How to start a cleaning business in Florida

1. Register the business with Sunbiz

Florida’s Division of Corporations (Sunbiz) registers LLCs and fictitious names. A new Florida LLC costs $125 ($100 filing fee plus $25 registered agent fee) to form and $138.75 a year ($538.75 if received after 1 May) to keep active. Trading as a sole proprietor under a name other than your own means registering that fictitious name with the same office instead. Search the name on Sunbiz before you print anything; the cleaning business name guide covers picking one that survives that check.

Florida Department of State, LLC fees (Wayback capture of 1 October 2026; the live site blocks this network), read 2026-10-18

The annual report late fee is the expensive surprise: miss 1 May and the fee jumps to the higher figure above. Put the date in your calendar the day you form the LLC.

Which structure to choose is the same question in every state; see LLC vs sole proprietorship for a cleaning business. The IRS issues an EIN free — “You never have to pay a fee for an EIN.”

Internal Revenue Service, read 2026-10-18

2. Local business tax receipts

Florida lets local governments tax the right to do business: under the state’s statutes, counties may levy a local business tax by resolution or ordinance, and cities can levy their own. In practice that means a business tax receipt from your county tax collector and, if your city has one, from the city too. Fees vary by county and by type of business, so ask both offices.

The Florida Senate, Florida Statutes, read 2026-10-18

3. Sales tax: the Florida rule that catches cleaners

Florida taxes some cleaning and not other cleaning, and the line is the building, not the customer. The Department of Revenue’s guide says: Cleaning of nonresidential building interiors is taxable; cleaning of residential facilities is not.

Florida Department of Revenue, GT-800015 R.09/22 (Wayback capture of 12 June 2024; the live link now returns 404), read 2026-10-18

If you clean even one office, register with the Department of Revenue to collect and remit sales tax, and add it as its own line on your invoices. The supplies and equipment you buy are taxable either way. The national picture is in the licence requirements guide.

4. Insurance and workers' comp

Insurance is what clients actually ask to see. General liability for a house-cleaning company averages $51 a month, and commercial clients usually want a janitorial bond as well. Workers’ compensation becomes mandatory for non-construction employers with four or more employees, counting corporate officers and LLC members.

Insureon, read 2026-10-18 · Florida Division of Workers' Compensation, read 2026-10-18

Below that threshold it is optional but worth pricing anyway; the insurance cost guide explains what each policy covers.

5. Hiring: reemployment tax

Florida’s unemployment insurance is called reemployment tax. A new employer pays 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, and you become liable once you pay $1,500 in wages in a quarter or have an employee in 20 different weeks of the year.

Florida Department of Revenue, read 2026-10-18

Run the full cost of a first hire through the cleaning employee cost calculator — it defaults to Florida’s new-employer rate — and settle whether your cleaners are employees at all with W-2 vs 1099 cleaners.

The whole sequence on one sheet

Then price your work and plan the launch: the startup cost calculator totals the budget, and how to start a cleaning business covers first clients and pricing.