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 Texas the first customers are in Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg. Austin flatwork holds pollen, construction dust, and the black film that grows where irrigation oversprays a driveway. Houston siding and concrete grow a green film in the humidity, and a driveway in The Woodlands is not a pier-and-beam bungalow in the Heights. Dallas–Fort Worth washing is concrete in Frisco, Plano, and Arlington, and older flatwork in Fort Worth and Oak Cliff. San Antonio concrete takes dust and a mineral film, and move-ins on a military calendar want the driveway done before the truck leaves. Valley concrete and block hold dust through a long hot season, and the wash is not a copy of a humid Gulf mildew route.
Texas is several markets: Gulf humidity, north-Texas hail, a short freeze that still breaks pipes, and a Valley that almost never freezes. The license depends on the trade. City permits sit on top. Do not use one city page for the whole state.
File an LLC with the Texas Secretary of State business filings. 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.
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 Texas Secretary of State business filings before you print shirts. Use the same spelling on the truck and on a quote in Austin.
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.
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.
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 Texas licensing page we could verify is the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell.
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.
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.
Nothing in the TDLR note we verified creates a power-washing license. Confirm it is absent from the current program list, then ask the city about a business license and about where wash water is allowed to go. Irrigation and pesticide licenses on the state list are for other trades. If the job is a lead-paint renovation, use the EPA RRP page linked on this guide. We are not describing a TDLR classification we did not see.
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 Texas.
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.
Austin: long summers that sit above 100°F, flash floods on dry ground, and a short cold snap that still breaks pipes Driveways, house washes, and flatwork on a named Austin route, with water handled on purpose. Houston: Gulf humidity, hurricane season, and street flooding that reaches houses the maps called safe House washes, driveways, and flatwork on one side of Houston, with a no on jobs that belong to another trade. Dallas–Fort Worth: hail season, tornado warnings, 100°F summers, and the occasional ice storm Driveways, sidewalks, and house washes inside a metro slice you can drive in a day. San Antonio: long heat, limestone and clay, sudden rain, and watering rules tied to the Edwards Aquifer Driveways, patios, and house washes, with Helotes optional and stone called out. McAllen–Edinburg: extreme heat, a mild winter, irrigation culture, and tropical wind and rain Driveways, block, and house washes on a Valley town list, not a map of South Texas.
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 Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg, 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.
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.
The Texas licensing page we could verify is the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell. 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.
Start where you can reach the stops in a day. The city guides cover Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg. Owners compare a local page with a Google profile and a marketplace lead. 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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