New Jersey
New Jersey taxes cleaning: residential and commercial jobs both carry sales tax, charged on the total bill. The ABC test decides employee status for unemployment insurance and, according to the state labor department, under its wage laws too. The minimum wage is $15.92 for most employers in 2026, rising to $16.48 on January 1, 2027.
What stands out in New Jersey for a cleaning company is how far its ABC test reaches. The state labor department says the same test it uses for unemployment insurance also applies under the Wage and Hour Law and the Wage Payment Law. Sales tax is broad here as well, and the minimum wage has two tiers depending on the employer. This page walks through sales tax, employees or subcontractors, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what it all means for your books.
Both residential and commercial cleaning are taxable in New Jersey. Cleaning providers work on real property without altering it, so the state doesn’t treat them as contractors, and tax is charged on the total bill. The details, from carpet cleaning to mold remediation, are on the New Jersey sales tax page. Questions about your own filings belong with your CPA.
Source: NJ Division of Taxation, Tax Topic Bulletin S&U-2, Sales Tax and Home Improvements (Rev. 9/17)
Source: NJ Division of Taxation, TAM 2012-3, Water damage restorative services (December 11, 2012)
Source: NJ Division of Taxation, Sales and Use Tax FAQ, real property services (last updated April 24, 2025)
For unemployment insurance, New Jersey uses the ABC test in N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6)(A), (B), and (C). The labor department’s notice on the test, citing N.J.A.C. 12:11-1.1(b) and Hargrove v. Sleepy’s, LLC, 220 N.J. 289 (2015), says the same ABC test applies under the Wage and Hour Law (N.J.S.A. 34:11-56a1 et seq.) and the Wage Payment Law (N.J.S.A. 34:11-4.1 et seq.). The employee or subcontractor answer reaches past unemployment and into wage rules.
I explain how each kind of worker shows up in the books in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is your employee is a legal question for your CPA or an employment attorney.
New Jersey taxes wages, so employers withhold state income tax. Registration goes through the NJ Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services on Form NJ-REG. That confirms the registration route; which division administers withholding after you register is not something this page confirms. Unemployment insurance belongs to the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Division of Employer Accounts. Both registrations start at the same online business registration portal. Your CPA can confirm what your business needs to set up.
Source: NJ Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, Forming/Registering a Business
Source: NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Who Qualifies as an Employer
New Jersey’s minimum wage is $15.92 an hour for most employers, and $15.23 for seasonal employers and small employers with fewer than six employees, effective January 1, 2026. On January 1, 2027, those rates become $16.48 for most employers and $16.25 for seasonal and small employers.
Source: NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Wage and Hour Compliance (revised 03/24/2026)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
With tax charged on the total bill, the sales tax line on a New Jersey invoice is never a rounding error, and none of it belongs to you. I keep it in a liability account, apart from income, so you can see where every single dollar of collected tax came from and tie it back to the invoice that carried it.
Labor is the other number to keep honest. When the rate moves on January 1, 2027, the cost of any job staffed at the minimum moves with it. The payroll page explains how I record each run against the jobs it paid for.
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 Jersey 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 tax on the total bill and an ABC test that reaches into the wage laws, New Jersey asks a lot of the sales tax and payroll lines in your books. I keep collected tax in a liability account where every dollar ties back to its invoice, record W-2 wages and 1099 payments in their own places, and move labor cost to the right minimum wage tier when the new rates arrive in January. Book a short call below and tell me how your crews are paid today.
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
Tell me how many people work on your crews and how you pay them, and we’ll look at what the books need from there. The first conversation doesn’t cost anything.
