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.
Start with flatwork you can finish without forcing water into a wall: driveways, walks, and patios on a surface you understand. Add house washes when you can control the pressure and the runoff. Leave roof cleaning and paint removal off the page until the license reading and the insurance both say you do that work. In Massachusetts the first customers are in Boston. Boston washing is salt on brick, concrete steps, and the occasional driveway in Quincy or parts of Brookline.
Massachusetts has nor'easters, ice dams, a long heating season, and strict trade licensing. Triple-deckers and boilers are ordinary in the urban core. Customers look the license up. Towns add their own permits.
File an LLC with the Massachusetts Corporations Division. We do not have a filing fee for Massachusetts that we are willing to print. The Massachusetts Corporations Division publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
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 progressUse a plain name that says washing, so a homeowner can tell you from a painter or a roofer. Search the state filing office and the city. The name on the invoice, the trailer, and the voicemail should match. Keep it short enough to say over a driveway.
Search that name at the Massachusetts Corporations Division before you print shirts. Use the same spelling on the truck and on a quote in Boston.
Many one-truck washing routes start as a sole proprietorship. An LLC is a reasonable filing once you are taking deposits, hiring, or putting the insurance in a company name. The filing does not decide the license and it does not decide where the water may go. Read the contractor board and the city separately. Ask an accountant if you are paying helpers and still thinking of them as a favor. This page is not legal advice.
We do not have a filing fee for Massachusetts that we are willing to print. The Massachusetts Corporations Division publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
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.
The Massachusetts licensing page we could verify is the Massachusetts construction supervisor licensing. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell.
A construction supervisor license is not the only registration. Home improvement work can have a separate requirement. Read the page, then check the city.
Read the contractor board for a washing classification and any dollar threshold on that page. Confirm a city business license either way. If the work is a lead renovation, EPA's RRP page requires containment so wastewater stays in the work area, and it tells you to ask the local water authority about disposal. On a construction site covered by EPA's 2022 Construction General Permit, building washdown and pavement wash water have to meet that permit, including no soaps, solvents, or detergents for those discharges. A residential route that is not one of those jobs is still a city storm-drain question. Ask before you send water to the street.
A city or county can require its own registration even when the state page is quiet. The city guides name the local permit counter. Call that office and write down what they say. Do not pay a third party that promises a license until you have read the official page.
General liability before the wand points at someone else's house. Tell the insurer you pressure-wash, and name the surfaces, so a claim is not denied for work you did not disclose. Water forced behind siding or into an open window is the ordinary loss. Ask whether the policy speaks to that. Commercial auto for the truck and trailer. Workers' compensation before a second person is handling the gun or driving the rig. A property manager will ask for the certificate before the first driveway.
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 Massachusetts.
Fuel, tips, and the replacement hose should come out of a business account, not a personal card you sort out in April. Deposits on a house wash and the small driveway tickets both go in the same account, with the address written down. Set tax money aside the day a larger job pays.
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.
Write three prices before you need them: a driveway or flatwork visit, a house wash, and the surface you will not do. Wood, soft stone, and roofs are where a single 'per square foot' number goes wrong. Include the time to control the water. A quote that assumes the runoff can run to the street is incomplete until the city has said so.
Mildew, dust, and salt stain are different films and different times. A price copied from another climate will be wrong. Adjust the three numbers after ten real jobs, and do not promise the film will never come back.
Boston: nor'easters, ice dams, a long heating season, and summers humid enough to need real cooling Steps, salt-stained flatwork, and house fronts you can reach without pretending the street is a driveway.
Google Business Profile with photos of driveways and siding you have actually washed in this climate, and a service area made of towns you drive. Reviews should name the neighborhood and the surface. The website splits flatwork from house washes, says which surfaces you refuse, and says you ask the city about wash water. The form asks for the surface and the size. ServiceBase publishes that page and keeps the requests. It does not make the discharge legal.
In Boston, the profile, the reviews, and the site should name the neighborhoods you actually drive. ServiceBase publishes the page and keeps quote requests in a list on your account. No card. It does not file the LLC, get the EIN, or buy the insurance.
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Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade filled in. You can change every line after.
We do not have a filing fee for Massachusetts that we are willing to print. The Massachusetts Corporations Division publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
The Massachusetts licensing page we could verify is the Massachusetts construction supervisor licensing. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell. A construction supervisor license is not the only registration. Home improvement work can have a separate requirement. Read the page, then check the city.
Start where you can reach the stops in a day. The city guides cover Boston. Customers ask about license class and whether you have worked in a triple-decker before they ask about a discount. A statewide claim is a weak service area.
Yes. Use the IRS link in the steps if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner on the EIN step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero.
All power washing business steps · Power washing website guide
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