Sales tax
It depends on the building and the work. Residential cleaning isn't taxable. Cleaning the interior of a nonresidential building, including janitorial, maid, and window cleaning, is taxable along with county discretionary surtax, while carpet cleaning and exterior pressure washing aren't taxable.
The Florida Department of Revenue sets out its cleaning rules in one brochure, GT-800015, and Rule 12A-1.0091 of the Florida Administrative Code covers cleaning services. The lines run between homes and nonresidential buildings, and between interior work and a few named services. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, and what they mean for your books.
Cleaning homes isn't taxable in Florida, per the Department of Revenue's brochure on sales and use tax on cleaning services, GT-800015.
Source: Florida Department of Revenue, Sales and Use Tax on Cleaning Services (GT-800015, R. 09/22)
Cleaning the interior of a nonresidential building is taxable, and that covers janitorial, maid, and window cleaning. Window cleaning of nonresidential buildings is taxable whether it's inside or out. Carpet cleaning and exterior pressure washing aren't taxable. County discretionary sales surtax applies as well.
Source: Florida Department of Revenue, Sales and Use Tax on Cleaning Services (GT-800015, R. 09/22)
Source: Florida Administrative Register, Rule 12A-1.0091, F.A.C., Cleaning Services (January 12, 2011)
Exception: the Department of Revenue brochure lists carpet cleaning, and exterior pressure washing of buildings and parking lots, as nontaxable.
Source: Florida Department of Revenue, Sales and Use Tax on Cleaning Services (GT-800015, R. 09/22)
Florida's rules turn on the building and the kind of work, so a single cleaning income account won't hold up. A Florida cleaning ledger isn't one income account with everything poured in. It's homes on one line and nonresidential interiors on another, it's carpet cleaning and exterior pressure washing kept apart, it's each taxable invoice tagged with the county where the service was performed, since the surtax follows that county's rate. Collected sales tax goes to a liability account, apart from income. Payroll and reemployment tax are on my Florida page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can tell you what GT-800015 says and keep the lines and counties in order. Whether a particular job is taxable, and how the tax and surtax are 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 Florida 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
Here the building and the kind of work decide the tax, so home cleaning, nonresidential interiors, and carpet or exterior pressure washing each sit on their own income line. Taxable invoices carry their county for the surtax, and collected sales tax stays in a liability account apart from income. Book a short call below and we'll look at your Florida invoices.
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 Florida carpet jobs and office cleaning share an income line, tell me how you invoice today. We'll pull them apart together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
