Step by step. Official links included.
This is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Read the official pages linked here. Partner offers are optional and labeled.
San Diego cleaning is salt film on the coast and hotter inland dust. North Park and Hillcrest are smaller and more rental. La Jolla is a different house and a different expectation. Chula Vista and Oceanside are drives. Say which you want. Recurring, move-out, and the occasional ADU construction dust should not be one sentence. Traffic makes a county-wide claim a broken promise by Thursday.
stucco, some older bungalows without air conditioning, tile roofs, and a large inland stock that does need cooling a cool marine layer on the coast, real heat inland, drought, and almost no winter freeze Recurring cleans and move-outs inside a coastal or inland boundary you publish.
Start the route in North Park, Hillcrest, and La Jolla. Add Chula Vista and Oceanside when you can reach them the same day. Coast and inland customers find you with the same search terms and then reject you if the page describes the wrong climate.
The California guide has the filing office and the LLC fee we could verify ($70 to file). This page is the local version: what the first jobs are, which permit counter to call, and how to price a day here.
Some boxes are labeled Partner. ServiceBase has not joined those programs. The links go to each company's own homepage, not a tracking link. If a program later approves us, the address will change and we may earn a commission. You can file, insure, and bank anywhere. Official government links are not partner links. Nothing on this page is a discount code.
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The guide stays public. An account saves your state, city, and trade, and lets you mark each filing as you go. The advertising credit is reserved when you register. It can be spent after the free website is live.
Create a free account to track your progresscleaner names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in North Park.
Search it at the California Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
Many cleaning companies start as a sole proprietorship and form an LLC when they hire the first employee or want the company name on the bank account. Either way, keep the money separate. An LLC does not decide whether you charge sales tax. That is a state revenue question. Read it. If you are the only person cleaning, say so. If a crew is coming, the structure and the insurance both change.
California Government Code section 12190 sets the fee for filing articles of organization at $70, and the fee for the statement of information at $20. The Secretary of State's LLC-1 cover sheet also says an LLC may have to pay a minimum $800 tax to the Franchise Tax Board. Read the Franchise Tax Board page before you treat $70 as the whole cost. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
If your customers are in San Diego, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy California. Read the filing office's rule. A neighbor's kitchen table is not always an acceptable address.
An employer identification number is the business tax ID. The IRS issues it online at no charge and says you never have to pay a company to get one. If you form an LLC, file with the state first. The IRS says an EIN application can stall when the state filing is not done. A sole proprietor can often start with a Social Security number and get an EIN when a bank or a hire requires it.
Apply on the IRS page if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner beside this step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero either way.
Read the contractor board far enough to see whether ordinary house cleaning is on it. Then get the city business license and the state tax permit the revenue department describes. Post-construction cleaning can be a different rule from a recurring house clean.
State page: California Contractors State License Board. Read this page for your trade. A city or county can require its own registration even when the state does not.
City of San Diego permits is the local counter for work in San Diego. We are naming that office, not linking a fee schedule we have not read. Call them or open the city's own site and ask what a new cleaner has to register before the first job in Hillcrest.
The California guide repeats the board link and tells you what we could not verify. Read it before you pay a filing service.
General liability covers damage inside a house and an injury on site. Ask the insurer about key custody and about employees before you send anyone else into a home. A personal auto policy is the wrong place to hide a car full of chemicals and vacuums if that car is how you work. Workers' compensation is a state question the moment someone is on payroll or, in some states, the moment someone is helping. Ask. Do not copy a headcount from another state.
Workers' compensation is a state program. Before anyone works with you, including a friend, ask an insurer and the state labor office whether you must carry it. This guide does not quote a headcount, because those rules differ and the state page is the source. The SBA page describes the common policies. It does not sell them. Buy the policy before you work in a house in San Diego.
Deposit cleaning payments into a business account the same week. Recurring clients pay small amounts, and those amounts disappear into a personal account. A simple note of which visit was paid is enough bookkeeping at the start. Set aside tax money every Friday.
The bank will usually ask for your ID, the EIN or your Social Security number, and the formation papers if you filed an LLC. A checking account and a habit of setting tax money aside are enough at the start.
Price by the visit, from bedrooms, bathrooms, condition, and extras. Ovens, fridges, and interior glass are where quotes go wrong, so name them as extras before you are standing in the kitchen. A recurring clean and a move-out are different prices. Write both down.
Humidity, hard water, pets, and stairs change the time. A price that assumes an empty suburban house will lose money in a walk-up. Raise the number after you have timed ten real visits, and tell recurring clients when the price changes.
a cool marine layer on the coast, real heat inland, drought, and almost no winter freeze stucco, some older bungalows without air conditioning, tile roofs, and a large inland stock that does need cooling That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Recurring cleans and move-outs inside a coastal or inland boundary you publish.
Write the price you want for the common job in North Park and the price you want for a far stop in Oceanside. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Oceanside off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for San Diego, CA. Set hours you answer. The service area should list North Park, Hillcrest, and La Jolla if those are real stops, and it should leave off towns you will not drive.
Ask for a review after a clean job, and ask them to mention the neighborhood and the task. A review that says the work and Chula Vista helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Google Business Profile, with photos of kitchens and baths you have finished. Reviews should mention the neighborhood and whether it was a recurring clean or a move-out. The website splits those services and the form asks for beds, baths, pets, and a date. ServiceBase publishes that page and keeps the requests. It will not book the calendar for you.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free cleaning site with San Diego already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace City of San Diego permits.
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Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade and city filled in. You can change every line after.
Pick the service you can finish, search the name at the California Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (California Contractors State License Board), call City of San Diego permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names North Park and the jobs you want. Recurring cleans and move-outs inside a coastal or inland boundary you publish.
Read the contractor board far enough to see whether ordinary house cleaning is on it. Then get the city business license and the state tax permit the revenue department describes. Post-construction cleaning can be a different rule from a recurring house clean. Start at the California Contractors State License Board. Then ask City of San Diego permits what the city adds.
Price by the visit, from bedrooms, bathrooms, condition, and extras. Ovens, fridges, and interior glass are where quotes go wrong, so name them as extras before you are standing in the kitchen. A recurring clean and a move-out are different prices. Write both down. a cool marine layer on the coast, real heat inland, drought, and almost no winter freeze Time the first ten jobs in North Park and La Jolla before you copy a price from another city.
You can draft it. Put it in public under the name you will actually use, with the phone you answer. If the state requires the license before you advertise the work, wait. The free ServiceBase site does not file the company. Signup can open with cleaner and San Diego filled in so you are not retyping them.
California filing and license · Free cleaning website in San Diego, CA · All trades in San Diego, CA
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