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.
Houston cleaning is humidity, hard-water spots, and the occasional house that took on water and now needs a different kind of clean than a Friday recurring. The Heights is pets and older tile. Katy and The Woodlands are larger recurring routes. Meyerland customers ask about mildew and not just dust. Say whether mold is a job you refuse and refer. Do not imply a remediation license you do not have.
a mix of pier-and-beam bungalows inside the loop and slabs on gumbo clay in the suburbs Gulf humidity, hurricane season, and street flooding that reaches houses the maps called safe Recurring cleans, move-outs, and a clear line between household cleaning and anything that needs a remediator.
Start the route in The Heights, Meyerland, and Katy. Add The Woodlands and Pearland when you can reach them the same day. After a storm, people hire whoever answers with a real service area. The rest of the year they hire the crew that explains the job without a marketplace in the middle.
The Texas guide has the filing office and the LLC fee we could verify ($300). 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 The Heights.
Search it at the Texas Secretary of State business filings 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.
The Form 205 instructions linked from the Texas Secretary of State list the certificate-of-formation filing fee. When those instructions were read for this site, the fee was $300. The same office says it cannot tell you which entity to choose. Open the instructions and confirm the number before you pay. 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 Houston, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy Texas. 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: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. TDLR licenses some trades, including electricians and air-conditioning contractors. Its program list does not include a general landscaper license. Irrigation and pesticide work have their own offices below. Cities can still require a registration.
City of Houston permits is the local counter for work in Houston. 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 Meyerland.
The Texas guide has the longer license note for this trade, including the official pages we could verify.
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 Houston.
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.
Gulf humidity, hurricane season, and street flooding that reaches houses the maps called safe a mix of pier-and-beam bungalows inside the loop and slabs on gumbo clay in the suburbs That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Recurring cleans, move-outs, and a clear line between household cleaning and anything that needs a remediator.
Write the price you want for the common job in The Heights and the price you want for a far stop in Pearland. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Pearland off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for Houston, TX. Set hours you answer. The service area should list The Heights, Meyerland, and Katy 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 The Woodlands 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 Houston already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace City of Houston 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 Texas Secretary of State business filings, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation), call City of Houston permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names The Heights and the jobs you want. Recurring cleans, move-outs, and a clear line between household cleaning and anything that needs a remediator.
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 Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Then ask City of Houston 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. Gulf humidity, hurricane season, and street flooding that reaches houses the maps called safe Time the first ten jobs in The Heights and Katy 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 Houston filled in so you are not retyping them.
Texas filing and license · Free cleaning website in Houston, TX · All trades in Houston, TX
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