NAICS codes for janitorial and cleaning services: 561720 and its neighbors

This page is for cleaning companies filling in a NAICS or SIC field (SAM.gov, a bid, a bond or insurance application, a vendor portal) and for sellers building lists of janitorial firms. It covers the codes, the rules for picking between them, how many businesses there are and how to find the bigger ones.

The NAICS codes for cleaning services

The Census Bureau's index puts window cleaning, venetian blind cleaning, service station degreasing and restaurant kitchen cleaning in 561720. Washing a building's exterior moves to 561790, and sandblasting one moves to construction (238990).

How to choose

NAICS classifies by primary activity, measured in practice by revenue. Most cleaning companies are 561720; the edge cases come from the work mix:

The federal bundling rule. The SBA's size standard table has a footnote for 561210: a procurement counts as facilities support only when it requires three or more separate activities, and if one activity is 50% or more of the contract's value, the procurement takes that activity's code instead. So a base operations contract that's 60% custodial work is coded 561720, with its $22.0 million standard, not 561210 and its $47.0 million standard. Register both codes in SAM.gov if you bid on bundled work.

The SIC codes for cleaning services

For janitorial and general cleaning, the SIC code is 7349. For pressure washing, the SIC manual put "cleaning building exteriors" and steam cleaning under 1799, a construction code, while NAICS moved exterior washing to 561790. Because 7349 covers both janitorial and other building services, a SIC 7349 list mixes office cleaners with window, duct and exterior specialists. On SEC EDGAR, building services companies file under 7340.

How many cleaning businesses there are

County Business Patterns 2023 counts 67,799 janitorial establishments (561720) with 1,088,193 employees and $32.74 billion in annual payroll, on a 2017 NAICS basis (561720 didn't change in 2022).

The top states are California (6,956), Florida (6,675), Texas (3,858), New York (3,762) and Illinois (2,520). The neighbors: 561740 carpet cleaning has 6,673 establishments, 561790 has 18,069 and 561210 facilities support has 9,019, with 283,836 employees.

CBP counts only businesses with payroll, and in cleaning that's a small minority. Nonemployer Statistics for 2023 count 1,095,927 janitorial businesses with no employees (NAICS 56172), with $22.78 billion in receipts: about 16 for every establishment with staff, averaging about $20,800 each (our calculation). The 3,296 establishments with 50 or more employees are where the contract cleaning market's buyers of equipment, software, insurance and staffing sit.

SBA size standards

From the SBA's table effective March 17, 2023, in average annual receipts over the last five completed fiscal years:

Where the code gets used, and what a wrong one costs

• Federal and public bids. The contracting officer assigns one code to each solicitation. A firm registered only under 561790 won't appear when an agency searches SAM.gov for 561720 custodial contractors, and a firm that's small under 561720 may not be small under the 561740 or 561790 standards.
• Tax returns. The IRS Schedule C list uses 561720 Janitorial services, 561740 Carpet & upholstery cleaning services and 561790 Other services to buildings & dwellings, matching NAICS.
• Insurance and bonding. Tell your insurer and surety about pressure washing or biohazard work. Those are different activities with their own codes, and a policy written for interior cleaning may not be priced for them.

Finding cleaning companies

Public building services companies file under SIC 7340 (EDGAR list for SIC 7340). That list shows how loose SIC labels are: it includes ABM Industries, a facility services company, but also Airbnb. The listed companies that do large-scale cleaning:

Healthcare Services Group files under 8050 (nursing and personal care facilities), the industry it serves rather than the work it does, so an SIC search for cleaning misses it.

Nearly every other cleaning company is private, but federal contract records name the ones that work for the government. On USAspending.gov, federal contract obligations coded 561720 totaled $1,788.6 million in fiscal year 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025). The largest recipients:

Several of the largest recipients are nonprofit rehabilitation and employment organizations, a reminder that federal custodial buying includes the AbilityOne program (FAR subpart 8.7), under which agencies must buy listed services from nonprofits that employ people who are blind or have severe disabilities. Bebop finds private cleaning companies from a plain-language description (commercial or residential, region, size) and researches each account; the commercial cleaning leads guide covers how those buyers work.

Worked example

Illustrative example. The company and figures are invented to show the method.

Clearwater Facility Services (clearwater.example) has 140 employees in Virginia. Revenue: 70% nightly office and school cleaning, 15% carpet care for the same clients, 10% pressure washing, 5% day porter and reception work.

1. Primary code: 561720, for 70% of revenue.
2. Other codes in SAM.gov: 561740 and 561790 for the specialty work, and 561210 for bundled facility contracts.
3. Size check: average annual receipts of $11.8 million over five years. Small under 561720 ($22.0 million) and 561210 ($47.0 million), but not under 561740 ($8.5 million) or 561790 ($9.0 million). A carpet-only set-aside is out of reach.
4. A base contract that's 55% custodial work is coded 561720 under the SBA footnote, so the firm competes as small.
5. SIC for a bank form: 7349.

Next step: see who buys cleaning and how to reach them in the commercial cleaning leads guide.