Commercial cleaning and janitorial insurance in Ohio

The Ohio checklist: register, collect tax, prove coverage

Ohio asks three things of a commercial cleaning company before the first night shift: a registered business, a vendor's license for sales tax, and proof of state-fund workers' comp. Your clients then add their own list on top.

Registering the business

Form your LLC or corporation, or register a trade name, with the Ohio Secretary of State. Ohio doesn't license commercial cleaning as a trade, and it has no general statewide business license.

The state-level license that matters is the vendor's license, because Ohio treats janitorial work as a taxable sale. You can apply through the Ohio Business Gateway or your county auditor. Under House Bill 366, the fee for a new license went from $25 to $50 on April 9, 2025, charged for each fixed place of business (R.C. 5739.17). There's no renewal fee; the license stays valid until you cancel it.

The local layer is city income tax rather than city licenses. You withhold for the city where each employee works, not where they live. Columbus, for example, levies 2.5%. Under R.C. 718.011, an employer generally doesn't withhold for a city where an employee works 20 or fewer days a year, but that grace period doesn't apply to the employee's principal place of work. A night cleaner assigned to one suburban office park works there every shift, so that city gets withholding from the start. Small employers have a narrower rule; ask your CPA whether it fits you.

Sales tax on janitorial invoices

Yes, Ohio taxes it. R.C. 5739.01(B)(3)(j) makes "building maintenance and janitorial service" a taxable sale, and the definition covers cleaning a building inside or out, plus the property in it.

The Department of Taxation's Information Release ST 2002-04 (September 2015) lists what's in and out:

• Taxable: washing, vacuuming and dusting; polishing and waxing floors; disinfecting and deodorizing; carpet and upholstery cleaning; cleaning windows, walls and ceilings; emptying wastebaskets and pulling trash.
• Not taxable: repairs, painting and miscellaneous maintenance; applying stain repellant; stripping permanent finishes such as paint, varnish or wallpaper; cleaning contents off-site.

A provider with less than $5,000 of these sales in a calendar year is excluded. Once you reach $5,000, the release says tax applies to all your sales from then on. You charge the rate of the county where the building sits, so a client with buildings in two counties gets the charges split by county. Supplies you use up, like mops, chemicals, vacuums and floor machines, are generally taxable purchases to you. Floor wax, furniture polish and trash can liners that pass to the customer may be bought exempt. Returns are filed through the Ohio Business Gateway and are due the 23rd of the month after each period. Confirm the current rule with the Ohio Department of Taxation or your CPA.

Schools and background checks

Ohio has no janitorial-specific registration, training or worker-retention law beyond the sales tax rules. Schools are the exception that shapes hiring. Under R.C. 3319.392, a school district, educational service center or chartered nonpublic school can't let a contractor's employee work in a job with routine interaction with children unless the employer shows a criminal records check from the past five years with no disqualifying offense. The other option is for the school to keep one of its own staff in the same room. Contractors can request the check from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI). Some public janitorial bids, like Mifflin Township's, go further and ask for both BCI and FBI checks at your expense.

Ohio workers' comp comes from BWC, so you add stop-gap

Hire your first regular employee and Ohio requires workers' comp (R.C. 4123.01). That policy has to come from the state fund run by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC), unless your company qualifies to self-insure under R.C. 4123.35. No private carrier sells Ohio comp, and neither do we. Your BWC policy covers your crews' injury benefits; the rest of your program sits with private carriers.

The employer's liability gap

BWC's policy has no employer's liability section. On a private comp policy in other states, that section is what answers a lawsuit an injured worker files against the company itself. Ohio employers buy it separately as stop-gap coverage, usually added by endorsement to the general liability policy. Read the wording. The Ohio Supreme Court's 2011 decision in Ward v. United Foundries involved a stop-gap endorsement whose exclusion for "substantial certainty" intentional torts left the insurer with no duty to defend. Our licensed team reads that exclusion before we place stop-gap.

