How to start a cleaning business in Minnesota: 2026 guide

What sets Minnesota apart for a new house cleaner?

Sales tax. Most states leave house cleaning alone; Minnesota treats it as taxable building cleaning, so you register with the Department of Revenue and add tax to most cleans from day one. After that, the state is straightforward: no state cleaning license, cheap filings, and a free yearly renewal for LLCs.

The other Minnesota quirks are a newspaper notice for assumed names and employment rules that start with your very first hire: workers’ comp, sick and safe time and, in the Twin Cities, city minimum wages well above the state rate.

Before your first paid clean

1. Choose a name. Search the Secretary of State’s business records, then file an assumed name or an LLC.
2. Publish the assumed name in a legal newspaper in your county and keep the affidavit.
3. Register for Minnesota sales tax and decide how your quotes will show it.
4. Get an EIN from the IRS (free) if you will hire or want a business bank account.
5. Buy general liability insurance and tell your auto insurer you drive to jobs.

Before your first employee

1. Buy a workers’ comp policy. Minnesota has no headcount threshold.
2. Set up sick and safe time tracking and give the required notice.
3. Register for unemployment insurance and report the hire within 20 days.

This page covers what is specific to Minnesota. For picking services, buying equipment and pricing your first homes, start with our main guide on how to start a cleaning business.

Does Minnesota charge sales tax on house cleaning?

Yes, for most of what a house cleaner does. The Department of Revenue’s building cleaning and maintenance guide says the taxable service covers interior and exterior cleaning of commercial and residential buildings, homes and apartments. That puts a typical recurring clean inside the tax.

What the guide lists as taxable

• Floor cleaning, vacuuming and waxing, and carpet cleaning.
• Restroom cleaning, deodorizing and sanitizing.
• Window washing, and wall and woodwork cleaning.
• Janitorial and office cleaning, duct and gutter cleaning, and final cleaning after construction.

What it lists as not taxable

Washing dishes, dusting knick-knacks, making beds, picking up and room straightening. These are the household chores a client might also ask for, and on their own they are outside the tax.

The rule for a mixed visit

A real house clean mixes both. The guide says a contract with taxable and nontaxable services is taxed on the full amount unless the nontaxable services are separately stated. In practice that means one of two set-ups:

• Tax the whole price. Simplest, and the safe default when the visit is mostly floors, bathrooms and kitchens.
• List the nontaxable tasks as their own line, such as “dishes and bed making, $20”, and tax only the rest. Only do this if the split reflects real time and price, and ask an accountant first.

What rate to charge

The state rate is 6.875%, and local taxes stack on top based on where the client receives the service. The Department’s local sales and use tax rate guide effective October 1, 2026 lists these combined rates:

If you clean in several cities, you need the rate for each client’s address, not your home office. Rates change on quarter dates, so recheck the guide each January, April, July and October.

The upside: tax-free chemicals

Because your service is taxable, the same guide says the consumable items you use directly in it, such as cleaners, disinfectants, degreasers, deodorizers, disposable rags and paper towels, can be bought exempt. Give the supplier a completed Form ST3, Certificate of Exemption, and select the resale exemption. Vacuums, mops and other equipment you keep are not consumables, so you still pay tax on those.

Build tax into how you present prices from the start. Clients compare the total they pay, so check your base price with the house cleaning price calculator and then add your local rate on top.

Minnesota assumed names: a state filing, then a newspaper notice

If you clean under any name other than your own full legal name, Minnesota wants a Certificate of Assumed Name filed with the Secretary of State and published before you do business. It costs $50 online or in person and $30 by mail, plus the newspaper’s charge.

Filing

The Certificate of Assumed Name form, issued under Minnesota Statutes chapter 333, says state law requires the certificate to be filed and published prior to the conduct of any business. It also notes that the filing gives you no exclusive right to the name. Its purpose is consumer protection: people can look up who is behind “North Star Home Cleaning”.

Publishing

After filing, the certificate must run for two consecutive issues in the legal notices section of a qualified legal newspaper in the county of your principal place of business. The newspaper sends back an affidavit of publication. Keep it with your certificate: the form warns that failing to publish may make the certificate invalid, and banks often ask for proof of the filing before opening a business account. Newspaper rates vary, so call one or two before you file.

Keeping it active

The Secretary of State’s fee schedule lists the annual renewal of an assumed name at $0. If you let it lapse, reinstatement costs $85 online or $65 by mail. A name change, address change or new owner needs an amended certificate within 60 days, and that amendment gets published too.

Still choosing? The cleaning business name generator gives you ideas to check against the state’s records before you pay for a filing and a newspaper notice.

What does a Minnesota LLC cost, and what keeps it alive?

$155 to form online or in person, $135 by mail, and nothing after that as long as you file the free annual renewal by December 31. Minnesota is one of the few states where keeping an LLC costs no yearly state fee.

Forming it

The Secretary of State’s business filing fee schedule lists Articles of Organization for a domestic LLC at $155 online, $155 in person and $135 by mail. Unlike an assumed name, forming the LLC itself needs no newspaper notice. If the LLC wants to trade under a second name, that name is an assumed name and follows the filing and publication rules above.

The renewal deadline

The state’s renewals page says the annual renewal is due by December 31 and can be filed any time during the calendar year, with no fee for an active entity in good standing. Miss it and the LLC is terminated without further notice. Bringing it back costs $85 online or $65 by mail, according to the fee schedule. Put a reminder in your calendar for early December; it takes a few minutes.

Do you need one?

