Sales tax
Yes. Commercial interior cleaning is taxable in New York State, and the department has treated residential cleaning as taxable as well, though that residential position rests on an advisory opinion issued to one company. Carpet, drapery, and rug cleaning are a different story: Publication 750 lists them as exempt. Occasional odd jobs by an individual not in a regular trade or business are excluded, and fees for managing a customer's own housekeeping staff aren't taxable.
New York's rule on cleaning is mostly simple and occasionally surprising. Most interior cleaning is taxable, a handful of related services aren't, and the history behind the commercial rule still trips people up. Here I cover residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, and what it all means for how your books are set up.
The residential position comes from TSB-A-92(80)S, an advisory opinion issued to Maid in New York, Inc. on November 13, 1992, which treated residential apartment cleaning as taxable. That advisory opinion binds only the company that asked for it, so by itself it isn't a rule for everyone. Publication 750, the department's general sales tax guide, doesn't make a residential carve-out either.
Source: NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, TSB-A-92(80)S, Maid in New York, Inc. (November 13, 1992)
TSB-M-91(4)S, dated January 22, 1991, covers interior cleaning and maintenance services. Before June 1, 1990, interior cleaning on contracts of 30 days or more was excluded, and TSB-M-91(1)S says the 1990 amendment eliminated that exclusion. Pricing a long office contract as if its length keeps it out of sales tax is a bad habit, and it has been out of date since 1990. The department marks that summary memo as historical and notes it may not reflect current law, which is one more reason to let your CPA confirm how the rule applies to your contracts.
Exception: Publication 750 lists laundering and dry cleaning, including carpet, drapery, and rug cleaning services, as exempt. Carpet and rug cleaning are treated differently from general interior cleaning.
Source: New York State Senate, NY Tax Law 1105 (most recent revision June 5, 2026)
The exempt work is where books go wrong. If carpet and rug jobs land in the same income account as taxable interior cleaning, nobody can tell later which receipts the sales tax applied to. I give them separate accounts, and housekeeping staff management fees get their own line too. Sales tax you collect goes to a liability account, not revenue. For the rest of the state picture, from the wage tiers to payroll registration, see my New York page, and if you clean in the five boroughs, the New York City page covers the combined rate there.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can tell you what these documents say and keep taxable and exempt work in separate lanes. Which of these rules fits your services, and how your sales tax is reported, belongs with 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 York 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
Carpet, drapery, and rug cleaning are where New York books tend to go wrong, because that work is listed as exempt while general interior cleaning is taxable. The exempt work gets its own income accounts, housekeeping staff management fees go on a separate line, and collected sales tax lands in a liability account instead of revenue. If carpet jobs and office contracts share one income line in your books, a short call is the place to start; book one 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 carpet cleaning and your office contracts share one income line, send me a note. We'll sort it out together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
