Bowling Green
Bowling Green's occupational license tax is 2%, and employers withhold it from wages. The city approved the increase from 1.85% on May 2, 2023, effective January 1, 2024, and employers file withholding returns monthly or quarterly. Kentucky taxes residential and commercial cleaning, so state sales tax applies to your invoices as well.
The number to check in a Bowling Green payroll setup is the city rate itself, because it changed in 2024. This page covers the 2% occupational license tax, the Warren County tax on work outside city limits, registering with the city, Kentucky sales tax on cleaning, the state wage, and what it means for your books. State payroll registration is on my Kentucky page.
The City of Bowling Green Finance Department's Office of Occupational License puts the occupational license tax rate at 2%. The city approved the increase on May 2, 2023, effective January 1, 2024, and its rate-increase page told employers that all wage withholdings had to go from 1.85% to 2.0%. Employers file withholding returns monthly or quarterly; that page gave the first 2024 filing as due February 15, 2024 for monthly filers or April 30, 2024 for quarterly filers. This page doesn't cover which employers file monthly and which file quarterly, and the city's license page shows no page date.
Source: City of Bowling Green Finance Department, Office of Occupational License (no page date shown)
An undated Warren County local taxes sheet lists the City's 2% and a separate Warren County tax of 1% for work within Warren County outside the Bowling Green city limits. That sheet says the City tax is paid on a quarterly basis to the City of Bowling Green, though the City's own increase page refers to both monthly and quarterly filers.
Source: City of Bowling Green Finance Department, Office of Occupational License (no page date shown)
Per the city, any person, partnership, corporation, or other legal entity is required to register with the City through the Office of Occupational License.
Source: City of Bowling Green Finance Department, Office of Occupational License (no page date shown)
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Kentucky under KRS 139.200(2)(h), as effective August 1, 2026, and that provision also names carpet, upholstery, and window cleaning. The Department of Revenue's janitorial FAQ adds that contractors can't claim a resale exemption when they buy taxable janitorial services for construction projects. My Kentucky sales tax page has the rest.
Source: KRS 139.200 Imposition of sales tax (Kentucky General Assembly, as of August 1, 2026)
Source: Kentucky Department of Revenue, Janitorial Services FAQs (no revision date shown)
This page doesn't cover any Bowling Green wage rule. At the state level, KRS 337.275 sets the minimum at $7.25 an hour, effective July 1, 2009, and neither it nor the U.S. Department of Labor's state table showed an announced change as of October 20, 2026.
Source: KRS 337.275 Minimum wage (Kentucky General Assembly)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (2026-07-01)
City withholding gets a liability account of its own, apart from Kentucky withholding and from collected sales tax, and the 1% Warren County tax on work outside city limits is tracked on a separate line. The rate in the payroll setup deserves a look too, since it moved from 1.85% to 2.0% at the start of 2024. If an old 1.85% is still sitting in there, don't panic. It happens. We'll sort it out. Wages are recorded at the amount actually paid, and my payroll page shows how I set that up.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the city withholding and the sales tax in separate accounts; whether you file monthly or quarterly, whether the Warren County tax reaches your crews, and how each return gets filed 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 Bowling Green 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
Bowling Green's rate changed in 2024, so the withholding account is one of the first things I compare against the payroll register. City withholding and collected Kentucky sales tax each get their own liability account, and neither counts as income. Set up a short call below and bring a recent payroll report.
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
Cleaning in Bowling Green and not sure your payroll is on the 2% rate? Send me a recent payroll report and we'll look at it together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
