North Dakota
Residential and commercial cleaning aren't on North Dakota's list of taxable services, though property sold or used in connection with a repair, including cleaning another person's tangible personal property, is taxable, and a business pays sales or use tax on the supplies it buys. The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, in effect since July 24, 2009, with no change announced as of October 20, 2026 and no local minimum wages.
Two North Dakota facts frame this page: the $7.25 minimum wage, in place since July 24, 2009, and a list of taxable services that doesn't name cleaning. Neither one means there's nothing to track. Below: sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what it all means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are not taxable in North Dakota. No North Dakota document naming janitorial or house cleaning was found, so that answer rests on the list of taxable services in N.D.C.C. 57-39.2-02.1(1). Two things around the work are taxable: property sold or used in connection with a repair, including cleaning another person's tangible personal property, and the supplies and equipment a business buys to run itself, cleaning supplies included. The detail is on my page about North Dakota sales tax on cleaning services.
Source: North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D.C.C. chapter 57-39.2, section 57-39.2-02.1
For unemployment insurance, North Dakota uses the common-law test, under N.D.C.C. 52-01-01(17)(e). My post on 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees shows how each one shows up in the books. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal question, and it belongs with your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D.C.C. 52-01-01(17)(e)
North Dakota taxes wages, and the North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner handles withholding. Withholding registration goes through tap.tax.nd.gov. Unemployment insurance is with Job Service North Dakota, which runs its own UI tax online system.
Source: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner, Income Tax Withholding
Source: Job Service North Dakota, Unemployment Business Tax
Source: North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D.C.C. 52-01-01(8)
The North Dakota minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, in effect since July 24, 2009, under N.D.C.C. 34-06-22(1)(c). No change had been announced as of October 20, 2026, and North Dakota has no local minimum wages.
Source: North Dakota Legislative Branch, N.D.C.C. 34-06-22(1)(c)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
In North Dakota the tax shows up around the cleaning rather than on it: in the supplies you buy, and in property used when cleaning someone else's personal property. A miscellaneous account for supply runs doesn't cut it here. It buries the sales or use tax you paid inside a number nobody can explain later. Supplies and equipment get their own expense accounts, and any job that involves cleaning a customer's personal property sits on its own income line. Payroll is recorded at the wage each person is actually paid, and my payroll page covers how that ties to the jobs.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep supplies, payroll, and income recorded where they belong; how the tax applies to a particular purchase or job 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 North Dakota 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
North Dakota's tax reaches a cleaning company through what it buys, so supplies and equipment get their own expense accounts with the tax paid on them in plain view. Any work that involves cleaning a customer's personal property sits on its own income line for your CPA to look at. Book a short call below and we'll go through your North Dakota books together.
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 North Dakota and your supply costs are hiding in one big account, send me a note and we'll sort it out together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
