Which cities make a cleaning company withhold a local payroll tax?

Reviewed by Dave Gordon, Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor (Intuit). Last reviewed October 2026.

Local taxes on wages or payroll that an employer withholds or pays apply in the 27 cities in this guide: eight Ohio cities with a municipal income tax, four in Pennsylvania, Kansas City and St. Louis, four in Michigan, four in Kentucky, and Newark, Wilmington, Yonkers, Baltimore and Indianapolis.

A cleaning crew doesn't stop at the city line. Your team starts the morning on a house in one town, spends the afternoon on an office in the next, and finishes the night on a floor job across the river. Every one of those stops can carry its own tax on the wages your people earned there, and the payroll software only knows about the ones somebody set up.

This post walks through the 27 cities I could pin to an official source, grouped by how each system works. I'll admit I'm the kind of bookkeeper who reads city withholding booklets for fun, which says more about my evenings than I'd like. The upside is that every rate below comes from a city, county, school district or state source, and where that source is old, undated or incomplete, I say so in the row.

Which Ohio cities make a cleaning company withhold city income tax?

As of October 2026, all eight Ohio cities in this guide levy a municipal income tax that employers withhold, at rates from 1.8% in Cincinnati to 2.75% in Youngstown. Columbus's 2024 employer withholding instructions tell employers to withhold and remit city tax to the municipality where employees work.

Exception: Columbus's monthly and semi-monthly remittance thresholds of $2,399 and $11,999 in prior-year withholding come from 2024 instructions and are not confirmed for 2026, and the Youngstown and Canton rates come from posted city code that may not reflect the newest legislation.

According to Instructions for Form IR-25, Columbus Individual Return, City of Columbus Income Tax Division, as of October 2026.

Eight Ohio cities in one table look tidy until a crew crosses a city line at lunch. Columbus points withholding at the city where the work happens, and a cleaner who spends the morning in Columbus and the afternoon in another city has worked in two places. My instinct is to try to break the setup before a city does: pull one employee's week, check which city the payroll system assigned to each job, and look for the audit log showing who set that code and when. If a job address and a tax code disagree, you want to find it on a Tuesday afternoon, not in a letter from a tax division. Whether a given employee owes one city or two is a question for your CPA or your payroll provider, and the income tax office in each row is the authority behind the answer.

For the state side of payroll in Ohio, the Ohio page for cleaning businesses covers state withholding.

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How do Philadelphia's wage tax and other Pennsylvania local taxes work for a cleaning company?

As of October 2026, Philadelphia's Wage Tax is 3.735% for residents and 3.425% for nonresidents. Pittsburgh, Allentown and Scranton levy earned income and Local Services Taxes, and Pittsburgh and Scranton also charge employers a payroll tax that is not deducted from wages.

Exception: The Allentown and Scranton earned income tax figures are not confirmed totals of the city and school district shares, and Pittsburgh's page does not state the rate for nonresidents who live elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

According to Wage Tax (employers), City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue, as of October 2026.

Pennsylvania is where a pay stub gets crowded. A Pennsylvania local payroll tax isn't one tax. It's an earned income tax that Pittsburgh splits between the City and the School District, it's a Local Services Tax that comes out in small pieces through the year, and in Pittsburgh and Scranton it's a payroll tax your business pays on its own with nothing taken from the employee. Each of those lands in a different place in your books, and the one the employer pays is an expense, not a withholding. Which of them applies to your crew, and at what rate for someone who lives in one town and works in another, belongs with your CPA or payroll provider and with the collector each city names.

The Pennsylvania page for cleaning businesses covers the state withholding that sits next to these local taxes.

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Do Kansas City, St. Louis and Michigan cities tax a cleaning crew's wages?

As of October 2026, Kansas City and St. Louis each levy a 1% earnings tax that employers withhold, and St. Louis adds a 0.5% Payroll Expense Tax paid by the employer. Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Flint levy city income taxes, and each of the four taxes nonresidents at half the resident rate.

Exception: Flint's employer withholding returns move from quarterly to monthly under Michigan Treasury, with the first monthly return, for January 2027, due February 16, 2027.

According to Have You Paid Your KCMO Earnings Tax (E-Tax)?, City of Kansas City, Missouri Finance Department, as of October 2026.

The rates in this table are small, and that's what makes them easy to get wrong for a whole year. The skeleton in the closet I go looking for first is the nonresident on the crew: someone who lives outside Lansing and works there part of the week, or someone whose Detroit pay sits near that 25% line. Cleaning that up after twelve months of the wrong withholding is a much bigger mess than catching it in the first pay period, and the road to recovery runs through your payroll provider and the city, not just the books. How the nonresident rules apply to a particular employee is a call for your CPA or your payroll provider, with the city or Michigan Treasury as the authority.

