Bookkeeping for freelance cleaners

VAT: always 21%, except when reverse-charged

Cleaning services carry the standard 21% rate, including in private homes. There is no reduced rate for cleaning, unlike for painting older houses for instance. See which VAT rate applies if you also do other work. If you are a window cleaner with a regular round, see bookkeeping for the window cleaner.

The exception is subcontracting. If you take on cleaning work on a building for another cleaning firm or a contractor, the VAT is reverse-charged to them. You then put no VAT on your invoice, state your client's VAT number and the words reverse charge, and they remit the VAT. That applies to cleaning immovable property; if you sell separate products or do work not attached to a building, the normal rate stays. See when the reverse charge applies and reverse charge in construction, which describes the same mechanics.

Working for private households: are you an entrepreneur?

This is where things most often go wrong in cleaning. Working in private homes, the situation can fall under the Dutch scheme for domestic services. Under it the household is your employer and you are not an entrepreneur, even if you call yourself one and send invoices. The tax authorities look at the facts: do you have several clients, do you set your own methods and hours, do you bring your own materials, do you carry risk when something goes wrong, and do you demonstrably work for your own account?

If the answer to those questions is yes, you are an entrepreneur and invoice with 21% VAT. If in practice you work fixed days for one or two households, with their materials and at a fixed hourly amount, chances are you are not an entrepreneur and therefore have no right to the self-employed deduction or the SME profit exemption. That is a painful discovery when it emerges in an audit, so have it tested at the start rather than afterwards. See also false self-employment.

Liability and the blocked account

Chain liability under Dutch law applies not only in construction but to contracted work of a physical nature broadly, and on-site cleaning falls under it. Working as a subcontractor, your client can be held liable for payroll taxes not remitted further down the chain. That is why larger cleaning firms ask for payment via a blocked G account, into which part of your invoice arrives blocked for payroll taxes only.

Working alone without staff you usually need no such account, but be prepared for a client to ask anyway. If you lend out staff or hire colleagues, hirer's liability comes into play as well. In that case always record who you hire, check their registration and VAT number and pay by bank; see hiring a freelancer or an employee.

The costs you leave unclaimed

In cleaning the margins are thin and the costs small but numerous; precisely why they add up when you do not track them. Photograph receipts immediately with your phone and let them land in your records automatically, see storing receipts digitally. Two items deserve extra attention. Your kilometres: driving past four addresses in a day is all business travel to be recorded in your mileage records. And your clothing: ordinary workwear is only deductible if it meets the requirements, for instance a logo of at least 70 square centimetres, see workwear.

• Cleaning products, cloths, bin bags and small supplies.
• Machines such as a vacuum or scrubber; above € 450 you capitalise them, see capitalise or deduct at once.
• Your van or car, with the addition to income or the mileage allowance for a private car.
• Phone and a simple scheduling or time-tracking tool.
• Cash payments from private clients: record those in a cash book.

Frequently asked questions