Louisiana sales tax
It depends on what gets cleaned. Cleaning a home or office building itself isn't on the Louisiana Department of Revenue's list of taxable services, but cleaning carpets, furniture, clothing, linens, pillows, or draperies is taxable, in a home or an office, at the 5 percent state rate plus local sales taxes.
One Louisiana cleaning job can fall into two sales tax categories at once. The rooms are one category; the carpet and the couch in them are another. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
Cleaning a home itself isn't on the Department's list of taxable services. Carpet or upholstery cleaning inside the home is taxable, because cleaning furniture, carpets, linens, pillows, and draperies falls under the laundry and cleaning category in LAC 61:I.4301.
Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue, Are repairs and maintenance to my home taxable?
Commercial building cleaning isn't on the Department's list of taxable services either, and Private Letter Ruling 01-006 described janitorial work as not taxable. That 2001 ruling is binding only on the taxpayer who requested it. Carpet or upholstery cleaning inside an office is taxable, the same as in a home.
Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue, What services are subject to sales tax in Louisiana?
Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue, What is the state sales tax rate?
Source: Louisiana State Legislature, HB 9, 2024 Third Extraordinary Session (engrossed)
Source: Louisiana Department of Revenue, What services are subject to sales tax in Louisiana?
Exception: a home or office job that includes carpet or upholstery cleaning carries a taxable piece, even though cleaning the building itself isn't on the list.
On a Louisiana invoice, the carpet shampoo and the weekly clean can't share a line. The single catch-all cleaning income account. It's the worst setup for a Louisiana cleaner, because it buries the taxable work inside the work that isn't on the list, and then nobody can say what the sales tax was charged on. I split them: building cleaning on one income line, carpet, upholstery, and linen work on another, and the sales tax you collect in a liability account, never in income.
If past invoices never split the work, cleanup bookkeeping is where that gets sorted. For the ABC test, payroll registration, and the minimum wage, see bookkeeping for cleaning businesses in Louisiana.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the taxable and non-taxable work apart and the collected tax where you can see it. Which local rates apply to you, and what goes on your return, are 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 Louisiana 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
A Louisiana job can mix building cleaning, which isn't on the taxable list, with carpet or upholstery work, which is, so each one gets its own income line in your books. The sales tax collected on the taxable part sits in a liability account rather than income. Book a short call below and we'll walk through how your invoices are set up.
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
Send me one of your Louisiana invoices with a carpet add-on, and I'll show you how it should land in the books. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
