Minnesota
In Minnesota, commercial cleaning is taxable and residential cleaning depends on the task: floor, carpet, window, and restroom cleaning are on the taxable list, while dishwashing, making beds, and picking up are not. The state minimum wage is $11.41 an hour in 2026 and $11.87 on January 1, 2027, and Minneapolis and Saint Paul set their own.
Minnesota is where one house cleaning visit can be part taxable and part not, and where Minneapolis and Saint Paul run their own minimum wage on top of the state rate. This page covers sales tax, the employee or subcontractor test, payroll registration, the minimum wage including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and what all of it means for your books.
Commercial cleaning is taxable in Minnesota. Residential cleaning is conditional, and the answer turns on what the crew actually does in the house. The statute is Minn. Stat. 297A.61, subd. 3(g)(6)(iii), and the task-by-task lists are on the Minnesota sales tax on cleaning page. How it applies to your own jobs is a question for your CPA.
Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue, Building Cleaning and Maintenance industry guide (June 29, 2026)
Minnesota's unemployment insurance program uses the common-law test, which looks at the right to control the work. The factors are in Minn. R. 3315.0555. Separate rules cover trucking and courier work (Minn. Stat. 268.035, subd. 25b) and construction (Minn. Stat. 181.723, subd. 4), so material written for those trades isn't describing cleaning. I explained how each type of worker lands in the books in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal call for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Minnesota has state income tax withholding, handled by the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Unemployment insurance is run by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development as Unemployment Insurance Minnesota, at www.uimn.org. This page doesn't link a registration page for either one; your payroll provider or your CPA can walk you through the current sign-up steps, and filing questions go to your CPA.
The statewide minimum wage is $11.41 an hour, effective January 1, 2026, and it rises to $11.87 on January 1, 2027. Minnesota also has local minimum wages. Minneapolis uses a single city rate, and Saint Paul sets its rate by business size; each has its own page here.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (July 1, 2026)
Minnesota sales tax trouble can start in the setup, long before anything gets filed. One revenue account for every kind of cleaning? It's the worst way to set up a Minnesota cleaning company's books, because the taxable floor work and the nontaxable bed-making from the same visit end up in one number nobody can pull apart later. I split them at the invoice line and keep the sales tax you collect in its own account, out of income.
Labor gets booked at the wage you actually pay, city rate included where it applies. That's what makes the job profitability estimator worth running before you price the next contract.
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 Minnesota 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
Lumping every kind of cleaning into one account is the setup that causes trouble here, since the taxable floor work and the nontaxable bed-making from the same visit end up in one number nobody can pull apart. I split them at the invoice line, keep collected sales tax out of income, and book labor at the wage you actually pay, including the Minneapolis or Saint Paul rate where it applies. If your Minnesota books lump it all together, let's talk it through on a short call below.
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 your Minnesota books lump every cleaning service into one line, let's talk it through. I'll tell you exactly what I'd change, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
