How to start a cleaning business, from first client to repeat visits

Homes or offices: pick your lane

Residential and commercial cleaning are two different businesses. Homes mean daytime visits, a client who is often there, and work priced per visit or per room. Offices, shops and medical suites mean evening or early-morning work, contracts, a building's own rules, and buyers who ask for proof of insurance before they ask your price.

Most solo cleaners start residential, because one happy homeowner tells three neighbors. Commercial pays off later, once you have references and can promise the same night every week.

• Standard home cleaning, weekly or every two weeks
• Deep cleans and move-in or move-out cleans, priced higher and booked once
• Rentals between guests, where timing matters more than anything
• Small offices and shops, after hours
• Add-ons you can price on their own: inside the oven, inside the fridge, windows, laundry

Licenses and registrations

House cleaning rarely has a trade license of its own, but that doesn't mean no paperwork. Your city or county may want a general business license, your state may want you registered to collect sales tax on cleaning services, and a commercial building may have its own vendor requirements. The SBA's licenses and permits guide says the ones you need depend on your activities and location, and points you to your Secretary of State's website as a first stop.

Look it up for your exact city and county, and check again if you add a service like carpet cleaning or pest treatment, which can carry rules of their own.

How much work you can take on before you need a license is different in every state: see the contractor license limits for every state, with each state's own board linked.

Set up the business

The SBA lays out the two common starting points side by side. A sole proprietorship is easy to form and leaves you in full control, and you are personally liable for the business's debts. An LLC, it says, protects personal assets like your house and savings in most instances. Which one suits you is a question for the SBA's comparison and an accountant, not a rule.

Ask for an EIN on the IRS website. The IRS states plainly that you never have to pay a fee for one, so skip any site that charges. Then open a checking account just for the business; it makes taxes far easier and clients pay a business name, not you personally.

1. Choose a name that says what you clean and where
2. Register it with your state or county if it differs from your legal name
3. Pick a structure using the SBA's guide
4. Get your free EIN from the IRS
5. Open a separate business checking account

Stuck on the name? The free cleaning business name generator puts names together from your own name, your town and cleaning words. We don't check that a name is free, so check the one you pick before you register it.

Insurance and bonding: why clients hand you a key

You will work in people's homes, often alone, around their belongings. Two things answer the question every new client is thinking. General liability insurance, which the SBA describes as protecting against losses from bodily injury, property damage and defending lawsuits, covers a broken vase or a slip on a wet floor. A janitorial bond is a separate product many cleaning businesses carry; it can repay a client for theft by someone working for you. Ask an insurance agent exactly what each policy covers and what it doesn't.

Once you hire even one helper, the SBA's insurance guide lists workers' compensation as required for any business with employees. Put the words insured and bonded on your flyer only once both are true.

Supplies: start small, buy what you use

A cleaning kit is the cheapest kit in any trade, which is why you can start with very little. Buy good versions of the few things you use every visit, and let each new client's needs tell you what to add. Some clients will ask you to use their own products; ask before the first visit.

Read the label on every product and never mix chemicals, bleach and ammonia above all. Label every spray bottle you refill.

• Microfiber cloths in colors, one color per room type so bathroom cloths never touch a kitchen
• An all-purpose cleaner, a glass cleaner, a bathroom cleaner and a degreaser
• A vacuum with a good filter, a mop with washable heads, a scrub brush set
• Gloves, a caddy you can carry room to room, and a bag for used cloths
• A checklist per home, so every visit is done the same way

Price per visit, then fill the calendar

Most home cleaners price per visit, built from the hours a home takes and your hourly rate, with a higher first clean because the first one is always the hardest. Our guide to how much to charge for house cleaning walks through it, and a cleaning price list keeps your add-ons consistent.

For context, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median pay of janitors and building cleaners at $17.71 an hour, or $36,840 a year, in May 2025, in its handbook updated August 2026. Those are wages paid to employees by an employer. As the owner you also pay for supplies, travel, insurance and the time between homes, so build your own rate from your costs with the hourly rate calculator.

Your first clients, and keeping them

A cleaning business grows on regulars. One weekly home is worth more than five one-off deep cleans, because it fills the same slot every week without another quote. Aim every one-time clean at turning into a repeat visit.

• Start with friends, family and neighbors, and ask each for a review and a referral
• Offer the first deep clean, then a standing weekly or biweekly slot
• Leave a short card after each visit with what you did
• Reach out to landlords, rental hosts and real estate agents for move-out cleans
• Group clients by neighborhood so your days are short drives

Invoices, records and taxes

Agree the price before the first visit, in writing, including what is and isn't included. Invoice after each visit or once a month for regulars, whichever you and the client agree, and say when payment is due.

Keep receipts for supplies, mileage and equipment. The IRS's recordkeeping page says good records help you prepare your return, track deductible expenses and support what you report, and that you keep them as long as needed to prove the income or deductions.

The IRS charges self-employment tax, its name for Social Security and Medicare taxes on people who work for themselves, once net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more. Sole proprietors who expect to owe $1,000 or more generally make estimated tax payments across four periods in the year. An accountant can tell you what to set aside.

Running it from your phone with Workeey

Workeey is built for the regular-visit rhythm. Each job holds the client, the address, the time slot, notes about the home, typed or dictated, such as the alarm code location or which room to skip, and photos. Repeating jobs book the next visits, so a weekly home is set once, and your schedule shows the day in time slots with a route to the next house.

Save your rates once in Settings, and a quick estimate prices a new home from them; you share it from your phone as a quote PDF, and the client agrees with you directly. One tap turns it into the invoice, emailed with a pay link for card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or US bank transfer through your own Stripe account; a small processing fee applies.

Late payers get a reminder text when you switch it on for that invoice, and supplies go into expenses by hand or from a receipt photo. The free plan includes unlimited invoicing and 23 quick estimates a month, no card needed (pricing). For paper, use the cleaning invoice template and the cleaning estimate template, or see the best apps for a cleaning business.

More for cleaners: pages and free templates

• Cleaning business software — visits and invoices in one app
• Invoicing for cleaning businesses — per visit or per month, add-ons on their own lines
• How much to charge for house cleaning — a guide to setting your prices
• Best apps for a cleaning business — the apps for this trade compared
• House cleaning invoice template — free, with a filled-in sample
• House cleaning estimate template — a free quote sample
• House cleaning receipt template — a free paid-in-full sample
• House cleaning price list template — free, with sample prices
• Free invoice template — every field a trade invoice needs
• Free estimate template — copy it, price it, send it
• Free receipt template — a paid-in-full receipt to copy
• Work order template — the job written down before you bill it
• Late payment reminder templates — texts, emails and a letter to copy and send
• All free templates and tools