Seattle
Seattle's minimum wage is $21.30 an hour in 2026 and rises to $22.14 on January 1, 2027, the same for all employers regardless of size. It covers employees working inside city limits, wherever the employer is located. Washington's state rate is $17.13, so Seattle labor needs its own rate in your books.
Inside Seattle city limits, the city's own wage and leave rules sit on top of Washington's. This page covers the Seattle minimum wage, paid sick and safe time, how Washington sales tax treats cleaning, and what the city rate means for your books. For payroll registration and the rest of the state picture, see bookkeeping for Washington cleaning businesses.
The rate is $21.30 an hour for 2026, effective January 1, 2026, and $22.14 an hour starting January 1, 2027. The city's Office of Labor Standards says the rate has been the same for all employers regardless of size since January 1, 2025, and that it increases every January 1 based on the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue CPI-W. The 2026 workplace poster notes the minimum compensation option expired starting 2025. Coverage is every employee working inside Seattle city limits, regardless of immigration status or employer location.
Source: City of Seattle Office of Labor Standards, Minimum Wage
Source: City of Seattle Office of Labor Standards, 2026 Seattle Workplace Poster
For comparison, Washington's statewide rate is $17.13 in 2026 and $17.73 on January 1, 2027. Which of your jobs fall under the city rate is a question for the city or an employment attorney.
Source: Washington Department of Labor & Industries, 2026 Minimum Wage Announcement
Seattle's Paid Sick & Safe Time (PSST) accrual depends on the employer's tier. At Tier 1 (up to 49 full-time equivalents) and Tier 2 (50 to 249), employees accrue 1 hour for every 40 hours worked. At Tier 3 (250 or more), it's 1 hour for every 30 hours worked.
Source: City of Seattle Office of Labor Standards, 2026 Seattle Workplace Poster
At the state level, routine janitorial work is excluded from retail sales tax, specialized or non-repetitive cleaning is a retail sale, and the house cleaning answer is inferred because no DOR source names it. The lists are on my Washington sales tax page. This page doesn't cover local sales tax rates, and how the rules apply to your jobs is a question for your CPA.
A $22.14 floor in January can look heavy next to contracts you priced at the old rate. It's ok. It's one number, and it's known now. We'll have it in the books before January. I book Seattle labor at the wage actually paid, separate from work outside city limits, and track paid sick and safe time hours as they accrue. The job profitability estimator shows which Seattle contracts still carry their weight at $22.14.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the labor and leave numbers recorded; tax and filing questions go to 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 Seattle 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
Seattle labor runs at a city rate above Washington's, so payroll for work inside city limits is recorded at the wage actually paid and costed against each job. Paid sick and safe time accrues by tier, and those hours get tracked as they build. Book a short call below and bring the Seattle contracts you want to check before January.
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
Tell me which Seattle contracts you're least sure about at $22.14. We'll run the numbers together, and the first conversation doesn't cost anything.
