House Cleaning Costs Canberra ACT 2026 - Price Guide

How Canberra Cleaners Arrive at a Price

Canberra house cleaners set their prices in one of two ways, either an hourly rate for each cleaner on site or a set total for the whole visit. Regular work sits at about $45 to $65 per cleaner hour, and first visits or one-off jobs cost about $55 to $75 per hour. Those rates become a per visit figure once the cleaner estimates how long your home will take, which depends on its size, layout and condition. The bands on this page reflect quotes for homes across the territory in 2026, before extras or travel fees are added. Choosing and checking the person who will hold your key is a separate subject, set out in hiring a cleaner in Canberra.

Labour is the largest part of a domestic cleaning bill, since products and equipment cost a cleaner far less than the hours spent in your home. That is why the size of the home, the number of bathrooms and the amount of build-up move the price far more than the products used. The Cleaning Services Award 2020 sets the minimum pay for employed cleaners, and the Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the current rates. Businesses with staff also pay insurance, superannuation, travel time and booking costs, so their hourly price sits well above the wage a cleaner receives. Sole traders may charge a little less, although the cheaper quote does not always include the same work. Comparing prices is far easier when each quote shows the hours, the number of cleaners and the tasks included.

What Each Visit Costs on a Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly Plan

Fortnightly cleaning of a three bedroom house in Canberra costs about $130 to $220 a visit, covering the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, dusting and bins. Two bedroom units sit at about $90 to $180 a visit on the same schedule, and four bedroom houses at about $180 to $300. Weekly visits cost less each time because the cleaner faces only a week of use, while monthly visits cost more because grime has had four weeks to set. The weekly and monthly figures in the table below are estimates worked out from the fortnightly bands and the hourly rate, not separate survey prices. Homes with two or more bathrooms, a separate study or a large open living area tend to sit in the upper half of each band. Units with a single bathroom and hard floors throughout sit closer to the bottom.

Visit frequency can also change the hourly rate a cleaner charges. Some businesses offer a lower rate for weekly bookings and charge more for monthly visits, since a monthly slot is harder to fill and needs more work each time. Weekly visits leave less build-up for each clean, so a cleaner can finish a three bedroom house in fewer hours than a fortnightly visit needs. Even so, four short weekly visits cost more across a month than two longer fortnightly ones.

Secondary dwellings, such as a granny flat behind the main house, are priced like a small unit added to the same visit. Adding one to a fortnightly booking costs less than booking it alone, because the cleaner is already on site with the equipment. Its separate kitchen and bathroom still take time, so expect the flat to add close to the price of a one bedroom unit clean. Tell the cleaner whether the flat is lived in by family or rented out, since a tenanted flat may need its own access arrangements.

Turning an Hourly Rate Into a Per Visit Total

An hourly quote only becomes useful once you know how many hours the cleaner expects to spend. Dividing the fortnightly band for a three bedroom house by the regular hourly rate points to roughly three to four cleaner hours for each visit. Teams of two finish sooner, yet the bill still counts every hour worked by every cleaner, so the total barely changes. Quotes that name the team size but not the hours leave you unable to predict the invoice. Get the expected cleaner hours written on the quote, so the first bill can be checked against them.

Set totals work the other way, with the cleaner quoting one figure after seeing photos or walking through the home. The total protects you if the job runs long, but it also means the cleaner has built in a margin for unknowns such as a badly soiled oven. For regular cleans, some businesses quote a higher set total for the first visit and a lower one once the home reaches a steady standard. Deep cleans and move-out cleans suit a set total, because the scope is fixed and the home is empty or nearly so. Hourly pricing suits light, repeated work where the time needed is easy to predict from one visit to the next. Whichever method a cleaner uses, the quote should say what happens if the job takes much longer than planned.

Some businesses price large or unusual homes by the square metre instead of by the number of bedrooms. Floor area helps when a home has big open living spaces and few bedrooms, which a bedroom count would underprice. Open plan homes with a large rumpus room, home office or studio fall into this group, while leased workplaces are priced in our office cleaning guide. If a cleaner quotes this way, confirm whether the area is the internal floor area or includes garages and balconies.

What a First Visit, Spring Clean or Deep Clean Costs

First cleans cost more than the regular visits that follow, because the cleaner is removing months of grime from shower screens, rangehoods and window sills. In Canberra a first or one-off clean of a three bedroom house runs at about $220 to $350, against $130 to $220 for later fortnightly visits. Some cleaners charge the first visit at the one-off hourly rate of $55 to $75 and then drop to the regular rate. That higher first bill is normal and should not put you off a cleaner whose regular price suits you.

