Ohio
Ohio taxes residential and commercial cleaning as building maintenance and janitorial service, except for a provider with less than $5,000 in sales of that service in a calendar year. The minimum wage is $11.00 an hour and rises to $11.40 on January 1, 2027, and Ohio has no local minimum wages.
Ohio's rules for cleaning companies come with a threshold and a date. The threshold is $5,000 in janitorial sales for the calendar year, the line that decides whether the work is taxable at all. The date is January 1, 2027, when the minimum wage goes up. Below I cover sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and how all of it shows up in your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Ohio. Under R.C. 5739.01, a provider with less than $5,000 in sales of this service in a calendar year isn't providing taxable building maintenance and janitorial service. County and transit rates add to the state rate. The full list of what's in and out, from window washing to outdoor pools, is on my page on Ohio sales tax for cleaning companies.
For unemployment insurance, Ohio uses the common-law test, which asks whether the business has the right to control the work. The definitions are in Ohio Rev. Code 4141.01(B)(1) and Ohio Adm. Code 4141-3-05. 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, and it belongs with your CPA or an employment attorney.
Ohio taxes wages, so employers withhold state income tax under R.C. 5747.06. Withholding registration goes through the Ohio Department of Taxation's business registration page. Unemployment insurance is a separate account with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which has its own employer registration page.
Source: Ohio Department of Taxation, Business Registration
Source: Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Register as an Employer
The Ohio minimum wage is $11.00 an hour. The 2026 poster sets that rate without printing a date, so the January 1, 2026 effective date is inferred from the Ohio Constitution, which makes the annual increases effective January 1. The Department of Commerce's 2027 poster (rev. September 30, 2026) sets $11.40 an hour starting January 1, 2027, with a tipped rate of $5.70 plus tips, and moves the small-employer gross receipts threshold to $419,000. Ohio has no local minimum wages, so there's no city rate to track.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
Source: Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Industrial Compliance, 2026 Minimum Wage poster
Source: Ohio Constitution, Article II, Section 34a
Source: Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code 4111.02
The $5,000 threshold is a calendar-year number, so I track janitorial sales year to date where you can see them. Sales tax you collect goes to a liability account, separate from income, and each job carries its county since local rates stack on the state rate. Then there's the wage change. A raise on the calendar can feel like one more thing to manage. It's ok. It's one number. We'll build it into your job costs before January. The job profitability estimator shows what $11.40 does to a single job.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the threshold and the sales tax tracked; whether you're over the line, and how the tax is reported, 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 Ohio 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
Because the janitorial threshold is a calendar-year number, those sales get tracked year to date where you can see them, and each job carries its county since local rates stack on the state rate. Collected sales tax stays in a liability account, and the January wage increase goes into your job costs before it arrives. Grab a short call below and we'll get your Ohio books ready for 2027.
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 Ohio and want your books ready for the 2027 wage and clear on sales tax, send me a note. We'll go through it together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
