What does Mississippi require from a new house cleaner?
Less than almost any other state. There is no state license for house cleaning, no sales tax on the service, no yearly LLC fee and no state wage floor above the federal minimum. Your real start-up jobs are choosing a structure, buying insurance and setting prices that cover your time.
Because the state asks for so little, the things that protect you are the ones you choose to do: an LLC or at least a registered name, liability insurance, written policies and good records. Those are what clients and banks look for.
Your Mississippi checklist
- Pick a name and decide on a sole proprietorship or an LLC.
- File with the Secretary of State: a $50 Certificate of Formation for an LLC, or a $25 fictitious business name registration.
- Get a free EIN from the IRS if you will hire or want a business bank account.
- Ask your city or county clerk about local business registration and home-business zoning.
- Buy general liability insurance and confirm your auto policy covers driving to jobs.
- Set your prices with no sales tax line, and start booking.
This page sticks to what is specific to Mississippi. For choosing services, buying equipment and finding your first homes, read our main guide on how to start a cleaning business.
Is house cleaning taxable in Mississippi?
No. Mississippi’s 7% sales tax applies to goods and to a specific list of services written into state law, and house cleaning is not on that list. You quote one clean price and don’t register for a sales tax permit unless you also sell products.
How Mississippi decides which services are taxed
The Department of Revenue’s sales and use tax page says all sales of tangible personal property are taxed at the regular 7% retail rate unless exempt. Services are different: the Department’s business tax FAQ says certain types of labor connected to selling and installing property are taxable, along with other miscellaneous services, and gives examples such as pest control, plumbing, electrical work, heating and air conditioning work, computer software services, dry cleaning and parking lots.
Those services come from the list in Miss. Code Ann. § 27-65-23. Its only cleaning entry is laundering, cleaning, pressing or dyeing, which the Department’s sales and use tax rules (Title 35, Part IV) apply to laundry, cleaning, dyeing and pressing shops. Residential house cleaning and janitorial work are not listed.
Where Mississippi sales tax still reaches you
- Your supplies. You are the final consumer of the chemicals, cloths and vacuums you buy, so you pay 7% on them. The Department’s sales tax rates page notes that Jackson adds its own 1% city tax on top.
- Selling products. The FAQ says anyone selling goods to a final consumer must collect sales tax and hold a permit before starting. If you sell cleaning kits or gift cards for products, register first.
- Side services. Pest control is a taxable service in Mississippi. If you ever add it, or anything else from the statute’s list, check with the Department before you quote.
Compare that with Texas, where residential cleaning by a cleaning business is taxable, or Ohio, which taxes maid service. In Mississippi, what the client pays is your revenue.
Trading under a business name in Mississippi
The Secretary of State registers fictitious business names for $25. An LLC already has its registered name and can trade under it without anything extra; a second name for the LLC is a fictitious name too.
The Secretary of State’s services and fees schedule lists four fictitious business name filings, each $25: registration, amendment, assignment and withdrawal. That makes a name change or a sale of the name cheap to record later.
Picking a name that works in Mississippi
- Search the Secretary of State’s business records first, so you don’t pick a name an LLC already uses.
- Include the area you serve if you want local searches to find you: “Delta Fresh Cleaning” or “Gulf Coast Home Care” tells people where you work.
- Check that the matching web address and social handles are free before you file.
Our cleaning business name generator gives you a long list to check. A name registration is not liability protection, though. For that, look at an LLC.
The $50 Mississippi LLC and its April 15 annual report
$50 to form and nothing a year to keep, as long as you file the free annual report by April 15. Mississippi is one of the cheapest states in the country to hold an LLC.
What the fee schedule says
- Certificate of Formation of a Mississippi LLC: $50.
- Annual report of a Mississippi LLC: no fee. (A foreign LLC pays $250, which matters only if you formed in another state.)
- Name reservation: $25, if you want to hold a name before you file.
- Reinstatement of a Mississippi LLC: $50, if it gets dissolved.
These come from the Secretary of State’s services and fees schedule, revised October 2024.
The annual report deadline
The Secretary of State’s annual reports page says LLC reports can be filed any time on or after January 1 and are due by April 15. Failure to file may result in administrative dissolution. Since the report is free, the only cost of missing it is the hassle and the $50 reinstatement, but a dissolved LLC can cause trouble with your bank, your insurer and commercial clients who check your status. Put April 1 in your calendar.
LLC or sole proprietor?
With a $50 one-time cost, the price argument against an LLC mostly disappears in Mississippi. The LLC keeps business debts separate from your personal ones if you run it properly, with its own bank account. It does not pay for a damaged floor or a lost key: insurance for cleaners does. Our guide to LLCs for cleaning businesses covers taxes and set-up.
No state wage floor: how should Mississippi cleaners set pay and prices?
The legal floor is the federal $7.25 an hour, but that is not what good cleaners accept. Price your cleans from what you need to pay to hire and keep reliable people, not from the minimum.
