Commercial cleaning and janitorial insurance in Montana

Montana's short list of filings, and the long reach of its employment law

Montana asks little of a new cleaning company at the state level. The weight falls on how you hire, pay and let people go.

Registration and licenses

Entities file with the Montana Secretary of State; confirm current steps there. We found no state janitorial license and no general state business license. Cities license businesses on their own. The City of Billings, for example, required the winner of its City Hall custodial contract to buy a City business license before getting paid.

Sales tax

Montana doesn't have a general sales tax, according to the Department of Revenue. You don't collect tax on cleaning fees, and you don't pay state sales tax on supplies. If you work in a resort community, ask the town whether its local resort tax reaches your services.

Wages and wrongful discharge

No Montana law targets janitorial employers specifically. The general rules do the work. The minimum wage is $10.85 an hour, rising to $11.20 on January 1, 2027, with no credit for tips, meals or training.

The Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act is the bigger issue. A discharge is wrongful if it wasn't for good cause after probation, if it retaliated against an employee who refused to violate public policy or reported a violation of it, if you materially broke your own written personnel policy, or if it rested solely on the employee's legal free speech (MCA 39-2-904). If you don't set a probation period, it's 12 months, extendable to no more than 18 (MCA 39-2-910). A worker who wins can recover up to four years of lost wages and benefits, minus what they earned in the meantime (MCA 39-2-905). We don't give employment-law advice; have an attorney review your handbook.

School buildings

Since HB 745 (2025), MCA 20-3-323 requires every district to adopt a policy that anyone with unsupervised contact with students, "regardless of employment status with the district," first clears a fingerprint-based national criminal history check. The contractor side only recently opened up. A federal change had removed vendors and contractors from the national fingerprint channel schools use, so the Montana Department of Justice amended its rule (ARM 23.12.107), effective September 26, 2026, to let schools request those checks for vendors and contractors again. Confirm the district's current process before you schedule a crew.

Montana workers' comp and the exemption certificate

Once you have employees in Montana, you need comp, bought from a private carrier, written through the state fund, or handled by an approved self-insurance plan. Montana is an NCCI state, and janitorial contractors are normally rated under class 9014.

Owners get room here. MCA 39-71-401 leaves several kinds of owner outside the mandate: the sole proprietor, the working partner, the working member of a member-managed LLC, and officers or managers holding a 10% or larger stake in a corporation or manager-managed LLC.

The catch is the Independent Contractor Exemption Certificate (ICEC). A solo cleaner who regularly works away from their own fixed business location must hold an ICEC or elect coverage, swearing they're free from control and run an established business (MCA 39-71-417). A 1099 cleaner with neither is likely to be treated as your employee. Collect ICECs or certificates from every sub before the first shift.

Going uninsured costs more than the premium. The Uninsured Employers' Fund can charge up to double the premium you should have paid over as much as three years of payroll, or $200 if that's greater, plus every dollar of benefits paid (MCA 39-71-504). Details on payroll and audits are on our workers' comp page.

What Montana public buyers ask for

The City of Billings' custodial RFP for City Hall and the Billings Operations Center, which closed in January 2025, used limits you won't see in most states:

• general liability, including contractual and personal injury, at $750,000 per claim and $1.5 million per occurrence
• auto liability at $1.5 million per accident
• workers' comp and employer's liability as Montana law requires
• the city as additional insured and a waiver of subrogation on every policy except comp, with 30 days' notice of cancellation
• proof of insurance before contract signing, not with the proposal

That $1.5 million auto figure is above the $1 million many contractors carry, so check yours before you bid. Our guides to contract insurance requirements and janitorial and bid bonds explain each line.

Get a quote for your cleaning business →

Montana risks worth planning for

A firing after probation

Example scenario: A night supervisor lets go of a cleaner 14 months in, after a complaint nobody wrote down. The handbook says 12-month probation and a written warning first. The cleaner sues for wrongful discharge, and the missing warning is the center of the case. An EPLI policy may help with defense, depending on its wording.

The solo cleaner without an ICEC

If you send a 1099 cleaner into a client's building and they don't hold an exemption certificate or their own policy, an injury there can become your claim and your Uninsured Employers' Fund bill.

Crews that can't enter a school

A new hire without a completed fingerprint check can't be scheduled into a school with unsupervised student contact. High turnover means a backlog of checks, and the state's rule letting schools run them for contractors took effect only on September 26, 2026, so plan staffing before you bid district work.

Montana cities, with one verified detail each

What shapes cleaning insurance cost in Montana

Montana has no sales tax on supplies and a modest wage floor, but comp is still priced on payroll, so a growing night crew is a growing premium. Higher limits, like the $1.5 million auto requirement in Billings, add cost too. We don't publish a Montana average; it would only mislead.

Your price depends on the payroll in each class code, your annual sales, the kinds of buildings you clean, how much specialty and chemical work you do, the vehicles your crews drive, your claims history and the limits your contracts require.

See the cleaning insurance cost guide for what moves each line. Get a quote for your cleaning business →

Commercial Cleaning Insurance Group is a brand of The Allen Thomas Group, licensed in Montana (License #30012666607, NPN 7642818). A Montana quote starts with your payroll, your owners' comp status and any city or county exhibit you're working from.