One of the questions I get asked the most is: "How can you run a residential cleaning business in the United States if you don't even live there?" It's a fair question. At first, it sounds almost impossible. House cleaning is a physical service, so naturally people assume the owner also needs to be physically present. The reality is quite different. The business model is built around systems, communication, and technology rather than the owner being on-site. There are a few challenges to overcome, but none of them are impossible. The First Step: Registering a US LLC as a Foreigner The first thing many people don't realise is that the United States allows foreigners to register an LLC without living in the country. You don't need to be a US citizen. You don't need to have a US address. You don't even need to visit the United States to form the company. Once you've registered your LLC and received your EIN from the IRS, you have the legal foundation to start building the business. One of the reasons I chose this structure is that it opens the door to operating a legitimate US business while living elsewhere. Depending on your personal circumstances and tax residency, there can also be tax advantages to using this structure, which is something worth researching carefully for your own situation. Local Presence Isn't Required The second misconception is that you need to live in the city where you're operating. In reality, local presence is helpful, but it isn't essential. Today's technology has changed the way service businesses operate. Customers call a business number. Cleaners receive their schedules on their phones. Messages are sent instantly. Bookings happen online. Whether you're sitting ten minutes away or ten thousand kilometres away, the customer experience is exactly the same. From their perspective, they're calling a local cleaning company. From your perspective, you're simply managing the business through your phone and computer. Everything happens digitally.

While you're researching different markets, there are a number of things you can start working on that won't lock you into a specific city. As a general guideline, I like to look for markets where the average household income is around $130,000 to $140,000 per year. In my opinion, that's a strong target for the type of premium, online-first cleaning business I'm building. Again, this isn't a hard rule—you can absolutely build a successful business in lower-income markets—but higher household incomes tend to align better with the customer behaviour I'm targeting. That said, market research is a little more nuanced than simply looking at household income. What I've found is that the best opportunities come from combining two different types of research. The first is keyword research. I want to understand how many people are actually searching for terms like house cleaning, house cleaners, maid service, or cleaning service in the specific suburb or city I'm considering. If nobody is searching for those services, it doesn't matter how affluent the area is. The second is market research. This is where I look at the demographics of the area—average household income, owner occupancy, population growth, the number of families with children, and whether it's the type of community that regularly purchases recurring home services. Neither of these tells the full story on its own. You might find an affluent suburb with very little search demand, or an area with lots of searches but customer behaviours that don't fit the type of business you're trying to build. The goal is to find the overlap: an area with healthy search volume and the right demographic profile. When those two line up, you've given yourself a much stronger foundation to build a recurring cleaning business. While you're doing this research, there are also a number of things you can get started on immediately. One of the first is registering your LLC. Using one of the online LLC formation companies makes this a fairly straightforward process. If you're a non-US resident, it typically takes around four to six weeks to receive your EIN, so it's worth getting that process underway early rather than waiting until everything else is ready.

I want to share a quick introduction and overview of how, as a non-US resident from South Africa, I started my own cleaning company in the US while still living in South Africa. It all began when I found a Reddit post by a guy named Rohan, who explained how to essentially start a business like this. After going through the usual internet rabbit holes and a lot of back-and-forth research, I eventually got to the core message of his post. It’s like a short course on YouTube, where you learn how to do everything on your own. However, most of the content is geared toward US residents starting a cleaning business. That said, I’m now two months in and have been making a few hundred dollars in profit each month. It’s still early days, and I’m just getting started, but it really is possible. I think there are loads of lessons to be learned, and for South Africans or other non-US residents, this presents a major opportunity. Especially if you don’t earn in dollars, technology today allows us to interact and do business with people in the US, accept their credit cards, and help them get services. The currency exchange is amazing for us as South Africans. The journey has been interesting, though not without challenges. You still need to learn all the typical business skills like marketing, growing, and scaling your business. There are plenty of hurdles there. Being a non-US resident also brings some challenges, but it’s definitely possible to overcome them. For example, you can register a US company as a foreigner, get an IRS Employer Identification Number (EIN), and use that to open a US bank account. From there, you can open a Stripe account, sign up for software, accept credit card payments, and manage your business remotely using VoIP for calls, cold calling, and customer service. It’s not easy, and it’s certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme, but I’ve slowly been building this business. If you’re interested or have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Thanks!

Hey everyone, welcome! You might have just joined this group and noticed there aren’t many posts yet. That’s because we’re just getting started — and I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Stephan, and I created this space to help people like you build a remote cleaning business in the United States, even if you don’t live there. I know it might sound too good to be true, but I’ve done it myself — and it really is possible. You don’t need to be in the U.S., and you don’t need a huge amount of money to begin. With the right steps, you can get set up for just a few hundred dollars and start building your business from anywhere in the world. 👉 If you’re curious, interested, or even just a little unsure — send me a message. I’d love to hear about your concerns, your interests, and what’s stopping you from starting. That way I can better shape this community and the support I give here. This is just the beginning, but together we can make it a place where people from all over the world learn how to start and grow a U.S. business — remotely. Excited to get to know you all,– Stephan