The rules
The U.S. Department of Labor’s state minimum wage table lists Mississippi as having no state minimum wage law, so employers covered by federal law pay $7.25. Mississippi also has no state law requiring paid sick leave. Federal overtime still applies: time and a half after 40 hours in a week.
A worked price
Say you pay a cleaner $14 an hour, and a three-bedroom recurring clean takes 3 hours plus 30 minutes of driving:
- Wages: 3.5 hours × $14 = $49.00
- Employer payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment), roughly 10%: about $4.90
- Supplies, including 7% sales tax on what you buy: about $5
- Insurance, software, phone and fuel spread across your cleans: about $10 (estimate)
- Total cost: about $69
At a $125 price you keep about $56 before your own pay and taxes. At $100 you keep about $31. Run your own numbers in the house cleaning price calculator before you publish prices; the percentages above are rough estimates, not quotes.
Contractors or employees?
Low payroll rules tempt some owners to pay everyone on a 1099. If you set the schedule, supply the products and dictate how the work is done, the IRS is likely to see an employee. Ask an accountant before you decide.
Hiring in Mississippi: comp at five, UI at $1,500 a quarter, new hires in 15 days
Three state rules kick in as you grow: workers’ comp at five regular employees, unemployment tax once quarterly wages reach $1,500 or you have a worker in 20 weeks, and a new-hire report within 15 days of every hire.
Workers’ compensation
Mississippi’s workers’ compensation law, Miss. Code Ann. § 71-3-5, covers every employer with five or more workers regularly in the same business. Below that, it is optional. Cleaning involves ladders, wet floors and chemicals, and an injured employee with no coverage can sue you directly, so many owners buy a policy with the first hire. Ask for a comp quote alongside your liability quote.
Unemployment insurance
The Mississippi Department of Employment Security’s employer FAQ says a business becomes liable once it pays $1,500 in wages in a calendar quarter, or has at least one worker in each of 20 different calendar weeks in a year. New employers pay 1.0% in the first year of liability, 1.1% in the second and 1.2% in the third and later years until they earn a modified rate. The tax applies to the first $14,000 of each employee’s wages, so a first-year employer pays at most $140 per employee.
New-hire reporting
The Mississippi New Hire Directory requires every newly hired and rehired employee to be reported within 15 days of the hire date. That is shorter than the 20 days many states allow, so make it part of your first-day paperwork with the W-4 and I-9.
Your payroll provider can usually handle the state withholding account, UI reports and new-hire filings for you. What it can’t do is decide your pay rate: that is the pricing decision above.
What does it cost to start cleaning homes in Mississippi?
As little as $25 to $50 in state fees. Insurance and supplies are the real start-up costs, and there is no sales tax to collect or file.
Government fees below were checked on official pages on October 9, 2026. Rows marked “estimate” are our ranges, not quotes.
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fictitious business name | $25 | Secretary of State. Not needed if you trade under your own name or the LLC’s name. |
| LLC Certificate of Formation | $50 | Optional, but cheap. |
| LLC annual report | $0 | Due April 15 every year. |
| Sales tax permit | Not needed for cleaning | Only if you sell products. |
| Unemployment tax | Up to $140 per employee in year one | 1.0% of the first $14,000, once liable. |
| Workers’ comp | Get quotes | Required at 5 regular employees. |
| General liability insurance | Get quotes | Compare two or three with the same limits. |
| Starter supplies | $200 to $500 (estimate) | Includes 7% sales tax (8% in Jackson). |
| Booking and scheduling software | Your choice | BroomBook is $29 a month for up to 2 cleaners, with a 14-day free trial. |
A solo cleaner in Hattiesburg who forms an LLC and buys a basic kit spends $50 in state fees, roughly $200 to $500 on supplies (our estimate) and a first insurance payment. That is about as low as a legal start gets anywhere in the US.
First Mississippi clients, and keeping the calendar straight
In smaller Mississippi towns, word of mouth does most of the work: church, school and neighborhood groups, plus a Google Business Profile that names the towns you serve. In Jackson, the Coast and DeSoto County, reviews and fast replies win the comparison.
Our guide on how to get clients for a cleaning business covers referrals, reviews and flyers in more detail.
Using BroomBook
We make BroomBook, a scheduling, online booking and crew app for residential cleaning businesses. In Mississippi, three parts matter most:
- Online booking with a clean price. Clients choose bedrooms, bathrooms, type of clean and extras, see a price and pick a time. Sales tax is an optional setting, so a Mississippi business leaves it off.
- Card on file, charged after the clean, through Stripe, with tips. BroomBook takes no cut of payments.
- A crew app when you hire. Each cleaner gets a private link with jobs, checklists and clock in and out, and hours and tips export to CSV for payroll.
It does not run payroll, withhold taxes or file new-hire reports. 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 how booking works on our cleaning booking software page.