Do I Have to Issue a 1099 to My Cleaning Lady?

In almost every case, no, you do not have to issue a 1099 to your cleaning lady. The IRS only requires 1099 reporting for payments made in the course of a trade or business, and paying someone to clean your own home is a personal expense. There’s a second reason too: a cleaning person who works in your home is usually a household employee, not an independent contractor, so the relevant form would be a W-2 rather than a 1099. The question worth asking instead is whether you owe household employment taxes.

When a 1099 Would Actually Be Required

A 1099-NEC only enters the picture when both of these are true: the cleaner is a genuine independent contractor, and you’re paying them for a business purpose. The most common examples are a landlord paying a cleaner to turn over a rental unit reported on Schedule E, or a sole proprietor paying for office cleaning. A dedicated home office you claim as a home office deduction can also count.

Even then, the threshold matters. You issue a 1099-NEC only if you paid the contractor $600 or more during the calendar year, counting any amounts they billed for supplies or materials as part of the service.¹ Pay a rental cleaner $500 for the year? No 1099 required.

Payments to corporations are generally exempt from 1099-NEC reporting.² Payments to an individual, a partnership, or an LLC taxed as a sole proprietorship or partnership are reportable at $600. So if the cleaning service you use is an incorporated company, you don’t file a 1099 even if the cleaning is a business expense.

Your Cleaning Lady Is Probably a Household Employee

The IRS specifically lists housecleaning workers among the types of workers who perform household work and are generally treated as household employees.³ The test is control: if you can direct not just what work gets done but how it gets done, the worker is your employee. That includes telling your cleaner which rooms to prioritize, what products to use, or when to show up.

A cleaner qualifies as an independent contractor only when they control how the work is performed. Typically that means they run their own cleaning business, advertise to the general public, bring their own equipment and supplies, and hire their own helpers.³ When a cleaning company sends workers to your home and controls how they do the job, the company is the employer, not you.

This distinction changes the paperwork entirely. Household employee means W-2 and possibly household employment taxes. True independent contractor plus business use means 1099-NEC at $600. True independent contractor plus personal use means nothing at all.

What You May Owe Instead: Household Employment Taxes

When your cleaning lady is a household employee, you don’t file a 1099. You may, however, owe what’s commonly called the “nanny tax,” which covers Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes. It applies even to a cleaner who comes just once a week, and plenty of homeowners don’t discover this obligation until the IRS points it out.

Social Security and Medicare

If you pay a household employee $3,000 or more in cash wages during 2026, you owe Social Security and Medicare taxes on those wages.³ Social Security is 6.2% each for you and the employee, up to the $184,500 wage base in 2026.⁴ Medicare is 1.45% each with no wage cap. You can withhold the employee’s share from their pay or cover it yourself.

Below $3,000 in total cash wages for the year, neither of you owes Social Security or Medicare on those wages.³ A cleaner who comes biweekly at $150 per visit will run to roughly $3,900 over a full year, so most steady arrangements cross the line.

Federal Unemployment Tax

If you pay $1,000 or more in cash wages to household employees in any single calendar quarter, you also owe FUTA.³ FUTA applies to the first $7,000 in wages per employee per year. The rate is 6%, but most employers get a credit of up to 5.4% for state unemployment taxes, dropping the effective rate to 0.6%.

How You Report It

Household employment taxes go on Schedule H, attached to your personal Form 1040 by April 15. You also file a W-2 for the employee and send it to the Social Security Administration by the end of January.³ You’ll need an Employer Identification Number, which you can get online at no cost. Withholding federal income tax from a household employee’s pay is optional unless the employee asks for it.

Filing a 1099-NEC If You Do Need One

If you fall into the narrow group that actually owes a 1099-NEC (business use, true independent contractor, $600 or more), here’s how to handle it.

Before you make the first payment, ask the contractor to fill out Form W-9. That collects their legal name, address, and Taxpayer Identification Number, either a Social Security Number or an EIN.⁵ Getting the W-9 up front is much easier than chasing one down in January.

Copy B of the 1099-NEC goes to the contractor and Copy A goes to the IRS, both due January 31.² If you file 10 or more information returns of any kind during the year, you must file electronically.⁶

If the contractor refuses to give you their TIN, you must begin backup withholding at 24% on every payment and remit those amounts to the IRS. Skip backup withholding when it’s required and you can become personally liable for what should have been withheld.⁷ Telling the contractor about the 24% withholding usually gets the W-9 turned in.

Payments Through Apps or Credit Cards

Payments made through third-party settlement organizations or payment cards get reported on Form 1099-K by the payment platform, not by you on a 1099-NEC.⁸ For most homeowners this changes nothing, because personal payments weren’t reportable to begin with. If you’re a landlord paying a cleaner by credit card, the card processor handles the reporting. If you pay through a peer-to-peer app, you’re still on the hook for a 1099-NEC at $600 or more for business payments; the app’s own 1099-K threshold is $20,000 and more than 200 transactions.⁹

One Non-Tax Item to Check

Workers’ compensation isn’t an IRS matter, but it can hit household employers hard. Many states require you to carry workers’ comp insurance once a domestic worker crosses a certain hours-per-week or wages-per-quarter threshold. The rules vary a lot: some states set the trigger at 16 hours a week, some at 40, some at a dollar amount, and a few require coverage for any domestic worker at all. If your cleaner is injured on the job and you didn’t have required coverage, you could be personally liable for medical bills and disability benefits. Check with your state’s workers’ compensation agency to see where you stand.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Am I Required to File a Form 1099 or Other Information Return?
2
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (04/2025)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 926 (2026), Household Employer’s Tax Guide
4
Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base
5
Internal Revenue Service. Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN)
6
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 801, Who Must File Information Returns Electronically
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for the Requester of Form W-9
8
Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your Form 1099-K
9
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Issues FAQs on Form 1099-K Threshold Under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill