Sales tax
It depends on the job. Routine janitorial work, meaning cleaning ordinarily performed by commercial janitor businesses, is excluded from retail sales under RCW 82.04.050, while specialized or non-repetitive cleaning is a retail sale. For house cleaning the answer is conditional and inferred: no DOR source names it, but a January 2020 DOR determination says the statute makes no residential or commercial distinction.
Washington draws its cleaning line between routine and specialized work, and the Department of Revenue's rule on building and structure cleaning, WAC 458-20-172, lists both sides. The state also has the business and occupation (B&O) tax on gross receipts, which this page doesn't cover. Below are residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, the conditions and exceptions, what it means for your books, and where your CPA comes in.
No Department of Revenue source names house or maid cleaning, so the residential answer is inferred. The closest source is a January 2020 appeals determination about residential hot tub cleaning, Det. No. 20-0012, which says the statute makes no residential or commercial distinction. I'll admit a hot tub tax case is my idea of a page-turner, which says more about me than about the case. The inference is that the same routine-versus-specialized line applies to homes, with specialized or non-repetitive cleaning a retail sale.
Under RCW 82.04.050, janitorial services, meaning cleaning ordinarily performed by commercial janitor businesses, are excluded from retail sales. Specialized or non-repetitive cleaning stays a retail sale. WAC 458-20-172 sets out which work falls on which side.
Source: Washington State Department of Revenue, Common janitorial services
Source: Washington Department of Revenue, Det. No. 20-0136, 41 WTD 108 (published March 8, 2022)
The routine-versus-specialized line belongs in your chart of accounts. Routine janitorial income goes on one account, specialized and non-repetitive work on another, and house cleaning on its own line so it can be reviewed against whatever the DOR says about it later. Sales tax collected on retail sales sits in a liability account, separate from income, and gross receipts keep their own running total. For payroll and the 2027 minimum wage, start with my Washington page.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I can tell you what RCW 82.04.050 and WAC 458-20-172 say and keep each kind of job on its own line. Whether a specific job is a retail sale, and how sales tax and B&O tax are 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 Washington 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
Routine janitorial income, specialized cleaning, and house cleaning each get their own account in your books, because Washington's sales tax line runs between them. Sales tax collected on retail sales is held as a liability, never mixed into income. Book a short call below and we'll see where your Washington jobs are landing now.
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 your Washington crews do routine office work one week and a flood clean-up the next, tell me how those jobs are invoiced. We'll sort them into the right accounts together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