An LLC keeps business debts and lawsuits apart from your personal assets when it is run properly. It does not replace insurance: if a cleaner breaks a client’s vase, your liability policy is what pays. Many Minnesota cleaners start as sole proprietors with an assumed name and form an LLC when they add staff. Our guide to LLCs for cleaning businesses covers the trade-offs, and insurance for cleaners covers the policies.

Cleaning in Minneapolis or Saint Paul: city wages and city sick time

The Twin Cities set their own minimum wages, and they apply based on where the work happens, not where your business is. A crew based in Eagan that cleans homes in Minneapolis pays the Minneapolis rate for those hours.

Minneapolis

The city’s 2026 announcement says the minimum wage for all employees working in Minneapolis rose to $16.37 an hour on January 1, 2026, for employers of every size. Coverage depends on the physical location of the employee while working. Minneapolis also has its own sick and safe time ordinance: employees accrue at least 1 hour per 30 worked, an employer may cap accrual at 48 hours a year, and may cap the total bank at 80 hours.

Saint Paul

Saint Paul phases its rate by employer size. Its minimum wage page lists $16.37 for businesses with 6 or more employees and $14.25 for micro businesses with 5 or fewer, effective January 1, 2026, plus a $13.95 rate for youth workers aged 14 to 17. Business size counts full-time, part-time and temporary employees, not owners.

Worked example

A cleaner spends 3 hours in a home and 30 minutes driving. In Minneapolis that is 3.5 × $16.37 = $57.30 in wages for the visit. Outside the Twin Cities, at the $11.41 state rate, the same visit costs $39.94. Price Minneapolis homes accordingly, and use your scheduling to group city jobs on the same days so you can track those hours cleanly.

Minnesota cities do not add an income tax, so the extra costs of city work are wages and the higher local sales tax rates shown above.

Your first Minnesota employee: wages, sick time, comp and UI

Pay at least $11.41 an hour, start sick and safe time on day one, and have workers’ comp in place before the first shift. Minnesota has no grace period for small employers on any of these.

Minimum wage, no tip credit

The Department of Labor and Industry’s minimum wage page sets the 2026 rate at $11.41 an hour, with a $9.31 training wage for workers under 20 during their first 90 days. No employer may take a tip credit, so tips are on top of the full rate. The department has already announced $11.87 for 2027, so plan a price review for January.

Earned sick and safe time

DLI’s earned sick and safe time page says employees anticipated to work at least 80 hours a year earn 1 hour for every 30 worked, up to at least 48 hours a year, paid at their base rate. Employers must show the balance and hours used at the end of each pay period and give a written notice at hire, in the employee’s primary language if it is not English. A cleaner working 25 hours a week for 50 weeks works 1,250 hours and earns about 41 hours of sick time.

Workers’ compensation

DLI’s page on who needs workers’ compensation coverage is blunt: there is no minimum number of employees, so an employer with only one part-time employee generally must provide coverage. Get a workers’ comp quote at the same time as your liability quote.

Unemployment insurance

New employers pay a rate based on their industry. Unemployment Insurance Minnesota’s new employer rate table lists 2.04% for administrative and support services, the sector that includes janitorial and house cleaning companies. Its 2026 tax rate page adds a 0.40% base rate, applies the tax to the first $44,000 of each employee’s wages, and sets a 14.00% additional assessment on top. At 2.44%, a cleaner earning $30,000 adds about $732 before that assessment.

New-hire reporting

The Minnesota New Hire Reporting Center requires every new hire and rehire to be reported within 20 days, even someone who works only one day.

Thinking of paying cleaners as 1099 contractors to avoid all this? If you set the schedule, supply the products and dictate the checklist, they are likely employees. Talk to an accountant before you decide.

What does it cost to open a cleaning company in Minnesota?

Under $250 in state fees for most owners, plus the newspaper notice. Insurance and supplies cost more than the filings, and sales tax is collected from clients rather than paid by you.

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

Example: a solo cleaner in Hennepin County who files an assumed name online and buys a basic kit spends $50 plus the newspaper notice, roughly $200 to $500 on supplies (our estimate), and a first insurance payment. Forming an LLC instead adds $155 once and nothing per year.

Landing Minnesota clients and running the schedule

Start close to home. Neighbors, coworkers and a free Google Business Profile listing the suburbs you serve bring the first recurring clients, and a tight area keeps both drive time and the number of sales tax rates down.

Our guide on how to get clients for a cleaning business covers referrals, reviews and flyers. If you also work in Michigan, compare its rules in the Michigan guide: it does not tax cleaning at all.

Where BroomBook fits

We make BroomBook, a scheduling, online booking and crew app for residential cleaning businesses. The parts that matter most in Minnesota:

• Sales tax on every receipt. Sales tax is an optional setting: turn it on, type your rate, and it is added to each clean and shown on the receipt. It is one rate for the whole business, not a lookup by address, so if you serve both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, ask your accountant how to handle the difference.
• Clock-ins for city hours. Each cleaner gets a private link (no app download) with jobs, checklists and clock in and out. Hours, tips and commission export to CSV for your payroll service, which helps when some hours fall under a city minimum wage.
• Service area limits. Limit online booking to a distance or a list of ZIP codes so you only take homes you can reach.

BroomBook does not file Minnesota sales tax returns, calculate sick and safe time balances or withhold payroll taxes. Plans are $29 a month on Solo (up to 2 cleaners) or $59 a month on Team (unlimited cleaners), with a 14-day free trial. See the calendar on our cleaning scheduling software page.