The Missouri page for cleaning businesses and the Michigan page for cleaning businesses cover the state withholding side.

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Which other cities charge an occupational license tax or a city payroll tax?

As of October 2026, Louisville, Lexington, Covington and Bowling Green tax wages through occupational license taxes, and Newark charges a 1% payroll tax that its booklet makes the employer's responsibility. Wilmington, Yonkers, Baltimore and Marion County, which covers Indianapolis, tax wages through a city earned income tax, a state-administered city tax, or a local income tax withheld with state tax.

Exception: Baltimore's 3.20% is a resident tax, and the Comptroller's 2026 payroll memo to State agencies says most employees who are not Maryland residents are withheld at the 7.0% nonresident rate, which includes no local tax; Marion County's rate follows the employee's Indiana county of residence on January 1.

According to Occupational license fee, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, as of October 2026.

This is the table I'd print and tape inside the supply closet door. It holds five different ideas of who owes what: occupational license taxes in four Kentucky cities, a payroll tax in Newark that lands on the employer, a wage tax plus a head tax in Wilmington, a Yonkers surcharge that New York State administers, and local rates in Baltimore and Indianapolis that key off where the employee lives. Covington stacks a county rate on top of the city's. I track every one of them separately in the books because each one runs on its own rule. Which of them reach your business, and for which employees, is a question for your CPA or your payroll provider, and the office in each row has the final word.

The Kentucky page for cleaning businesses covers the state withholding that runs alongside these occupational license taxes.

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What does a local payroll tax change in a cleaning company's books?

As of October 2026, a local payroll tax in this guide can carry its own returns and due dates, such as St. Louis's quarterly W-10/P-10 filing for its earnings tax and Payroll Expense Tax together, with an annual W-3 reconciliation due January 31.

• The City of St. Louis Collector of Revenue requires one quarterly W-10/P-10 filing for the earnings tax and the Payroll Expense Tax together, with an annual W-3 reconciliation due January 31.
• The City of Kansas City, Missouri Revenue Division's Tax Guide for Non-Resident Businesses lists a quarterly Form RD-110 and an annual Form RD-113 due January 31.
• The City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue lists Wage Tax rates of 3.74% resident and 3.43% nonresident from July 1, 2025, and 3.735% and 3.425% from July 1, 2026, so a calendar year can carry two rates.
• In our experience, giving each local tax its own liability account and its own line in the payroll register is what lets a quarter's local filings be tied back to the books.
• In our experience, recording a work location for each employee on each job is what lets withholding follow a work-location rule like the one in Columbus's 2024 employer withholding instructions.

Exception: This guide covers 27 cities, not every local payroll tax in the country; a city or county missing from it, including others with pages on this site, may still have one.

According to Employer Withholding and Payroll Expense Tax Information, City of St. Louis Collector of Revenue, Earnings Tax Department, as of October 2026.

Here's what a local payroll tax changes on my side of the work. Every city gets its own liability account, so the Columbus withholding and the Kansas City withholding never share a bucket, and every job carries a work location so the register shows which city each hour belongs to. I work as a member of your team next to your payroll provider and your CPA, not in place of either one: each quarter I reconcile what the provider's local filings say was withheld and paid against what the books say, city by city. When those numbers don't match, I flag it. Withholding questions go to your CPA or your payroll provider and to the agency that collects the tax; I record and reconcile, and I don't register you with a city or file a local return.

If you want those local lines kept straight every month, here is how I handle payroll bookkeeping for cleaning companies, and if a year of local withholding is already tangled in the books, cleanup bookkeeping is where that starts.

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Every city on the paycheck gets its own line in the books

Local payroll taxes don't have to turn into a year-end scramble. If your crews cross city lines and you can't say where every dollar of local withholding went, I'll sit down with your payroll register and liability accounts with you and tell you what I see. The first conversation doesn't cost anything. Book a 30-minute call with me or call (919)-460-5383.

About the author

Dave Gordon is the founder of Figure Eight Financial and a Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor (Intuit). He keeps the books for residential and commercial cleaning companies across the United States, working from Morrisville, North Carolina, in the Raleigh area since 2002. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Penn State and an MBA from Duke University, and began his career at IBM before moving into management and then bookkeeping.

Figure Eight Financial provides bookkeeping services. Dave Gordon is a bookkeeper and is not a Certified Public Accountant or an Enrolled Agent. Nothing here is tax advice, a filing position, or a recommendation about withholding, registering for, or paying any city, county, or local payroll tax. Those determinations belong to a CPA, an Enrolled Agent, or an attorney, and this practice works alongside them rather than in place of them.