Sales tax
It depends on what you clean. Cleaning the home or commercial building itself is real property cleaning, and Revenue Ruling 07-04 (2007) treats it as not taxable, though that ruling is advisory. Cleaning rugs, upholstery, furniture, and other movable items is taxable under SUT-115 and Tenn. Code Ann. 67-6-205, for residential and commercial customers alike.
The main Tennessee answer on cleaning a building comes from a 2007 ruling about hotel room cleaning fees, and that ruling says the Department's revenue rulings are advisory. It's worth knowing before you build your invoices around it. This page covers residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
Cleaning the house itself isn't taxable, per Revenue Ruling 07-04 (2007), which is advisory and not binding on the Department of Revenue. Cleaning tangible personal property in the home is a different answer: rugs, upholstery, and furniture are taxable to clean under SUT-115 and Tenn. Code Ann. 67-6-205.
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue, Revenue Ruling 07-04 (February 13, 2007)
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue, SUT-115, Services Subject to Sales and Use Tax (March 27, 2025)
Janitorial cleaning of an office or other commercial building is real property cleaning, and Revenue Ruling 07-04 treats it as not taxable, with the same advisory limit. Cleaning tangible personal property for a business customer is taxable under SUT-115 and Tenn. Code Ann. 67-6-205.
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue, SUT-115, Services Subject to Sales and Use Tax (March 27, 2025)
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue, Revenue Ruling 07-04 (February 13, 2007)
Exception: cleaning the dwelling or building itself (real property) is not taxable under Revenue Ruling 07-04, an advisory ruling.
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue, Revenue Ruling 07-04 (February 13, 2007)
Two income accounts carry most of the weight here, real property cleaning on one and rug, upholstery, and furniture cleaning on the other. If you ever clean an item as part of repairing it, that job gets its own line, since it's taxed as a repair. I want every single taxable invoice tied back to the sales tax liability account, so the balance there is never a guess and never mixed in with income. For payroll and the minimum wage, see bookkeeping for Tennessee cleaning businesses.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can tell you what Revenue Ruling 07-04 and SUT-115 say and keep each kind of work on its own line. Whether a particular job is taxable, and how much weight an advisory ruling carries for your business, 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 Tennessee 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
Every Tennessee job lands on one of two income lines in your books: cleaning the building itself, or cleaning rugs, upholstery, and furniture. The taxable line ties back, invoice by invoice, to the sales tax liability account, so that balance is never a guess. If those jobs share one line in your books now, book a short call below.
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 rugs or upholstery alongside homes or offices in Tennessee, tell me how those jobs are invoiced now. We'll set up the lines together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