Deep cleans go further than a first clean, adding the insides of cupboards and drawers, skirting boards, door frames, light switches, rangehood filters and grimy grout. Deep cleaning a three bedroom house in Canberra costs about $350 to $550, and larger or heavily soiled homes can reach $700. Spring cleans are simply deep cleans booked once a year, and cleaners price them in the same way. Walls, blinds, light fittings and window tracks can be added to either job, and each one adds time to the quote. Steam cleaners made by Kärcher and Polti lift grime from grout and tracks, and a cleaner who brings one can shorten the hours spent scrubbing by hand. Moving into an empty home is the easiest time for a deep clean, since no furniture blocks the cupboards or floors.

Cleaning after a renovation sits in an estimated band of $400 to $800 for a three bedroom house, because fine plaster and timber dust settles inside cupboards, vents and window tracks. That dust needs a vacuum with a HEPA filter, a fine filter that traps particles a standard bag lets through, and Makita and Festool make dust extractors fitted with them. Builders sometimes include a basic clean at handover, so read the building contract before paying for a second one. The dust can take two visits to clear, since it keeps settling for a day or two after the first pass. Booking the clean after every trade has finished avoids paying twice when an electrician or painter returns.

Small Homes, Short Visits and the Minimum Charge

Cleaning businesses set a minimum booking length, which might be two hours for one business and three for another. That minimum matters most in studio and one bedroom units, where the work itself may take less time than the minimum allows. One bedroom units cleaned in ninety minutes can still be billed at two or three hours, which moves the visit price close to that of a larger home. Some cleaners solve this with a lower set price for small units, while others suggest a fortnightly booking in place of a short weekly one. If your home is small, find out how each cleaner charges when the work finishes early.

Teams can also lift the minimum, because each cleaner's minimum counts separately. Sending two cleaners with a two hour minimum each means four cleaner hours are charged, even if the pair finishes sooner. One-off bookings can carry a longer minimum than a regular slot, since the cleaner has fewer chances to fill the rest of the day. Adding a small extra, such as wiping out the fridge, can use up spare minutes you are already paying for. Booking a regular slot is the simplest way to avoid paying for time the cleaner never needed. In a small unit, a longer fortnightly visit also leaves room for jobs that a short weekly visit would skip.

Extras Priced on Top of a Standard Clean

Standard cleans cover the surfaces you can see, so anything behind a door or inside an appliance is priced as an extra. Oven cleaning is the largest of these, at an estimated $80 to $160 depending on the size, the number of racks and how much baked-on grease there is. Pyrolytic ovens, which heat to a very high temperature to burn food residue to ash, take less work, and Westinghouse, Bosch and Electrolux all make pyrolytic models. Running that self-clean cycle before the cleaner arrives leaves only the door glass, seals and ash to wipe out. Inside the fridge adds an estimated $40 to $80, and Fisher & Paykel and Samsung make French door fridges with plumbed ice makers that sit at the top of that range. Rangehood filters, the microwave and the dishwasher filter are smaller jobs that some cleaners include and others price at a few dollars each.

Balconies and courtyards add an estimated $40 to $100 for sweeping, mopping the hard surface and wiping the rail and outdoor furniture. Inside glass and sills can be part of a deep clean, but outside glass on a two storey home is work for a specialist, priced in window cleaning in Canberra. Blinds are priced per blind, and venetian blinds take far longer than roller blinds. Marks on walls are priced by the room or by the hour, and a quote should say whether that means spot cleaning or washing whole walls. Carpets are a separate trade with their own machines, and the bands for them sit in carpet cleaning across Canberra.

Sliding door and window tracks gather grit, insects and leaves, and cleaning them properly takes a brush, a vacuum and a damp cloth. Tracks can be part of a deep clean, or priced per door or per window, depending on the business. Light fittings, ceiling fans and exhaust fan covers are similar, since they need a ladder and careful handling. Rangehoods with mesh filters can be soaked and degreased, while charcoal filters in recirculating models need replacing, not washing. Laundry tubs, the dryer lint filter and the washing machine door seal are small jobs that add a few minutes each. Listing these items on the quote stops them being skipped on a busy day.

