How to start a cleaning business in Hawaii: 2026 guide

Why does every Hawaii cleaner need a GET license?

Because Hawaii taxes business income from services, not just sales of goods. The General Excise Tax (GET) applies to the gross receipts of almost every business in the state, and house cleaning is no exception. Get the license before your first paid clean. It costs $20, once.

The Department of Taxation’s licensing page says anyone with business income in Hawaii needs a GE tax license, and that you can register through Hawaii Tax Online or on Form BB-1 for a one-time $20 fee. The DCCA Business Action Center’s steps to starting a business puts it plainly: all persons doing business in Hawaii must obtain a General Excise Tax license.

That is the big difference from most mainland states. In a state with a normal sales tax, a cleaner usually collects nothing because cleaning is a service. In Hawaii the tax is on you, the business, whether or not you show it on the invoice. A solo cleaner who bills $40,000 in a year owes GET on that $40,000.

Your Hawaii start-up order

1. Choose a name and decide on sole proprietor, trade name or LLC (the DCCA handles all three).
2. Register for a GE tax license with the Department of Taxation ($20).
3. Get an EIN from the IRS if you will hire or open a business bank account.
4. Buy general liability insurance and tell your auto insurer you drive to client homes.
5. Decide whether to pass GET on to clients, and price every clean with that line in mind.
6. Before you hire: workers’ comp, Temporary Disability Insurance, Prepaid Health Care, unemployment insurance and new-hire reporting.

We have not found a state license that applies to house cleaning itself, so the GET license is the registration that matters. For the steps that work the same everywhere (services, supplies, your first homes), read our general guide on how to start a cleaning business.

How much GET can a Hawaii cleaner add to a client’s bill?

Up to 4.712% in every county. You owe 4.5% on your gross receipts, and because the amount you collect from the client is itself a receipt, the most you may visibly pass on is slightly higher than the tax rate.

Where the 4.5% comes from

The Department of Taxation’s general excise tax page puts services in the 4% category. On top of that, each county adds a surcharge. The county surcharge page shows 0.5% for the City and County of Honolulu, Kauai, Hawaii County and Maui (Maui’s started January 1, 2024), all running through December 31, 2030. So a cleaner in Kailua, Lihue, Hilo or Kihei pays the same 4.5%, and the maximum pass-on rate is 4.7120% in all four counties.

A worked example

Say your price for a three-bedroom clean in Kaneohe is $180, and you pass the GET on:

• GET shown to the client: $180 × 4.712% = $8.48
• Total the client pays: $188.48
• GET you owe: $188.48 × 4.5% = $8.48

The numbers match, which is the point of the 4.712% figure. If you pass on only 4.5% ($8.10), you would still owe $8.46 on $188.10 and be about 36 cents short on every clean. If you don’t pass it on at all, the $8.10 comes out of your $180. Over 600 cleans a year at that price, that is roughly $4,900 of tax either way, so decide deliberately and put it in your quotes.

How often you file

The filing schedule for the periodic return (Form G-45) depends on how much GET you expect to owe in a year:

Each periodic return is due 20 days after the period ends, and you also file an annual return (Form G-49), due the 20th day of the fourth month after your tax year ends: April 20 for most people. A cleaner grossing $40,000 owes about $1,800 a year, which means semiannual filing. Pass $89,000 or so and you are filing monthly.

The tax line changes your price math, so run your numbers through the house cleaning price calculator and then add GET on top, rather than squeezing it out of a price you already like.

Trade name or LLC: what the DCCA charges Hawaii cleaners

$50 either way to start. A trade name costs $50 and lasts five years. An LLC costs $50 to form and then a small annual report, $12.50 when filed online. Both are filed with the Business Registration Division of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA), not with a county.

Trade names

The trade name application (Form T-1) lists a $50 nonrefundable fee and says the certificate secures the name statewide for five years. You renew on the same form, for the same fee. The form also warns that registering doesn’t make you the owner of the name, so search the business registry before you print shirts. Using your own legal name (“Keala Akana Cleaning” for Keala Akana) is the simplest route; a name like “Island Breeze Housekeeping” is the one that needs registering.

