Texas
Texas taxes residential cleaning as well as commercial cleaning, per the Comptroller's Publication 94-111. The household exemption applies only to a self-employed person providing traditional household services as an employee of the household, not a subcontractor for a maid service, and building maintenance bought by a contractor or home builder as part of new residential construction isn't taxable. The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
In Texas, the weekly house clean is taxable, the same as the office contract, and that's where a Texas cleaning company's books start. Payroll has one less piece, with no state income tax withholding by inference, and the unemployment account runs through the Texas Workforce Commission. Below are sales tax, the employee test, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what it means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Texas, per the Comptroller's Publication 94-111, Building and Real Property Services. The exemption applies only to a self-employed person providing traditional household services as an employee of the household, not acting as a subcontractor for a third party such as a maid service. Building maintenance isn't taxable when bought by a contractor or home builder as part of new residential construction. Publication 94-111 is the only primary source reached for this page; Tax Code 151.0048 and Rule 3.356 couldn't be retrieved. The rest is on my page on Texas sales tax for cleaning services.
The Texas Workforce Commission uses the common-law, right-to-control test for unemployment insurance. TWC cites Texas Labor Code 201.041, part of the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, and cites 40 Tex. Admin. Code 821.5, its 20-factor guide, as the rule source for its independent contractor test page. How employees and subcontractors each appear in the books is in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a question for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Classifying Employees and Independent Contractors
Texas has no state income tax withholding on wages. That's an inference: it comes from a 2019 House Research Organization bill analysis that refers to the absence of an individual income tax, and no Comptroller source was read for this page. Unemployment insurance runs through the Texas Workforce Commission, which has its own unemployment tax registration page.
Source: Texas House of Representatives, House Research Organization, HJR 38 bill analysis (May 9, 2019)
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Register for an Unemployment Tax Account
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Liable employer guidance
The Texas minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, effective July 24, 2009. No change is announced as of October 20, 2026 in the sources retrieved for this page. Texas adopts the federal rate by reference, so a change would follow federal law.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Minimum Wage Law
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
Since house and office jobs are both taxable, collected sales tax runs through your cleaning invoices, and it sits in a liability account until it's paid, never in income. The reconciliation is the part I care about most: every single dollar in that account ties back to an invoice line, so the balance is never a guess. Supplies your crew consumes carry tax you owe, while items left for customer use may be bought for resale, so the two go on separate lines. Payroll goes in at the wage actually paid, which the payroll page covers.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. Whether the household exemption or the new-construction rule fits a given job, 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 Texas 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
With residential and commercial cleaning both taxable in Texas, collected sales tax lives in a liability account in your books, matched to the invoices it came from. Supplies your crew uses up and items left for customers are recorded on separate lines, and payroll at the wage actually paid. Book a short call below and we'll walk through your Texas 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 Texas and want sales tax and payroll lined up in your books, send me a note. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
