Columbus
Columbus has a 2.5% municipal income tax on residents' income and on what nonresidents earn in the city, and employers withhold it for work performed in Columbus. Franklin County's combined sales tax rate is 8.00% from April 1, 2025, and parts of Columbus lie in Delaware and Fairfield counties. Ohio taxes residential and commercial cleaning, except for a provider with less than $5,000 in sales of that service in a calendar year.
Two Columbus rules reach a cleaning company's books here: the city income tax on payroll and the county sales tax rate on taxable jobs. Below are both, along with the state wage change in January and what it all means for your books. State payroll registration is on my Ohio page.
The Columbus Income Tax Division's instructions for tax year 2025 put the rate at 2.5% on all income of residents and on income nonresidents earn in Columbus. Residents get 100% credit for tax paid to other cities, up to 2.5%. Employers withhold and remit city tax to the municipality where employees work, and file Form IT-11 for any quarter with employees performing work in Columbus. Checks are payable to the City Treasurer.
How often you remit depends partly on last year's withholding. The 2024 IT-11 instructions (Rev. 11/1/2023) say monthly if prior-year withholding exceeded $2,399, semi-monthly if it exceeded $11,999, and quarterly otherwise, and they list other monthly and semi-monthly tests as well. Those thresholds come from the 2024 instructions and haven't been confirmed for 2026.
Source: City of Columbus Income Tax Division, Instructions for Form IR-25, tax year 2025 (Rev. 8/20/2026)
Per the Ohio Department of Taxation's rate change notice, Franklin County's total rate, covering state, county, and COTA transit, is 8.00% effective April 1, 2025. Parts of Columbus sit in Delaware and Fairfield counties, where the same notice puts the COTA-district portions at 8% and 7.75%. The department's Finder lookup by address settles a specific job site, and no 2026-dated rate source was checked for this page. The $5,000 threshold and the full list of what's taxable are on my Ohio sales tax page.
Source: Ohio Department of Taxation, County Rate Table by ZIP Plus 4 (The Finder) (July 2025)
Source: Ohio Revised Code 5739.01 Definitions
Ohio has no local minimum wages, so the state rate is the floor in Columbus: $11.00 an hour now, and $11.40 starting January 1, 2027 under the Department of Commerce's 2027 poster, which also moves the small-employer gross receipts threshold to $419,000.
Source: Ohio Revised Code 4111.02
Withheld city tax goes to a liability account apart from Ohio withholding, and the books keep last year's withholding total handy, since it's one of the tests for how often you remit. I'd rather test a number than trust it, so the sales tax rate recorded on each Columbus job gets checked against the county the address actually sits in. Collected sales tax stays in its own liability account, and janitorial sales are tracked year to date against the $5,000 line. Payroll is recorded at the wage actually paid, as my payroll page explains, so the January raise to $11.40 shows up in job costs right away.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the city tax and the sales tax in their own accounts; how often you remit, where you stand against the $5,000 line, and how each return gets filed 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 Columbus 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
Columbus brings a city income tax on payroll and a county sales tax rate on taxable jobs, and the books keep them apart. Withheld city tax sits in its own liability account, collected sales tax stays out of revenue, and janitorial sales get tracked year to date against the state's $5,000 line. Book a short call below and tell me where in Columbus your crews work.
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
Cleaning in Columbus and not sure your books carry the right county rate? Tell me where your jobs are. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
