability account until it's paid. Payroll and reemployment tax are on my Florida page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. Whether a job is taxable and how the surtax is reported 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 Fort Lauderdale 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
For Fort Lauderdale work, taxable commercial jobs carry Broward's 1% surtax, and each taxable invoice records its county while collected tax sits in a liability account. The City and county business tax receipts are recorded as separate license expenses. Book a short call below and tell me about your Fort Lauderdale jobs.
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.
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Cleaning offices in Fort Lauderdale and want the surtax and both receipts sitting where they belong? Tell me how your books are set up now. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
