Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania puts house cleaning and office cleaning on the same side of the sales tax line: both are taxable, and the state's business portal lists no exceptions. Employers withhold state income tax and register for unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, a figure from the U.S. Department of Labor's July 1, 2026 state table rather than a current Pennsylvania source.
In Pennsylvania the sales tax question has the same answer for both halves of a cleaning business, which makes the rest of the setup easier to see. The Commonwealth's Business One-Stop Shop lists residential and commercial cleaning as taxable, and the withholding and unemployment registration links both point to the same portal. Below are sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what all of it means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Pennsylvania, according to the Business One-Stop Shop's help page for cleaning businesses. That page states no exceptions. The governing regulation, 61 Pa. Code 60.1, couldn't be retrieved from the official Pennsylvania Code site for this page, so any exclusions it may contain are unconfirmed. The detail is on my page on Pennsylvania sales tax for cleaning services.
Source: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Business One-Stop Shop, Reference Guide: Cleaning Businesses
Pennsylvania's unemployment test has two prongs. A worker is an employee unless they are free from control or direction and also customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business. The rule is Section 4(l)(2)(B) of the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law, as cited on the Department of Labor and Industry's Form UCP-32 (rev. 06-25); the session law and Purdon's citations weren't confirmed for this page. How each kind of worker shows up in the books is in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal question for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Pennsylvania taxes wages, so employers withhold state income tax, and withholding is handled by the PA Department of Revenue. Unemployment insurance is a separate account with the PA Department of Labor and Industry, Office of Unemployment Compensation Tax Services. Both registrations start at the same portal, mypath.pa.gov.
Source: PA Department of Revenue, REV-415 Employer Withholding Information Guide (REV-415 (SU) 01-23)
Source: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Business One-Stop Shop, Apply for State Business Taxes
The Pennsylvania minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, effective July 24, 2009. That rate comes from the U.S. Department of Labor's state table, updated July 1, 2026, and a 2011 Department of Labor and Industry report. No current Pennsylvania source was read for this page, so a change after July 1, 2026 isn't ruled out by a state source, and this page doesn't cover any upcoming change.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
With house and office cleaning both taxable, the work in your books is less about sorting jobs and more about keeping the tax out of your income. Sales tax you collect goes to a liability account until it's paid, never into revenue. That can sound like a lot of setup for a small crew. It isn't. One account. One rule. We set it up once. Payroll gets recorded at the wage you actually pay, which the payroll page walks through.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the collected tax and the payroll recorded where you can see them; how the tax is reported, and whether any exclusion in the regulation fits your work, 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 Pennsylvania 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
Since Pennsylvania taxes both house and office cleaning, the job in your books is keeping collected sales tax in a liability account instead of income, and recording payroll at the wage you actually pay. Those two pieces stay where you can see them every month. Book a short call below and we'll walk through your Pennsylvania setup.
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 Pennsylvania and want sales tax and payroll sorted out in your books, send me a note. We'll look at it together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
