New Hampshire
New Hampshire has no general sales tax, and its 8.5 percent Meals and Rooms (Rentals) Tax reaches meals, rooms, and motor vehicle rentals, so residential and commercial cleaning are treated as not taxable; that is an inference, since no New Hampshire source behind this page addresses cleaning directly. The state doesn't tax wages, unemployment insurance uses the ABC test, and the federal $7.25 minimum wage applies.
Two state taxes a cleaning company might expect to set up for aren't part of the New Hampshire picture: there's no general sales tax and no state tax on wages. On the payroll side, that leaves unemployment insurance with New Hampshire Employment Security. Below I cover the sales tax answer, the ABC test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what still needs tracking in your books.
New Hampshire has no general sales tax. Its 8.5 percent Meals and Rooms (Rentals) Tax applies to meals, rooms, and motor vehicle rentals. Residential and commercial cleaning are treated as not taxable, but that's an inference: the Department of Revenue Administration's statement is phrased in terms of goods, and no New Hampshire source behind this page addresses services or cleaning directly. The detail is on my page about New Hampshire sales tax and cleaning services.
Source: New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, Frequently Asked Questions: General Information
New Hampshire uses the ABC test for unemployment insurance, in N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 282-A:9, III. 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 for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: New Hampshire General Court, RSA 282-A:9 Employment (last amended 2011)
New Hampshire doesn't tax wages, so there's no state income tax withholding account to open. Unemployment insurance is with New Hampshire Employment Security (NHES), and employers register through its Web Tax system.
Source: New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, Interest & Dividends Tax
Source: New Hampshire Employment Security, NHES Web Tax & New Hire Reporting System
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour applies in New Hampshire, in effect since July 24, 2009. No change had been announced as of October 20, 2026.
Source: New Hampshire Department of Labor, Minimum Wage
Source: New Hampshire General Court, RSA 279:21 Minimum Hourly Rate (last amended 2021)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Minimum Wage
With cleaning untaxed by inference, there's no collected tax to hold, so the work in your books moves to receipts and labor. Every deposit gets matched to the invoice behind it, and income is recorded in full. A state with nothing to collect is one place even I can't make the books complicated, though give me time. Payroll goes in at the wage each person is actually paid, and my payroll for cleaning businesses page covers how that gets recorded. If you also clean across a state line, that state's rules are their own question; this page covers only New Hampshire.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep receipts and payroll recorded and tied to their sources; whether any New Hampshire tax reaches your business 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 New Hampshire 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
With no general sales tax and no state withholding, New Hampshire books come down to receipts tied to deposits and payroll recorded at the wage each person actually earns. Unemployment insurance costs are recorded alongside payroll where you can see them. Book a short call below and we'll see how your books line 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
If you clean in New Hampshire and your receipts and payroll haven't been tied out in a while, send me a note. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
