How to start a cleaning business
What it costs, what you file, what it earns and what ends most of them. Every number below is cited to where it came from.
Starting a cleaning business costs $2,000 to $10,000, on figures published by a primary source. The hardest part is staffing.
What it costs to start
$2,000 to $10,000Costs are dominated by supplies, a commercial vacuum and basic equipment plus insurance and registration rather than vehicles, which is why SBDCNet cites averages as low as $3,500 and Entrepreneur puts a bare minimum under $2,000.
Source: source
What you have to file
Licensing is set by state, county and city, so this is what the category tends to require rather than a list for where you live. The state pages below carry the filing detail for each of the 50.
- General business licence (city/county)
- Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS
- DBA / fictitious business name registration
- State sales tax permit (where cleaning services are taxable)
- General liability insurance
- Janitorial bond / surety bond (commonly required by commercial clients)
- Workers' compensation insurance (required once you have employees)
- Commercial auto insurance
- State janitorial employer registration (California only, under the Property Service Workers Protection Act / AB 1978)
What the margins look like
Industry benchmarks put net profit in the 10 to 28% of gross sales range, though the five-year average net margin reported for janitorial services is only about 6.3%.
Source: source
Whether demand is growing
Flat
Demand is stable but slow-growing: BLS projects employment of janitors and building cleaners to rise just 2% from 2025 to 2035, slower than the average for all occupations, so growth comes mainly from churn and replacement rather than market expansion.
Source: source
How big the market is
There were 2,432,600 janitors and building cleaners employed in the US in 2025, with about 321,800 openings projected each year over the following decade (BLS). ISSA forecast US commercial cleaning industry revenue to exceed $108 billion in 2025.
The part that ends most of them
Staffing. Extreme employee turnover is the most commonly reported operational problem in commercial cleaning, with trade sources routinely citing annual turnover around 200% and sometimes as high as 400%; note this figure circulates widely in the trade press without a primary study behind it. Underpricing recurring contracts is the second most commonly cited killer.
Before you start
- What it will cost you, since the numbers above are the category and not your version of it
- Sole proprietor, LLC or S corp, what actually differs, with no recommendation
- What your state wants filed, read from the state's own pages
- What you have to sell to break even, which decides whether the margin above matters
- Which way you actually work, if the choice between these is really a choice about you
A different business
Compare all twenty side by side
SideKix, “How to start a cleaning business”. https://sidekixhq.com/how-to-start-a-cleaning-business.html
Questions people ask
How much does it cost to start a cleaning business?
$2,000 to $10,000. Costs are dominated by supplies, a commercial vacuum and basic equipment plus insurance and registration rather than vehicles, which is why SBDCNet cites averages as low as $3,500 and Entrepreneur puts a bare minimum under $2,000.
What licences do you need for a cleaning business?
Typically: General business licence (city/county); Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS; DBA / fictitious business name registration; State sales tax permit (where cleaning services are taxable); General liability insurance. Licensing is set by state, county and city, so the exact list depends on where you operate.
What profit margin does a cleaning business make?
Industry benchmarks put net profit in the 10 to 28% of gross sales range, though the five-year average net margin reported for janitorial services is only about 6.3%.
Is demand for a cleaning business growing?
Demand is stable but slow-growing: BLS projects employment of janitors and building cleaners to rise just 2% from 2025 to 2035, slower than the average for all occupations, so growth comes mainly from churn and replacement rather than market expansion.
What is the hardest part of running a cleaning business?
Staffing. Extreme employee turnover is the most commonly reported operational problem in commercial cleaning, with trade sources routinely citing annual turnover around 200% and sometimes as high as 400%; note this figure circulates widely in the trade press without a primary study behind it. Underpricing recurring contracts is the second most commonly cited killer.