Florida Sales Tax on Services: Which Services Are Taxable, the Nonresidential Cleaning Rule, and the Service Business That Sells Parts

Florida's sales tax is a tax on tangible goods with a short list of services attached, and a service business's first question is whether it's on the list. The taxable services (the three enumerated in s. 212.05(1)(i), plus the rentals, admissions, and repairs taxed elsewhere in chapter 212): nonresidential cleaning services (janitorial and interior cleaning of nonresidential buildings — offices, stores, warehouses, restaurants — taxable; cleaning of homes, apartments, residential condominiums, and the common areas of those residential buildings — exempt), nonresidential pest control (extermination and pest control for commercial property — taxable; residential — exempt), detective, burglar protection, and other protection services (security guards, alarm monitoring, private investigators — taxable with no residential exception, so a home's alarm monitoring is taxable too — Rule 12A-1.0092), commercial rent (repealed October 1, 2025 — the Florida rent tax repeal guide), transient rentals (hotels and vacation rentals — taxable), parking, docking, and storage for vehicles, boats, and aircraft (taxable), admissions (tickets to events, attractions, and membership fees that confer admission — taxable), telecommunications and cable (under the communications services tax — a separate tax), the repair of tangible personal property (the labor to repair a car, an appliance, a boat — when the repairer furnishes any part, however small, Florida taxes the entire charge, parts and labor together; a labor-only repair is exempt only if the repairer's records show no parts were furnished — Rule 12A-1.006; the marine service taxes guide's Florida labor point), and certain other enumerated items (the rental of tangible personal property — equipment rental — taxable; the fabrication of goods for a customer — taxable as the sale of the goods). What's exempt: professional services (accounting, legal, medical, consulting, engineering, architecture), personal services (hair, nails, massage — exempt as services, with retail product sales taxable — the salon deductions guide), residential cleaning and pest control, home care, childcare, education, most construction services (the contractor's treatment below), advertising services (the ad agency's creative work — exempt; tangible printed materials — taxable), and most business-to-business services not on the list. The residential-versus-commercial line: for cleaning and pest control, the property's use decides — houses, apartments, residential condominiums and cooperatives, time-shares, nursing homes, and mobile home parks are residential — and so are their common areas — while offices, stores, warehouses, restaurants, and other commercial or industrial buildings are nonresidential (Rules 12A-1.0091 and 12A-1.0161); an apartment unit cleaned for the landlord between tenants is still a residential facility — exempt; a cleaning company serving both keeps its invoices coded by property type, collects on the nonresidential jobs, and keeps the documentation (the property address and type) for the exempt ones. The service business that sells goods: a service business that also sells tangible goods — an HVAC company selling equipment, a landscaper selling plants and mulch, a pool company selling chemicals, a computer repair shop selling parts — collects sales tax on the goods it sells to customers (and in Florida, on repair labor to tangible personal property — above); a contractor installing goods into real property (a new HVAC system, a pool, cabinets) is generally the consumer of the materials — pays tax on the materials when purchased and charges no tax to the customer on the improvement to real property (the construction sales tax guide's consumer rule) — while a repair to tangible personal property is taxed on the total charge when parts are furnished; the distinction between an improvement to real property (contractor pays tax on materials) and a repair of tangible personal property (taxable total charge) is the line Florida service businesses most often draw wrong — a window air-conditioning unit is tangible personal property; a central system is part of the real property (work on real property, and contracts mixing the two, follows Rule 12A-1.051). The discretionary sales surtax: Florida's counties levy a surtax on top of the state's 6 percent (from none — Citrus and Collier — up to 2 percent in Hamilton for 2026; Miami-Dade 1 percent, Broward 1 percent, and Palm Beach 0.5 percent since January 1, 2026, when its 1 percent infrastructure surtax ended and a 0.5 percent school surtax began — Form DR-15DSS), applied to the full charge for a taxable service and to only the first US$5,000 of any single item of tangible personal property, collected based on the county where the goods or services are delivered — a Broward company cleaning an office in Miami-Dade collects Miami-Dade's surtax. Registration and filing: a business making taxable sales or providing taxable services registers with the Florida Department of Revenue (Form DR-1 — online) before its first taxable sale, collects the tax, and files returns (Form DR-15 — monthly if the business's annual tax exceeds US$1,000, quarterly at US$501–US$1,000, semiannually at US$101–US$500, annually at US$100 or less), due on the 1st and late after the 20th of the following month, with a collection allowance (2.5 percent of the first US$1,200 of tax due — at most US$30 per return — only when filed and paid electronically and on time); the business issues or accepts resale certificates for goods bought for resale (the Annual Resale Certificate); and it pays use tax on taxable items it buys without paying sales tax (an out-of-state purchase for its own use). The tax treatment: sales tax collected is a liability remitted (not income); sales tax paid on the business's own purchases is part of the cost of the item (deducted or capitalized with it). The bookkeeping: services coded by taxability and property type; goods sold separately from services on invoices; repairs versus improvements documented; the surtax by county of delivery; the DR-15 filings; resale certificates; use tax on untaxed purchases. The errors: commercial cleaning billed without tax; residential jobs taxed; a repair to tangible property billed as untaxed labor; the surtax applied at the business's home county rather than the delivery county; a contractor charging tax on a real property improvement (or failing to pay tax on its materials); and no registration because "services aren't taxed in Florida."

