Lubbock
Taxable cleaning in Lubbock carries an 8.25% total rate, and the local 2% splits between the city's 1.5% and Lubbock County's 0.5%, per the Texas Comptroller's city rate table. Texas taxes house and commercial cleaning, with narrow exceptions, and a cleaning business also owes tax on the supplies it uses up.
A Lubbock cleaning company deals with sales tax from both directions: it collects tax on taxable jobs and pays tax on the supplies it consumes. This page starts with what Texas taxes, then the supplies side, the Lubbock rate, how Texas decides who's an employee for unemployment insurance, and what all of it means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning are both taxable in Texas, per the Comptroller's Publication 94-111, which is the only primary source reached for this answer. Its exemption is narrow: it covers a self-employed person providing traditional household services as an employee of the household, and not a cleaner working as a subcontractor for a third party such as a maid service. Building maintenance isn't taxable when a contractor or home builder buys it as part of new residential construction. More on the exceptions is on my Texas sales tax page.
The same publication says cleaning businesses owe tax on the supplies they consume, and items left for the customer's use may be bought for resale. That tax is separate from the tax on your invoices. It's a cost of doing the work, not money collected from a customer.
The Comptroller's city rate table lists Lubbock's city rate at 1.5% under local code 2152015 and Lubbock County's at 0.5% under local code 4152006, for an 8.25% total. The Comptroller notes the total includes the state's 6.25%. This page relies on the table as read on October 21, 2026.
Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, City Sales and Use Tax (read October 21, 2026)
For unemployment insurance, the Texas Workforce Commission uses the common-law, right-to-control test. TWC cites Texas Labor Code Sec. 201.041, and it cites 40 Tex. Admin. Code Sec. 821.5 as the rule source for its 20-factor independent contractor test. How each kind of worker shows up in the books is in my post on 1099 subcontractors and W-2 employees.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Classifying Employees and Independent Contractors
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Appendix E: TWC Independent Contractor Test
Collected sales tax goes to a liability account, never into income, and tax paid on consumed supplies is recorded as part of the cost of the work. Items bought for resale, the ones left for the customer, get an account of their own so they don't blend in with the supplies your crews use up. I don't like a tax setting anybody can change without leaving a trail, so the rate in the invoicing software gets checked against the Comptroller's table, and any change to it should show who made it and when. Subcontractor payments stay on their own expense line, apart from payroll. Payroll registration and the Texas minimum wage are on my Texas page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep collected tax, supplies tax, and resale items recorded apart; whether a job or a purchase is taxable is a question for your CPA, and whether a worker is an employee is one for your CPA or an employment attorney.
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 Lubbock 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
Lubbock work runs sales tax both ways, so collected tax sits as a liability while the tax paid on consumed supplies is recorded as a cost, and resale items keep an account of their own. Subcontractors stay off the payroll lines. Book a short call below and tell me how supplies for your Lubbock jobs are bought.
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
Buying supplies by the case for Lubbock jobs and not sure where the tax on them lands? Send me last month's receipts. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
