Austin, Texas
Austin's combined sales tax rate on taxable cleaning is 8.25% in both its Travis County and Williamson County portions, per the Texas Comptroller: the city's 1%, the Austin MTA's 1%, and the state's 6.25%. In Texas that reaches house cleaning as well as commercial work, with narrow exceptions, one of them for building maintenance a contractor or home builder buys as part of new residential construction.
An Austin cleaning invoice shows one tax figure with three taxing bodies behind it. This page breaks the 8.25% into its pieces, shows how the Comptroller lists Austin, covers the Texas exception that matters for crews working with home builders, and finishes with the books.
The Comptroller's city sales and use tax list carries Austin under local code 2227016. A seven-digit local code is the kind of detail only a bookkeeper gets a little excited about, and I'm fully aware of what that says about me. Here's what the list shows:
Each 8.25% total is the 2% local share plus the state's 6.25%. The list shows no effective date in its content; the page was last modified September 24, 2026.
Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Sales and Use Tax
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Texas under the Comptroller's Publication 94-111. For crews that clean for builders, one exception stands out: building maintenance isn't taxable when a contractor or home builder buys it as part of new residential construction. The household-employee exemption and the rest are on my Texas sales tax page.
Work that may fall under the new-construction rule gets its own income line, apart from regular house and office cleaning, so taxable and non-taxable jobs never blur together. Collected sales tax goes to a liability account until it's paid. Wages go in at the rate you actually pay; the Texas minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, effective July 24, 2009, and payroll registration is on my Texas page.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Minimum Wage Law
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. Whether a builder job actually fits the new-construction rule, and how your sales tax is reported, is your CPA's call.
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 Austin 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
Two Austin details drive this page: the 8.25% combined rate and the new-construction exception for builder work. In the books, builder jobs sit on their own income line, collected tax is held as a liability, and labor is recorded at the wage you actually pay. Book a short call below and tell me where your Austin jobs come from.
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 Austin and not sure the tax on your invoices lines up with your books? Send me a recent month and we'll look at it together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
