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.
Pollen, mildew, and clay dust on new-construction driveways are the mix. Soft wood and old paint fail if you treat them like concrete. Name the surfaces you refuse. In Memphis, the housing decides the visit: older bungalows and crawl spaces in Midtown and Cooper-Young, and suburban houses in East Memphis, Germantown, and Bartlett. The weather on the truck is humid heat, mild winters with ice now and then, and storms that drop limbs and test roofs. Midtown, Cooper-Young, and East Memphis are worth naming only when they are real stops. Germantown and Bartlett are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. Memphis and Shelby County permits is the local counter to ask when the job needs a permit or a city registration. This page names that office. It does not invent a fee. Mississippi and Arkansas are across the line and a different license. Stay specific to Memphis, Germantown, and Bartlett unless you have read the other state's board. Crawl spaces in Midtown are not the same visit as a Germantown subdivision. Close-in houses and the eastern suburbs do not hire the same way. New residents look for a page that knows which is which.
older bungalows and crawl spaces in Midtown and Cooper-Young, and suburban houses in East Memphis, Germantown, and Bartlett humid heat, mild winters with ice now and then, and storms that drop limbs and test roofs Flatwork and house washes as separate visits, plus the surfaces you will not blast. In Memphis, TN, list Midtown and Bartlett together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Midtown, Cooper-Young, and East Memphis. Add Germantown and Bartlett when you can reach them the same day. Close-in houses and the eastern suburbs do not hire the same way. New residents look for a page that knows which is which.
The Tennessee guide has the filing office. 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.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
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 progresspower washer names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Midtown.
Search it at the Tennessee Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
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 Tennessee that we are willing to print. The Tennessee Secretary of State publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
If your customers are in Memphis, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy Tennessee. 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 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.
Tennessee licenses contractors through the Board for Licensing Contractors at the Department of Commerce and Insurance. We could not load that page from here, so this checklist does not link a guessed address. Open tn.gov and search the board name before you apply.
Memphis and Shelby County permits is the local counter for work in Memphis. 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 power washer has to register before the first job in Cooper-Young.
The Tennessee guide repeats the board link and tells you what we could not verify. Read it before you pay a filing service.
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 Memphis.
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.
humid heat, mild winters with ice now and then, and storms that drop limbs and test roofs older bungalows and crawl spaces in Midtown and Cooper-Young, and suburban houses in East Memphis, Germantown, and Bartlett That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Flatwork and house washes as separate visits, plus the surfaces you will not blast. In Memphis, TN, list Midtown and Bartlett together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Midtown and the price you want for a far stop in Bartlett. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Bartlett off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for Memphis, TN. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Midtown, Cooper-Young, and East Memphis 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 Germantown helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
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.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free power washing site with Memphis already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace Memphis and Shelby County permits.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
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 Tennessee Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page, call Memphis and Shelby County permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Midtown and the jobs you want. Flatwork and house washes as separate visits, plus the surfaces you will not blast.
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. Tennessee licenses contractors through the Board for Licensing Contractors at the Department of Commerce and Insurance. We could not load that page from here, so this checklist does not link a guessed address. Open tn.gov and search the board name before you apply. Then ask Memphis and Shelby County permits what the city adds.
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. humid heat, mild winters with ice now and then, and storms that drop limbs and test roofs Time the first ten jobs in Midtown and East Memphis 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 power washer and Memphis filled in so you are not retyping them.
Tennessee filing and license · Free power washing website in Memphis, TN · All trades in Memphis, TN
Prefer a one-time score? The AI visibility checklist stays in this browser. It is not emailed.