Iowa sales tax
Commercial cleaning is taxable in Iowa at the 6 percent state rate. Residential cleaning is exempt only for janitorial services in a private residence, apartments and other multiple housing units included, when the occupant pays. Furniture, rug, carpet, and upholstery cleaning is listed separately as a taxable service.
Iowa draws its house cleaning line in a specific spot. The kind of building is only half of it; the other half is who pays the bill. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions in Iowa's rules, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
Iowa's rule exempts janitorial services in a private residence, including an apartment or other multiple housing unit, when the occupant pays for them. The rule does not address cleaning that a landlord pays for, so a turnover clean billed to the landlord sits outside what the exemption speaks to, and this page can't tell you how it's treated.
Commercial cleaning is taxable in Iowa. Iowa Code 423.2(12) sets the state sales tax rate at 6 percent. Local option sales tax is not covered on this page.
Source: Iowa Legislature, Iowa Code Section 423.2 (Iowa Code 2026)
Source: Iowa Department of Revenue, Iowa Sales and Use Tax: Taxable Services (last updated June 21, 2024)
Exception: furniture, rug, carpet, and upholstery cleaning is its own enumerated taxable service under Iowa Code 423.2(6)(t). The residential exemption in rule 211.23 is written for janitorial services and does not mention carpet cleaning, so a carpet add-on in an occupant-paid home is not described by that exemption.
Source: Iowa Legislature, Iowa Code Section 423.2 (Iowa Code 2026)
One residential invoice in Iowa can carry exempt work and taxable work side by side. My instinct with a rule like this is to try to break it before it breaks your books, so I go looking for the job that doesn't fit: the landlord-paid turnover, the carpet add-on, the exterior windows. Each of those gets its own line item, and the sales tax you collect sits in its own liability account until it's paid, never in income.
If past invoices never split this out, that's fixable. Cleanup bookkeeping sorts the old entries into the right accounts. For payroll and the minimum wage, see bookkeeping for cleaning businesses in Iowa.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I set up your books so taxable and exempt work stay apart and every total ties back to an invoice. Whether a particular job is taxable, and what goes on your return, is a call 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 Iowa 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
One Iowa invoice can carry exempt and taxable work side by side, depending on who pays and what the crew actually did. That's why the landlord-paid turnover, the carpet add-on, and the exterior windows each get their own line item in your books, and why the sales tax you collect sits in a liability account rather than income. Book a short call below and we'll look at how your Iowa invoices are built 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 Iowa invoices are set up today, and I'll show you where the taxable work is hiding. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
