West Virginia
West Virginia's 6% consumers sales and service tax appears to cover both residential and commercial cleaning. That's inferred from W. Va. Code § 11-15-8, which taxes all services except professional and personal services; no source read names cleaning, and work that results in a capital improvement is contracting. The minimum wage is $8.75 an hour, in effect since January 1, 2016, with no change announced as of October 20, 2026.
In West Virginia, sales tax is the question that shapes the books, and the minimum wage is the number that holds still. The tax reaches services as a rule, and the wage has sat at the same rate since 2016. Below: sales tax, the employee rules, payroll registration, the minimum wage, and what it all means for your books.
Residential and commercial cleaning both appear taxable at West Virginia's 6% rate. That's an inference: § 11-15-8 taxes all services except professional and personal services, § 11-15-9 has no cleaning exemption, and for commercial work the Tax Division's TSD-310 maintenance of real property rule points the same way. No source read for this page names residential or janitorial cleaning. Work that results in a capital improvement is contracting and isn't taxed on the service charge, and municipal sales taxes aren't covered here. The detail is on West Virginia sales tax on cleaning services.
Source: West Virginia Legislature, W. Va. Code § 11-15-3, Amount of tax
Source: West Virginia Legislature, W. Va. Code § 11-15-8, Furnishing of services
Source: West Virginia Legislature, W. Va. Code § 11-15-9, Exemptions
For unemployment insurance, employment is defined in W. Va. Code § 21A-1A-16(7). West Virginia also has an independent contractor classification statute, § 21-5I-4. This page doesn't summarize the elements of either one; both are linked below. The bookkeeping side of each kind of worker is in 1099 subcontractors vs. W-2 employees. Whether a particular cleaner is an employee is a legal question for your CPA or an employment attorney.
Source: West Virginia Legislature, W. Va. Code § 21A-1A-16, Employment
West Virginia taxes wages, so payroll includes state income tax withholding, which belongs to the West Virginia Tax Division (State Tax Department). This page doesn't link a withholding registration page. Unemployment insurance belongs to WorkForce West Virginia's Unemployment Compensation Division. Its online route is the One Stop Business Portal, and WorkForce West Virginia calls a paper Employers Initial Statement, emailed to uctaxunit@wv.gov, the preferred alternative.
Source: West Virginia Tax Division, TSD-381 Withholding Information for Employers (Rev. September 2025)
Source: West Virginia Tax Division, TSD-360 Business Registration Procedures (Rev. March 2023)
Source: WorkForce West Virginia, unemployment process guide for businesses (page modified September 2, 2026)
The West Virginia minimum wage is $8.75 an hour under W. Va. Code § 21-5C-2, effective January 1, 2016. No change had been announced as of October 20, 2026.
Source: West Virginia Legislature, W. Va. Code § 21-5C-2, Minimum wages
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws (updated July 1, 2026)
When a service is taxed, the books have to keep what you earned apart from what you collected for the state. One income account for every deposit. It's the worst habit a taxable service business can have, because the 6% you collected reads like revenue until the tax is due. Collected tax goes to a liability account instead, and capital-improvement work gets its own income line, since it's treated as contracting rather than a taxable service.
On the labor side, payroll is recorded at the wage you actually pay. The job profitability estimator shows how that labor rate plays through a single job.
I'm a bookkeeper, not a CPA or an Enrolled Agent. I keep the taxable work and the collected tax tracked; whether a given job is taxable cleaning or contracting, 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 West Virginia 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
Since West Virginia's sales and service tax appears to reach cleaning, collected tax sits in a liability account in your books, never in income. Capital-improvement jobs get their own line apart from regular cleaning, and payroll is recorded at the wage you actually pay. Book a short call below and we'll walk through your West Virginia 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 West Virginia and want sales tax kept out of your revenue line, send me a note. We'll look at it together. The first conversation doesn't cost anything.
