An LLC for your cleaning business protects your house from its debts, not from the claim

You knock a vase off a shelf, the client sends a bill, and the letter is addressed to your cleaning company. Whether the company is an LLC changes who can be pursued for the debt. The sources below say it doesn't pay the claim. This page splits those two jobs and prices both. Every page cited below was read on October 1, 2026.

What the LLC does: it keeps the business's debts off your house

A sole proprietorship has no separate existence. The SBA says a sole proprietor's business assets and liabilities aren't separate from personal ones, so you can be held personally liable for the business's debts. For an LLC the same page says that in most instances your house, vehicle and savings won't be at risk if the company faces bankruptcy or lawsuits, and it calls the LLC a fit for owners with significant personal assets they want protected.

New York's Department of State puts the same idea in its own words: an LLC's owners have limited liability for the contractual obligations and other liabilities of the business. That shield is the whole product.

What it leaves out: the claim, the lawyer and the repair bill

Four sources say the shield has limits. Three of them name the cost of a claim or lawsuit as what it leaves out, and the SBA stops at the limit.

• The SBA's insurance page says LLC status can protect your personal property from lawsuits, then adds that "that protection has limits."
• The Hartford says that if your business harms a customer or faces a lawsuit, an LLC alone doesn't cover those costs.
• Insureon says LLC status shields your personal assets but doesn't protect your company finances from the cost of a lawsuit.
• Hiscox says the company's own assets could still be exposed, particularly if you are accused of negligence, and that legal costs add up even when a claim has no merit.

For a house cleaner the claim might be that something of the client's broke or went missing. Applying those four pages to a cleaner is our reasoning, not a quote from any of them: the LLC pays for neither. The general liability page covers who pays for the slip on the wet floor and the dropped mop bucket, and the care, custody and control guide covers the vase you were holding. A client who says a ring vanished is a bond or crime coverage question, which the bonded and insured page sorts out. None of the state pages in the table below mentions insurance.

Filing runs $70 to $300 in five states, and California adds $800 a year

Each row is what the state's own page said. The table covers five states so far.

State	Filing	What else the page says
California	$70 articles of organization, Form LLC-1	Every LLC doing business or organized in the state owes an $800 annual tax, due with the LLC tax voucher
New York	$200 articles of organization	For most LLCs, the articles or a notice must run in two newspapers for six consecutive weeks, at the newspapers' fees, then a $50 certificate of publication is filed within 120 days or the LLC's authority to do business is suspended
Pennsylvania	$125 certificate of organization	For-profit entities pay a $7 annual report fee
Texas	$300 certificate of formation	LLCs are subject to a state franchise tax, which the Comptroller handles; the LLC can't be its own registered agent
New Jersey	$100 certificate of formation	Get an EIN from the IRS first, then file the certificate, then the NJ-REG tax and employer form

California is the outlier among these five. Insureon says $51 a month, or $608 a year, is the median general liability premium of its house cleaning customers. That is not a California figure, and it isn't a quote you would get from a California carrier. Set the FTB's $800 against it and the tax is $192 more, every year, before the $70 filing fee. So on these two numbers a California cleaner pays more each year for the entity than Insureon's median customer pays for the policy that answers the claim. Two sources, two different populations: it says nothing about what your own California quote will be.

New York's publication step adds a cost the state page doesn't price: it says the newspapers charge a fee and gives no figure. Texas has a quirk that matters if you work from your kitchen table. The Secretary of State says the registered office can't be only a mailbox service or a telephone answering service, and the address has to be somewhere process can be served during business hours.

Florida isn't in the table. The Division of Corporations' fee page sat behind a bot check when we tried to read it, so we won't quote a number from memory.

Clients ask for a certificate, and only Turno names LLC papers

The Los Angeles HOA vendor page we read doesn't ask which entity you are. It says all vendors working in residential units must submit a certificate of insurance, with at least $1,000,000 of general liability, workers' comp at statutory limits and the association named as additional insured. A certificate of insurance is the paper that gets you past the front desk.

One place the LLC paperwork does count is Turno. Its License badge accepts LLC articles of organization, business or license tax receipts, or a certificate of good standing. It rejects EIN documents, a DBA or fictitious name filing, and a driver's license. The Liability Insurance badge on the same page (an article dated January 21, 2025) needs an actual policy document, and a simulation or request document is turned away. Insureon makes the general point for LLCs: liability coverage helps you qualify for leases and contracts.

Taxes land on your own return, and a first hire changes the rules

The IRS treats an LLC with one member as disregarded for income tax, so the profit lands on your own return, and an LLC with two or more members as a partnership, unless the LLC elects to be taxed as a corporation. Employment tax is the exception: even a single-member LLC is treated as a separate entity for it. The SBA adds that LLC members are considered self-employed and pay self-employment tax.

In New Jersey the first hire changes less for an LLC than for a sole proprietor. The state's Division of Revenue says an LLC must get an EIN before it files, while a proprietorship needs one once it has employees. New York adds that an LLC's state tax is based on its number of members. For workers' comp the question is headcount, and the states disagree about whether LLC members count toward it: our requirements page shows Florida counting them and Tennessee not counting LLC owners, with the thresholds for each state. The cleaning business license page shows what each state wants from a sole proprietor or an LLC.

Questions to settle before you pay a filing fee

• Do the clients you want ask for an entity, or only for a certificate of insurance? On the pages above, only Turno's License badge named LLC papers, and it takes a business license tax receipt instead.
• Is the policy written in the LLC's name, and does it name you as the owner? Ask the agent before you sign.
• What does the state charge every year, and what does the policy cost? On the two figures above, in California the first is the bigger number.
• Who is on payroll in 12 months? One employee brings in employment tax and, in some states, the workers' comp rules.

The cheapest way to see which of these applies to you is to call the broker and ask for the certificate you would hand an HOA. It names a policy, not a company type, and it's the page an HOA's front desk asks for.