Syracuse
Taxable cleaning in Syracuse carries Onondaga County's 8% combined state and local rate, per Publication 718, effective March 1, 2025, which lists no separate Syracuse rate. New York taxes residential and commercial cleaning, and a 1990 amendment ended the old exclusion for interior cleaning contracts of 30 days or more. Publication 750 lists carpet, drapery, and rug cleaning services as exempt, and fees for managing a customer's own housekeeping staff aren't taxable, per a 2024 advisory opinion.
A Syracuse cleaning company with long commercial contracts, or one that manages a client's in-house housekeepers, has two New York rules to know before the rate even comes up. This page starts with those, then covers Onondaga County's 8%, how New York decides who's an employee, and what it all means for your books. State payroll registration is on my New York page.
Before June 1, 1990, interior cleaning on contracts of 30 days or more was excluded from New York sales tax. The Tax Department's TSB-M-91(1)S says the 1990 amendment eliminated that exclusion; the memo dates from 1991, and the department's page notes it is historical and may not reflect current law. Commercial interior cleaning is taxable under TSB-M-91(4)S, and residential cleaning is taxable as well, with Publication 750 making no residential carve-out.
Under TSB-A-24(49)S, an advisory opinion dated October 16, 2024, fees for managing a customer's own housekeeping staff are not taxable. That's a different thing from your own crew doing the cleaning. Publication 750 also lists carpet, drapery, and rug cleaning services as exempt, and services by an individual not in a regular trade or business, occasional odd jobs, are excluded under Tax Law 1105(c)(5)(i). The rest is on my New York sales tax page.
Source: New York State Senate, NY Tax Law 1105
Publication 718 puts the combined state and local rate for Onondaga County, reporting code 3121, at 8%, and Onondaga County includes Syracuse. The publication's effective date is March 1, 2025. The department's current local rates page, updated May 12, 2025, shows no change after that date, and it's the basis for treating 8% as current in October 2026.
For unemployment insurance, the New York State Department of Labor uses the common-law, right-to-control test, with employment defined in Labor Law 511. My post on 1099 subcontractors and W-2 employees covers how each kind of worker shows up in the books. Whether a particular person on your crew is an employee is a question for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: New York State Department of Labor, Independent Contractors (IA 318.14)
Source: New York State Senate, NY Labor Law 511
Staff management fees and cleaning revenue go on separate income lines, since one carries tax and the other doesn't, and collected tax sits in a liability account. Tax settings that live on the customer record. Not good enough here. A client who buys both cleaning and staff management needs the tax handled line by line, and a single checkbox on the customer can't do that. Wages go in at what each person is actually paid, and outside New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester the state minimum is $16.00 an hour, effective January 1, 2026; my payroll page covers the setup.
Source: New York State Senate, NY Labor Law 652
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep management fees and cleaning revenue recorded apart; whether a contract is taxable and how it's reported are questions 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 Syracuse 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
Syracuse work can mix cleaning that carries 8% with staff management fees that don't, so the two get separate income lines and the tax is recorded line by line, not by customer. Collected tax is held as a liability, and payroll goes in at the wage actually paid. Book a short call below and walk me through one of your Syracuse contracts.
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
Managing housekeeping staff for one Syracuse client and cleaning for others? Show me how those invoices read today. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
