Sales tax in Nebraska
Yes. Nebraska taxes building cleaning and maintenance, so residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable. Lawn care, snow removal, and outdoor parking lot maintenance fall outside that category, and a cleaning business pays tax on the supplies it uses, as their consumer.
Nebraska brings building cleaning and maintenance into the sales tax under Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2701.16(4)(a), and the Department of Revenue publishes an information guide just for it. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions the guide spells out, what they mean for your books, and when to bring in your CPA. Local sales tax isn’t covered here, and payroll and wage rules are on the Nebraska overview.
Residential cleaning is taxable in Nebraska. The Department of Revenue’s Building Cleaning and Maintenance Information Guide is where that answer comes from.
Commercial cleaning is taxable too, under the building cleaning and maintenance provision of Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2701.16(4)(a). The Department of Revenue also answers questions about taxable services in its FAQ on sales tax on certain services.
Source: Nebraska Legislature, Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2701.16(4)(a) (source through Laws 2025, LB650)
Source: Nebraska Department of Revenue, Sales Tax on Certain Services FAQs
Exception: services performed by an employee for the employer are not taxed, so a business’s own employee cleaning its building isn’t making a taxable sale.
Some owners let the sales tax ride along in one lump deposit with the cleaning revenue and sort it out when the return is due. That habit is the worst. It makes your income look bigger than it is, and it leaves you guessing at what you owe the state. Keeping the tax in its own liability account from the day you invoice fixes both problems.
The tax you pay on supplies works the other way. It’s a real cost of the work, so it travels with the supplies into the cost of each job. If you want to see how that cost changes a quote, the job profitability estimator runs the numbers.
I keep books; I’m not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can explain what Nebraska’s statute and guide say and keep collected tax separate from income. How a specific service is taxed, and what goes on your return, is your CPA’s call.
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 Nebraska 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
Nebraska taxes cleaning on both the residential and commercial side and also makes you the consumer of your own supplies, so tax runs through your books in two directions. Tax collected on invoices goes to a liability account from the day you bill, and tax paid on supplies travels with those supplies into the cost of each job. Book a short call below and bring a recent invoice so we can see how the tax has been recorded.
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 a recent invoice and tell me how you’ve been recording the tax on it. We’ll go from there, and the first conversation doesn’t cost anything.
