How to start a lawn care business, and grow it into landscaping

Mowing, lawn care or landscaping?

Start with what you can do on day one, usually mowing, edging, trimming and blowing, and price it per visit. Lawn care adds aeration, overseeding, fertilizing and weed control. Landscaping is bigger, one-off projects: beds, mulch, planting, small hardscape and cleanups. Many owners start with a mowing route and add landscaping once they have the equipment and the customers asking.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, on its grounds maintenance workers page updated September 2026, says these workers typically need one month or less of on-the-job training, which is why mowing is such a common first business.

• Weekly or biweekly mowing, edging and trimming
• Spring and fall cleanups, leaf removal, gutter clearing
• Aeration, dethatching and overseeding
• Mulch, bed edging, shrub trimming and planting
• Small landscaping projects: borders, paths, simple retaining walls where allowed

The pesticide license, and other permits

Mowing rarely needs a trade license, but treating lawns often does. The BLS says most states require licensing for workers who apply pesticides, usually by passing a test on the proper use and disposal of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, and tells readers to check with their state's licensing official. At the federal level, the EPA says anyone who applies or supervises the use of restricted use pesticides must be certified, that state, territorial and tribal authorities do the certifying, and that some states go further and certify all commercial applicators, according to its applicator certification page updated March 2026.

Beyond that, check your city or county for a general business license, and your state for sales tax on lawn services and landscaping materials. Larger landscaping work, such as retaining walls or irrigation, can need a contractor or irrigation license in some states. Look up your state's pesticide regulator, often the department of agriculture, for the pesticide license and your contractor licensing board for the rest.

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 compares the common structures plainly: a sole proprietorship is easy to form, gives you complete control and leaves you personally liable for business debts; an LLC protects personal assets such as your house, vehicle and savings in most instances. Neither is a must. Read the comparison on the SBA's site and talk to an accountant.

Request an EIN from the IRS, which says you never have to pay a fee for one; approved online applications get the number immediately. A separate business checking account keeps fuel, parts and customer payments away from your personal money.

1. Pick a name that says lawn or landscaping and your town
2. Register it if it's not your legal name
3. Choose a structure with the SBA's guide
4. Get a free EIN from the IRS
5. Open a business checking account

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

Insurance before the first yard

A mower throws a stone through a window, a trailer clips a mailbox, a client trips over a hose. General liability insurance is the policy for that; the SBA describes it as protecting against financial loss from bodily injury, property damage and lawsuits. Commercial auto insurance is worth asking an agent about if you tow a trailer to jobs.

Once you hire seasonal help, the SBA's insurance guide lists workers' compensation as required for every business with employees. If you apply chemicals, ask whether your policy covers that work, since it is often treated separately.

Equipment: start with what you own

Many lawn businesses start with a good residential mower and grow into commercial equipment as the route fills. Buy commercial-grade gear when the hours justify it, because a mower that breaks mid-season costs you a week of visits. Keep a spare trimmer line, blades and a few belts on the trailer.

Landscaping tools can wait for landscaping jobs. Rent a sod cutter or a skid steer the first few times; buy it only once renting costs more.

• A mower sized to the yards you'll cut
• A string trimmer, an edger and a backpack or handheld blower
• Hand tools: rakes, shovels, pruners, a wheelbarrow
• A truck and a trailer that can carry it all, with a ramp and straps
• Safety: eye and ear protection, boots, gloves

Price each yard, and the route

Price mowing per visit from the time the yard takes plus travel, with a minimum so a tiny lawn still pays. How much to charge for lawn mowing walks through it, and how much to charge for landscaping covers projects. Keep add-ons consistent with a landscaping price list, and set your hourly rate with the hourly rate calculator.

For comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median pay of grounds maintenance workers at $19.27 an hour, or $40,080 a year, in May 2025. That is employee pay from an employer. As the owner, your rate also pays for fuel, the mower's repairs, insurance, the trailer and rainy days.

Build a route of regulars

A lawn business makes its money on density: many yards on the same streets, cut on the same day each week. Every new client a few doors from an existing one is worth more than a bigger yard across town.

Keep clippings, fertilizer and soil off the street and out of storm drains. The EPA's Soak Up the Rain page, updated October 2026, says runoff picks up fertilizer, pesticides, dirt and other pollutants as it travels through storm drains and ditches, untreated, to streams, rivers, lakes and the ocean.

• Door hangers on the streets where you already mow
• A free business listing with photos of clean edges and stripes
• Ask weekly clients about cleanups and mulch before the season turns
• Partner with real estate agents for move-in and listing cleanups
• Book fall and spring work while you're still cutting in summer

Invoices, records and taxes

Weekly mowing is easiest invoiced monthly, with every visit listed; one-off projects are invoiced when they're finished. Agree the terms in writing before the season starts, including what happens when rain moves a visit. A landscaping work order keeps project details straight.

The IRS says good records help you track deductible expenses, prepare your return and support what's on it, so keep receipts for fuel, parts and equipment.

Self-employment tax, which the IRS defines as Social Security and Medicare taxes for people who work for themselves, kicks in at $400 of net earnings. If you expect to owe $1,000 or more, the IRS generally expects estimated payments over four periods in the year. A seasonal business should plan for that in the busy months; ask an accountant how much.

Running it from your phone with Workeey

Workeey fits a route business. Each job holds the client, the address, the time slot, notes, typed or dictated, such as the gate code or the dog, and photos of the finished yard. Repeating jobs book the next visits, so a weekly yard is set once, the schedule lays out the day in time slots, and you get a route to the next client.

Save your rates once in Settings, and a quick estimate prices a new yard or a landscaping project from them; share it from your phone as a quote PDF, and the client says yes to you. 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.

Turn on reminder texts for a late invoice, and log fuel and parts as expenses by hand or from a receipt photo. The free plan includes unlimited invoicing and 23 quick estimates a month, no card (pricing). For landscaping work, see Workeey for landscapers.

Starting on paper? Use the lawn care invoice template and the lawn care estimate template, the landscaping estimate template for projects, or compare the best apps for a lawn care business.

More for lawn care pros: pages and free templates

• Lawn care software — mowing routes and a month of visits on one invoice
• Invoicing for lawn care — how to bill a month of mowing
• How much to charge for lawn mowing — a guide to setting your prices
• Best apps for a lawn care business — the apps for this trade compared
• Lawn care invoice template — free, with a filled-in sample
• Lawn care estimate template — a free quote sample
• Lawn care receipt template — a free paid-in-full sample
• Landscaping and lawn care price list template — free, with sample prices
• Landscaping and lawn care work order template — free, with a filled-in sample
• 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