House cleaners converting to an LLC in Hawaii

The state-side list is one item: the GET license

A Hawaii house cleaning business converting to an LLC re-issues one state registration: the general excise tax license. No Hawaii board licenses the trade itself.

The state's Business Action Center is the office that steers owners to their licenses, and its steps-to-starting page states the general rule plainly: all persons doing business in Hawaii must obtain a general excise tax license. The activity-specific licenses and permits it points to are tied to specific business activities, so if you hold none of those activity licenses, there is nothing at the boards to re-issue.

So this trade's conversion is the short shape. There is no board to file with, no license to re-apply for, and no inspection to schedule. What moves is the tax registration, and what follows it is commercial paper, which is where this trade's real work sits.

If you ever add licensed work, a restoration sub-trade, a pesticide application, a pressure-washing build-out, read that trade's rules before you take the job. The trade pages on this site cover the ones most cleaners get pulled toward.

Hawaii's Business Action Center states that everyone doing business in Hawaii must obtain a general excise tax license. — Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Action Center, retrieved 2026-09-29

The GET license re-registers in the LLC's name

The license you hold today is registered against your name and your taxpayer identity. The LLC's license goes on the company's own Hawaii Tax ID, and there is no transfer form between the two.

Hawaii's own instructions are direct about it: a single-member LLC disregarded for federal income tax is still a separate entity for state taxes, and must obtain its own license and file its own general excise returns. Form BB-1 registers it, at a one-time $20 fee.

The GET's shape does not change with the move. Cleaning services bill at the retail rate the Department of Taxation lists at 4.5 percent including the county surcharge, on gross income before expenses, and the Department states plainly that GET is not a sales tax and that passing it on to customers is optional.

Close the proprietorship's side when the company's side is live: the final GET return for the old entity, and the license cancellation on Form GEW-TA-RV-1. Leaving the old license idle reads to the state as an abandoned registration.

The full tax walk-through, including what does not change on your federal return, is taxes after the conversion.

$20Hawaii's Form BB-1 instructions state that a disregarded single-member LLC is still a separate entity that must obtain its own general excise tax license and file its own state returns. — Hawaii Department of Taxation, retrieved 2026-09-29

Hawaii tax licenses and permits are cancelled on Form GEW-TA-RV-1, per the published instructions to Form BB-1. — Hawaii Department of Taxation, retrieved 2026-09-29

The EIN is the one other number question

The federal side of this trade's conversion is usually one question with a quiet answer: most single owners keep the number they have.

The IRS states that you do not need a new EIN if you use your sole-proprietor EIN for your single-member LLC, do not elect corporate tax treatment, and have no employees and no excise tax. The moment you hire, that answer flips, because employment taxes run under the company's own name and EIN.

If you do need a new number, it is free from the IRS, online, and issued immediately when approved, and the IRS warns against the sites that charge for one. Read the EIN step on a service's checkout page accordingly.

The full decision, including the W-9 row that surprises converting owners, is EIN and tax IDs after converting.

The IRS states you keep your EIN when your single-member LLC elects no corporate treatment and has no employees or excise tax, and that employment or excise obligations require a new EIN. — Internal Revenue Service, retrieved 2026-09-29

$0The IRS states that you never have to pay a fee for an EIN and warns against websites that charge for one, with an approved online application issuing the number immediately. — Internal Revenue Service, retrieved 2026-09-29

The real work: recurring accounts and their paper

A cleaning business's conversions live in its account list, not its license list, because the accounts are recurring and the paper runs on habit.

A standing weekly clean is an agreement, even if nobody signed anything, and it moves by a letter per account: the LLC takes over from a stated date, the cleans before that date belong to the old business, and both sides sign. The recurring ones are the easiest to miss and the most expensive to reconcile, because a payment run against the old arrangement after the changeover is money in the wrong entity's books.

Property managers are the formal end of the same list. They pay on contracts, ask for W-9s before paying a new vendor, and check certificates of insurance against the name on the contract. Send the W-9 and the certificate before the first clean under the company's name, not after the first invoice.

The letter templates, the assignment-versus-novation choice, and the certificate timing are on the contracts guide.

The IRS states that a W-9 from a single-member LLC disregarded for federal income tax should provide the owner's SSN or EIN, not the LLC's EIN. — Internal Revenue Service, retrieved 2026-09-29

Bonds and insurance: what customers ask cleaners for

Cleaning customers ask for two pieces of paper a state board never did: a certificate of general liability naming the business, and often an honesty bond, the janitorial bond that answers a theft claim by an employee in a client's home.

Both name an entity, and both must be re-issued or endorsed to the LLC before the company signs the work they cover. A bond in your personal name does not answer for an LLC's employee, and a certificate that still names the old insured is the paper a property manager's office rejects at intake.

Employees add workers' compensation to the list, and the payroll registrations move under the company's name and EIN from the first payroll the LLC runs. An employee's paperwork, like the tax registrations, is dated, so the changeover date has to land between two payrolls rather than in the middle of one.

If you clean solo with no bond and no employees, this section is a short read: the general liability certificate is the one piece of paper worth moving on the same day the contracts move.

The IRS states that a single-member LLC disregarded for income tax is still required to use its own name and EIN for reporting and payment of employment taxes. — Internal Revenue Service, retrieved 2026-09-29

The whole conversion for a solo cleaner, in order

The short shape, start to finish: decide the name and serve as your own registered agent, file the $50 Articles of Organization, write the operating agreement with the transfer schedule, open the company's account, register the $20 GET license in the company's name, re-paper the accounts, re-issue the insurance certificate, then close out the proprietorship's registrations.

The trade name goes on when the brand needs the company's name behind it, at the state's $50 application fee. The annual report lands on the quarter matching the formation date, at $15, and the first one is not due in the year you form.

That is the whole state-side calendar, and it fits on one page: the conversion checklist. Every fee named here, in one table, is the cost breakdown, and the general sequence with the steps that do not apply to this trade is the conversion guide.

$50Hawaii charges a $50 filing fee for Articles of Organization, and the $15 LLC annual report falls on the last day of the quarter matching the formation date. — Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division, retrieved 2026-09-29

$50Hawaii's application fee to register a trade name is $50. — Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division, retrieved 2026-09-29

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