Missouri
The Missouri Department of Revenue's janitorial matrix lists residential and commercial cleaning as not taxable, while noting that taxability may depend on the facts and circumstances of a specific transaction. The minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, effective January 1, 2026, with no change announced as of October 20, 2026, and Missouri has no local minimum wages.
In Missouri the wage floor is the number a cleaning company feels every payday: $15.00 an hour, one rate statewide, since January 1, 2026. Sales tax is a no for cleaning on the Department of Revenue's own matrix, with a caveat the department adds itself. Below I go through sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and how it all shows up in your books.
Missouri has a sales tax, but residential and commercial cleaning are both listed as not taxable on the Department of Revenue's Janitorial Services Tax Matrix. The matrix also says taxability may depend on the facts and circumstances of the specific transaction, and it points businesses to the letter ruling process for a definitive answer. More on my page about Missouri sales tax on cleaning services.
Source: Missouri Department of Revenue, Janitorial Services Tax Matrix (effective November 10, 2022)
Source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 144.020 (effective August 28, 2023)
Missouri's unemployment law uses the common-law test, also called the right-to-control test, under RSMo 288.034.5. I cover how employees and subcontractors each appear in the books 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: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 288.034 (effective August 28, 2010)
Missouri taxes wages, and employers withhold state income tax under RSMo 143.191. Withholding registration goes through the Missouri Department of Revenue's business registration site. Unemployment insurance is handled by the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Division of Employment Security, through its employer registration system.
Source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 143.191 (effective August 28, 2015)
Source: Missouri Department of Revenue, Register a Business
Source: Missouri Division of Employment Security, Employer Liability
The Missouri minimum wage is $15.00 an hour, effective January 1, 2026, under RSMo 290.502. No change had been announced as of October 20, 2026. Missouri has no local minimum wages, so the state rate is the one to track wherever your crews work.
Source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 290.502 (effective August 28, 2025, A.L. 2025 H.B. 567)
Source: Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Minimum Wage
Source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 290.528 (effective August 28, 2017)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
A $15.00 floor shows up in the labor cost of every job, and seeing it laid out line by line can sting a little. Don't panic. It's one rate. We'll find it in every job. I record payroll at the wage your crews are actually paid, and the job profitability estimator shows what that wage does to a single job. On the tax side, any job that falls outside plain house or office cleaning gets its own income line, since the Department of Revenue ties the answer to the facts of each transaction.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the jobs sorted and payroll recorded; whether a particular transaction is taxable 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 Missouri 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
Payroll in the books runs at the wage your crews are actually paid, so the labor cost on each Missouri job is the real one. Jobs that fall outside plain house or office cleaning get their own income line, which leaves the facts-and-circumstances question easy for your CPA to look at. Grab a short call below and we'll walk through your Missouri books.
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 Missouri and want to see what the $15.00 rate looks like across your jobs, send me a note. We'll go through it together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
