Hawaii general excise tax
Yes, through the general excise tax rather than a sales tax. Residential and commercial cleaning are subject to GET under the general rule covering services, at the 4.5% retail rate (county surcharge included where it applies), and subcontracted, or wholesale, services are taxed at 0.5%. No Department of Taxation source naming cleaning was checked.
Look up Hawaii sales tax on cleaning and the tax you'll land on is the general excise tax. It works from the business side, measured on your gross receipts instead of charged to the customer. Below: residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
House cleaning is subject to GET under the general rule covering services, at the 4.5% retail rate, which includes the county surcharge where one applies. That conclusion comes from the general rule; no Department of Taxation source naming cleaning or listing exemptions was checked.
Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation, General Excise Tax (GET) Information
Office and janitorial cleaning are subject to GET under the same general rule. Subcontracted (wholesale) services are taxed at 0.5%. As with residential work, no Department of Taxation source naming janitorial service was checked.
Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation, General Excise Tax (GET) Information
The conditions start with what kind of tax this is. GET isn't a sales tax under another name. It's a tax on the business's gross receipts, it's measured on what you take in rather than charged to the buyer, and it's figured at different rates for retail and wholesale work.
Source: Hawaii Department of Taxation, Tax Facts 37-1, General Excise Tax (revised May 2025)
Two rates means two income lines. Retail cleaning and subcontracted cleaning are recorded separately, so the receipts each rate applies to never get mixed, and the GET owed sits in a liability account until it's paid, never in income. If old entries lumped everything together, cleanup bookkeeping separates them.
The ABC test, payroll registration and the minimum wage are on bookkeeping for cleaning businesses in Hawaii.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep retail and wholesale receipts on separate lines and the GET liability tied to invoices. Which rate applies to a particular job, and how GET 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 Hawaii 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
Because GET is figured on gross receipts at a retail rate and a wholesale rate, your retail and subcontracted cleaning are recorded on separate income lines. The GET owed sits in a liability account until it's paid, never in income. Book a short call below and we'll see how your Hawaii receipts are split today.
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
Tell me how your Hawaii invoices separate retail and subcontracted work today, and we'll look at it together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