Key takeaways

• Florida taxes goods broadly and services narrowly: the taxable list includes nonresidential cleaning, nonresidential pest control, security and alarm monitoring, transient rentals, parking and docking, admissions, equipment rental, and repairs to tangible personal property (the entire charge when parts are furnished).
• Residential cleaning and pest control — including apartment and condominium common areas — are exempt; offices, stores, and other commercial buildings are nonresidential — code every job by property type.
• Repairs to tangible personal property are taxed on the total charge when any part is furnished; improvements to real property make the contractor the consumer of its materials — the line Florida service businesses most often get wrong.
• County discretionary surtax applies on top of the 6 percent state rate, based on where the service or goods are delivered, on the full service charge and the first US$5,000 of any single item of goods.
• Register (DR-1) before the first taxable sale, file DR-15 by the 20th, keep resale certificates, and pay use tax on untaxed purchases.
• Collected sales tax is a liability, never income.

The Florida service business sales tax file

Services coded: taxable or exempt; residential or nonresidential. Goods sold separately on invoices. Repairs to tangible property versus improvements to real property. Surtax by county of delivery. DR-1 registration; DR-15 filings; collection allowance. Resale certificates. Use tax on untaxed purchases. The residential/nonresidential code and the repair/improvement line are the two decisions on every invoice.

Worked example

A Broward janitorial company cleans 40 offices, the common areas of six condominium buildings, and 120 homes: the office contracts are nonresidential — 6 percent state tax plus the 1 percent surtax of the county where each building sits (Broward's and, for two offices in Miami-Dade, Miami-Dade's) collected on every invoice; the condominium common areas and the 120 homes are residential — exempt, with the addresses and property types documented. A Palm Beach HVAC company: a new central air system installed in a house is an improvement to real property — the company paid sales tax on the equipment when it bought it and charges the homeowner none; a repair to a window unit and to a portable dehumidifier, each needing a replacement part, are repairs to tangible personal property — taxed on the total charge, parts and labor (a documented labor-only service call would not be). A Miami security company's alarm monitoring contracts for homes and businesses are taxable protection services — collected monthly. A landscaper selling mulch and plants to a homeowner collects tax on the materials sold (unless it installs them as an improvement to real property under a lump-sum, cost-plus, or time-and-materials contract — then it is the consumer, pays tax when it buys them, and charges none — Rule 12A-1.051), and none on the mowing. A new pest control company that assumed "services aren't taxed in Florida" discovered in its first audit that its commercial accounts had been taxable all along — three years of uncollected tax owed from its own pocket.

Official sources

The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board explains: “The Taxability Matrix identifies each of the definitions and tax administration practices adopted by the Governing Board and which each state must follow. The state indicates the tax treatment of each of the items identified in the matrix along with a reference to its applicable law, rule, regulation or written policy.” — Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, Taxability Matrix, https://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/Shared-Pages/State-taxability-matrix

The Florida Department of Revenue states: “Effective October 1, 2025, the state sales tax imposed on rent or license fees for the use of real property (commercial rentals) under section 212.031, Florida Statutes (F.S.), is repealed. This means no state sales tax or discretionary sales surtax applies to rent or license fees for rental or occupancy periods beginning on or after October 1, 2025.” — Florida Department of Revenue, Sales Tax on Commercial Rentals Repealed Effective October 1, 2025, https://floridarevenue.com/taxes/tips/Documents/TIP_25A01-04.pdf

Practitioner note

Florida's sales tax reaches services only through a short list — but the list includes the work many service businesses do every day: commercial cleaning, commercial pest control, security monitoring, equipment rental, and repairs to tangible personal property, taxed on parts and labor together whenever parts are furnished. Our Florida service business files code every job by taxability and property type, separate repairs to tangible property from improvements to real property, apply the surtax of the county where the work is delivered, and register before the first taxable invoice — because the tax a business fails to collect becomes the tax it pays from its own margin.

See also: For related guidance, see the Florida tangible personal property tax and Form DR-405; and browse every small business tax guide, by situation.

Next step

Fairlight Accounting is a cross-border accounting and tax practice with a U.S. Tax Desk and a Canadian Tax Desk. Our U.S. Tax Desk handles Florida sales tax compliance for service businesses — the taxable services list, residential versus nonresidential classification, repair versus real property improvement analysis, county discretionary surtax, DR-1 registration and DR-15 filings, resale certificates, and use tax. See pricing or book a call.