Owners, rates and crews out of state

• Owners. Coverage is elective for sole proprietors, partners, LLCs taxed as either, and a one-person corporation with no employees. In a corporation with several owner-officers, those officers are generally treated as employees unless they meet BWC's exclusion rules.
• Base rate. BWC assigns manual classifications from the operations on your application. For the payroll period July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, BWC's private-employer base rate for manual 9014 (janitorial services by contractors) is 1.3559 per $100 of payroll (Ohio Adm. Code 4123-17-06). That figure leaves out BWC's Disabled Workers' Relief Fund (DWRF) assessment and your own experience or group rating, so treat it as a starting point, not your premium.
• Crews outside Ohio. BWC's policy covers Ohio employees working out of state temporarily. If you send workers to a client's building in another state, ask about BWC's optional Other States Coverage, which BWC offers with private insurance partners. BWC's U-3 instructions also send employers with Ohio staff covered in another state to Form U-131.

1099 cleaners and subcontracted buildings

The statute's 20-factor contractor test is written around construction contracts. Whether BWC treats a 1099 cleaner as your employee turns on its own review of the facts, so ask BWC before you sub out a building. Check your subs, too. R.C. 4123.01 says the workers of a subcontractor that hasn't paid its BWC premium are considered employees of the company that hired it. Going without carries real cost. Under R.C. 4123.75, a hurt worker of a noncompliant employer can still collect benefits from BWC's surplus fund, and BWC then moves to recover that money from the employer. R.C. 4123.77 also lets that worker sue the company for damages, without common-law defenses like the fellow-servant rule. R.C. 4123.99 makes the failure a misdemeanor.

Rules and forms are on the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation site.

What Ohio townships, cities and managers put in the bid package

Ohio public buyers write their insurance terms into the RFP, and some want proof attached to the proposal. Mifflin Township released a janitorial RFP on February 24, 2026 for its roughly 21,000-square-foot OPS Center in Gahanna, on a one-year term that could run to three years. It asked for:

• general liability: $1M each occurrence, $2M aggregate
• auto liability of $1,000,000 combined single limit for owned, non-owned and hired vehicles
• a $2,000,000 umbrella or excess policy each occurrence
• a current BWC certificate with the proposal, showing the legal employer name, policy number, coverage period and paid-up status; without it, the bid may be deemed non-responsive
• the township named as additional insured, with certificates before the start date and proof of insurance at each renewal
• BCI and FBI background checks for assigned staff at your expense, and at least three years of experience with comparable facilities

That RFP didn't ask for a fidelity bond, but other buyers do, and private property managers set their own numbers. Our guide to cleaning contract insurance requirements walks through a full exhibit, and our janitorial bond page explains what a bond pays for when a client asks for one.

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Ohio risks that land on a cleaning company

A partly careless visitor can still win a slip-and-fall

Ohio bars a plaintiff's recovery only when their fault is greater than the combined fault of everyone else, and otherwise cuts the award by their share (R.C. 2315.33). If a tenant cuts across a lobby your porter just mopped, her own carelessness may shrink the award without ending the claim. Cones, signs and a timed cleaning log are your best evidence.

Intentional-tort suits that BWC won't touch

BWC pays benefits, yet a hurt cleaner can still file suit claiming the company itself committed an intentional tort, a claim R.C. 2745.01 governs. That's the suit stop-gap exists for, and Ward shows that an exclusion in the endorsement can leave you defending it alone.

Night access in schools and public buildings

Contract cleaners with routine interaction with children need a criminal records check within five years or a school employee in the room (R.C. 3319.392), and some public buyers add BCI and FBI checks. Crews holding keys and alarm codes in public buildings also raise the stakes when something goes missing, which is when a client looks to your bond and crime coverage.

Ohio cities and the local rules your crews run into

What moves the price for an Ohio cleaning company

Ohio pricing splits in two. Your comp cost comes from BWC: the manual 9014 base rate is the same for every employer in the class, then the DWRF assessment and your experience or group rating adjust it. Living-wage contracts in Cincinnati, Cleveland or Toledo raise the payroll that rate is applied to.

Everything else is priced by private carriers. Public bids that require a $2M umbrella over $1M/$2M GL add an umbrella premium to the cost of chasing that work, and stop-gap adds its own charge to the GL. 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. Our cleaning business insurance cost guide shows published ranges.

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Commercial Cleaning Insurance Group is a brand of The Allen Thomas Group, licensed in Ohio (License #29112, NPN 7642818).

We're headquartered in Akron and quote GL, stop-gap, auto, umbrella and bonds for cleaning companies statewide, while your comp stays with BWC.