Forming an LLC

The DCCA fee schedule lists $50 for an LLC’s Articles of Organization, plus $25 if you want expedited review. A name reservation is $10 and amendments are $25. Separately, the state adds a $1 State Archives preservation fee to filings kept as permanent records, so budget $51.

The annual report

Every LLC files an annual business report. DCCA’s 2026 notice on annual reports lists $12.50 for LLCs filing online. Your filing quarter follows the date you registered: an LLC formed in August files in July, August or September each year, by midnight Hawaii time on the last day of that quarter. Late reports carry a $10 penalty per year, according to the fee schedule.

DCCA also warns that it does not use or endorse private companies that send official-looking annual report notices. If a letter asks for $200 to “file your report”, ignore it and file the $12.50 report yourself.

Do you need the LLC?

Hawaii has no LLC franchise tax, so the yearly cost of keeping one is low. What an LLC does is keep business debts apart from your personal assets; it doesn’t pay for a broken lanai door or a scratched koa floor. Liability insurance does. Our guide to LLCs for cleaning businesses walks through when the extra filing earns its keep.

Do Honolulu or the neighbor islands license house cleaners?

Not as a trade, as far as we can find. Honolulu licenses a short list of specific businesses, and cleaning isn’t on it. Hawaii also has no city income taxes, so your county mainly matters for zoning and for drive time between jobs.

The City and County of Honolulu’s business license page covers trades such as auctioneers, pawnbrokers, peddlers, scrap and secondhand dealers, and garbage collectors. A residential cleaning business doesn’t fall into any of them. We didn’t confirm the rules for Maui, Kauai and Hawaii County, so call the county or ask the DCCA Business Action Center, which points new owners to county permits from its start-up checklist.

Island realities worth planning for

• Drive time is your hidden cost. Crossing the Pali or the H-1 at rush hour can eat an hour you can’t bill. Group clients by side of the island and set a service area you can actually reach.
• Vacation rentals are a big market. Turnover cleans between guests are short, time-boxed and often booked on short notice. Our Airbnb cleaning business guide covers how to price and schedule them.
• Working from home. If you store supplies or meet staff at your house, check your county’s home-occupation rules first.

What does a cleaner on your payroll cost in Hawaii?

At least $16.00 an hour in 2026, before payroll taxes and the two Hawaii-specific benefits below. The minimum rises again to $18.00 on January 1, 2028.

The Wage Standards Division’s minimum wage page lays out the steps: $16.00 from January 1, 2026 and $18.00 from January 1, 2028. Plan your prices for both now, because recurring clients expect notice before a rate change.

Sick leave and vacation

The state’s vacation and sick leave page says paid vacation and sick leave are not required by Hawaii law. If you do offer them, you must give employees your policy in writing. Many cleaning companies offer a few paid days anyway, because a cleaner who works sick can lose you a client.

A visit priced out

A cleaner spends 3 hours in a home and 45 minutes driving. At $16.00 an hour:

• Wages: 3.75 hours × $16.00 = $60.00
• Employer payroll taxes, workers’ comp, TDI and health coverage: on top of that
• GET: 4.5% of whatever the client pays

If you charge $180 for that home, wages alone are a third of the price before anything else. Our cleaning business profit calculator is a quick way to see what is left after labor and overhead.

Prepaid Health Care and TDI: the two Hawaii rules mainland guides skip

Hawaii is the only state that makes employers provide health insurance to regular part-time and full-time staff, and one of a handful with state disability insurance. Both start well before a cleaning business feels big.

Prepaid Health Care

The Disability Compensation Division’s Prepaid Health Care overview says coverage is required for employees who work at least 20 hours a week and earn at least 86.67 times the minimum wage a month, which the DCD’s 2026 figures put at $1,387. Coverage begins after four consecutive weeks of employment. The employer pays at least half the premium, and the employee’s share is capped at the lower of 50% of the premium or 1.5% of their monthly wages.

