Indiana
Residential and commercial cleaning don't appear to be taxable in Indiana, though that's inferred from the Department of Revenue's general rule that service transactions generally aren't taxable, since no Department source names cleaning. Indiana uses the ABC test for unemployment insurance, employers withhold state income tax, and the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
In Indiana the sales tax answer for cleaning comes from a general rule about services, not from a line that names your work. No Department of Revenue source mentions house cleaning or janitorial cleaning either way, so the answer carries a limit, and I say so where it matters. Below I cover sales tax, the ABC test for employees and subcontractors, payroll registration with two state agencies, the minimum wage, and what all of it means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are treated here as not taxable, and that comes with a limit. It's inferred from the Department of Revenue's general rule in Sales Tax Information Bulletin 26 that service transactions generally aren't taxable retail transactions, along with the pool cleaning example in Bulletin 21. No Department source names house cleaning or janitorial cleaning. When property is transferred along with a service, the Department looks to the true object of the transaction. The detail is on my page on Indiana sales tax and cleaning services.
Indiana's Department of Workforce Development uses the ABC test to decide whether a worker counts as an employee for unemployment insurance. The statute behind the test isn't covered on this page. How a W-2 cleaner and a 1099 subcontractor each land in the books is in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal question, and it belongs with your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: Indiana Department of Workforce Development, Employee Classification (DWD Employer Guide)
Indiana taxes wages, so employers withhold state income tax, and the Indiana Department of Revenue is the agency for it. Withholding registration goes through the registration page the Department points to. Unemployment insurance is a separate account with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, reached through its ESS logon page.
Source: Indiana Department of Revenue, Withholding Income Tax (October 2, 2026)
Source: Indiana Department of Workforce Development, Accessing ESS (DWD Employer Guide)
Indiana's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, per the U.S. Department of Labor's state table. This page doesn't cover when that rate took effect, whether a change has been announced, or local minimum wages, because none of those were verified for it.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (July 1, 2026)
With cleaning treated as not taxable, it's easy to think an Indiana cleaning company's bookkeeping comes down to recording deposits. It isn't just deposits. It's tagging each invoice line with what the crew actually did, it's catching the job where a product changed hands along with the cleaning, and it's booking labor at the wage you really pay so every job shows what it cost. The job profitability estimator shows what your pay rate does to a single job.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the work on each invoice described clearly; whether a particular job or sale is taxable in Indiana 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 Indiana 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
Indiana's answer on cleaning is an inference, so the invoice detail does the heavy lifting: each line in your books says what the crew did, and anything that changed hands along with the cleaning is recorded on its own line. Payroll goes in at the wage you actually pay, against the jobs it belongs to. Book a short call below and we'll walk through how your Indiana invoices are built.
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 you clean in Indiana and your books have never separated the cleaning from anything else on the invoice, send me a note. We'll go through it together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
