Cleaning service

What It Means

A cleaning service is paid help that cleans your home. It can be a company that sends a team, or an independent cleaner who runs their own business, or a housekeeper you hire and direct yourself. Services usually charge by the hour or a set price per visit, and many offer regular visits (weekly, every two weeks, monthly) as well as one-time deep cleans or move-out cleans.

How It Sounds at Home

• "We have cleaners come every other Friday."
• "They quoted three hours for a first deep clean."
• "Is she through a company or on her own?"

The Breakdown

Worked example. A household books a cleaner for three hours every two weeks at an example rate of $35 an hour:

These are example numbers. Your quote depends on your area and your home. For national wage data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes figures for maids and housekeeping cleaners in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables, which describe what cleaners earn rather than what a service charges.

What moves the price (Buhata's own list)

• The size of the home and the number of bathrooms
• A first visit or a deep clean, as opposed to regular upkeep
• How often the cleaner comes
• Extras such as inside the oven, inside the fridge or windows
• Pets, since hair adds time

What the result means. The yearly figure is what the service costs you over a year. If you hire someone directly and the yearly amount reaches $3,000 in 2026, the IRS rules for household employeesHousehold employeeA worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it. See more may come in, so check who the cleaner works for before that point.

Good to Know

Who the cleaner works for matters for taxes. The IRS says a worker is your household employee when you can control both what work they do and how they do it. A worker provided by an agency that controls the work isn't your employee, and neither is a self-employed cleaner who controls how the job is done, typically brings their own tools and offers their services to the public. If you do have a household employee, IRS Publication 926 (2026) says social security and Medicare taxes apply once you pay that person $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026, and federal unemploymentUnemployment benefitsWeekly payments from a state's unemployment insurance program to eligible workers who lose a job through no fault of their own, with rules set by each state. See more tax applies once you pay $1,000 or more in cash wages to household employees in any calendar quarter. For your own situation, read the current edition of Publication 926 or ask a tax professional.

Related Terms and Categories

• House cleaner cost

  What you pay to have someone clean your home, quoted by the hour or as a flat price per visit, which is more than the cleaner's own hourly wage.

• Tipping house cleaners

  Giving a house cleaner extra money beyond the price of the service, either at visits or once a year, which is a choice with no official rule.

• Household employee

  A worker you hire to do household work, such as a nanny or housekeeper, when you control both what work they do and how they do it.

• Nanny tax

  The federal employment taxes a family owes when it pays a nanny or other household employee enough cash wages in a year, reported on Schedule H.

• Cleaning checklist

  A written list of household cleaning jobs, often split into daily and weekly tasks, that you tick off so nothing gets missed.

Chores, cleaning and home care