Example: a cleaner working 25 hours a week at $16.00 earns about $1,733 a month. The most you can deduct from them is 1.5% of that, about $26. You pay the rest of the premium. Get a group health quote before you offer anyone more than 19 hours a week.

Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI)

TDI pays partial wages when an employee can’t work because of an injury or illness that didn’t happen on the job. The TDI overview says employees qualify after 14 weeks with 20 or more hours and at least $400 in wages in the past 52 weeks, and benefits are 58% of their average weekly wage. For 2026 the employer may withhold up to 0.5% of wages toward the cost, capped at $7.50 a week, and the maximum weekly benefit is $871. You buy coverage through an insurer, often alongside workers’ comp.

What to tell new hires

• When their health coverage starts (after four straight weeks at 20+ hours).
• What will come out of each paycheck for health coverage and TDI.
• That workers’ comp is fully on you, and is never deducted.

Workers’ comp, unemployment tax and new-hire reports in Hawaii

Workers’ comp is required from your first employee, full-time or part-time. Unemployment tax starts at 2.40% for new employers in 2026, and new hires are reported within 20 days.

Workers’ comp

The DCD’s workers’ compensation page says any employer with one or more employees, full-time or part-time, permanent or temporary, must carry coverage, and employers may not make employees contribute to the premium. Ladders, slick tile and cleaning chemicals make it a policy you will likely use. Quote it with your liability policy; our guide to insurance for cleaners explains what each one covers.

Unemployment insurance

The UI Division’s 2026 rate schedule sets the new-employer rate at 2.40% and the taxable wage base at $64,500 per employee, plus a 0.01% Employment and Training assessment. On a full-time cleaner earning $33,000, that is about $795 for the year. The wage base is high by national standards, so the cost keeps climbing with pay.

New-hire reporting

The Child Support Enforcement Agency’s employer instructions say to report every new hire within 20 days of their first day of work. A copy of the W-4 by mail or fax is accepted. The penalty for not reporting is $25 per employee.

Contractors are not a shortcut

Paying cleaners on a 1099 doesn’t avoid any of this if they work your schedule, use your supplies and follow your checklist. In Hawaii, misclassifying someone can mean back GET, payroll taxes and missed health coverage at once. Talk to an accountant before you decide.

What does it cost to open a cleaning business in Hawaii?

Under $125 in state fees for a solo cleaner with an LLC. GET, insurance and, later, health coverage are the costs that actually shape your budget.

Government fees were checked on official Hawaii pages on October 9, 2026. Rows marked “estimate” are our ranges, not quotes.

A lean Oahu launch as a sole proprietor under your own name: $20 for the GET license, a starter kit and your first insurance payment. Set aside 4.5% of every payment in a separate account the day it lands, so the GET return is never a surprise.

Finding your first Hawaii clients, and where BroomBook fits

Start close to home. Neighbors, coworkers, your church or canoe club, and a Google Business Profile listing the neighborhoods you serve will fill a solo calendar faster than ads. Vacation rental hosts and property managers are worth a direct call. Our guide on how to get clients for a cleaning business has scripts for each.

We make BroomBook, booking, scheduling and crew software for residential cleaning businesses. A few parts suit Hawaii in particular:

• A named tax line. Sales tax is off by default. Turn it on, name the line “GET” and enter 4.712, and it is added to each clean, shown on receipts, and the booking page tells clients prices are before tax. It is one rate for the whole business, which works in Hawaii since every county is at 4.712%.
• Service area by distance or ZIP code, so online bookings stay on your side of the island.
• Hours from clock-ins. Each cleaner opens a private link with their jobs, checklists and clock in and out. Hours and tips export to CSV, which helps you track who is nearing 20 hours a week for Prepaid Health Care. It does not run payroll or buy coverage.

Plans are $29 a month (Solo, up to 2 cleaners) or $59 a month (Team, unlimited cleaners), with a 14-day free trial. It isn’t the right fit if you need accounting sync, invoices on net terms or a native app store download. See the cleaning payroll software page for how the hours export works.