Vacate Clean Prices and What Shifts Them

End of lease cleaning in Canberra costs about $320 to $550 for a two bedroom home, $400 to $700 for three bedrooms and $500 to $900 for four. These packages cost more than a deep clean because they cover every surface in an empty home, including walls, tracks, light fittings and the oven. Some packages include carpet steam cleaning and outside windows, while others list them as extras, which explains much of the gap between two quotes for the same home. Re-clean guarantees, where the cleaner returns to fix items the property manager flags, come with some packages and add a little to the price. The tenancy rules on cleanliness, condition reports and bond refunds have their own guide, bond cleaning in Canberra. Tenants who are also paying for a truck can find moving prices under removalists in the ACT, and booking both together helps fix a timeline.

Timing changes the price of a move-out clean as much as the size of the home. Weekend and end of month slots can book out early when leases end on those dates, and some businesses charge more for them. Booking a weekday clean, with the home empty and the power and water still connected, keeps the job inside the standard package. Leaving no rubbish behind also avoids a removal fee, since rubbish removal in the ACT is priced as its own job.

Tenants who prefer to do most of the cleaning themselves can book only the hardest parts, such as the oven, the carpets and the shower screens. Prices for those items match the extras table above, which can bring a move-out bill well below a full package. The trade-off is that a partial clean carries no re-clean guarantee for the rooms you cleaned yourself. That choice suits a small unit in fair condition better than a large house with a long tenancy behind it.

Build-Up, Pets and Clutter as Price Factors

The condition of a home moves the price more than its suburb does. Soap scum on glass shower screens, grease on the rangehood and dust on high ledges can each add an hour to a first visit. Pet hair takes extra vacuuming on carpet, rugs and upholstery, and a home with two dogs or cats can sit at the top of each band. Clutter on benches, floors and tables slows a cleaner down, since items have to be moved before each surface can be wiped. Some cleaners charge a decluttering rate or ask that surfaces be cleared before they arrive.

Heavy mould on ceilings, smoke residue and severe clutter fall outside a domestic clean. Mould that keeps returning in a bathroom points to a ventilation or moisture problem, which needs bathroom mould removal and prevention at the source. Flea infestations need treatment before any clean will last, so book pest control in the ACT ahead of the cleaner. Soot from wood heaters on the walls and ceilings of older homes can need sugar soap and extra time, and some cleaners price that as a wall wash. Homes affected by loose-fill asbestos insulation have strict limits on entering roof spaces and wall cavities, and asbestos testing and inspection can confirm what a home contains. Sending photos of each of these problems with the quote request lets the cleaner price them honestly.

Bathrooms, Storeys and Floor Types in the Price

Bathrooms take more time per square metre than any other room, so their number has a large effect on a quote. A three bedroom house with one bathroom and one with an ensuite, a main bathroom and a powder room are different jobs, even when the floor area is similar. Stairs add time because the cleaner carries equipment between levels and cleans each tread and the handrail. Townhouses spread over two or three levels can cost as much as a larger single storey house for that reason. Hard floors such as tiles, timber and vinyl need vacuuming and mopping, while carpet needs only vacuuming on a regular visit. Engineered stone benchtops made by Caesarstone and Smartstone need a pH neutral cleaner, meaning one that is neither acidic nor alkaline, to avoid dulling the surface.

Natural stone such as marble needs the same gentle products and careful drying, and some cleaners add time for polished stone floors. Timber floors should be cleaned with a barely damp mop, and Bona makes cleaning products designed for finished timber. Glass shower screens, mirrors and stainless steel appliances show streaks, so a quote that names the products used on them is a good sign. Telling the cleaner about these surfaces before the quote prevents a price change after the first visit. Homes with large internal glass doors or panels also add a little time to every visit.

Pre-Sale and Open Home Cleans

Homes going on the market need a clean that photographs well, which sits between a deep clean and a move-out clean in scope. Listing photos show windows, shower screens, kitchen benches and the front entry clearly, so a pre-sale clean puts its hours into those areas. For a three bedroom house the cost is close to a deep clean, at about $350 to $550, with outside windows and a driveway wash on top. Owners holding weekly open homes may book a short tidy before each one, charged at the hourly rate with the cleaner's minimum. Once the home sells, the move-out clean at settlement is a separate booking, and some cleaners discount it for a customer they already know.

Outside areas count for a sale as much as the rooms do. Pressure cleaning a single driveway costs about $150 to $300, and a fresh seal can follow as part of driveway cleaning and sealing. Gutters full of leaves show in photos taken from the street, and gutter cleaning in Canberra costs about $150 to $280 for a single storey home. Pools that have turned green before a sale need a recovery treatment over several days, priced in pool cleaning and maintenance. Booking the outdoor jobs a week before the photos leaves time for anything that was missed. Inside, the cleaner can then finish the day before the photographer arrives.

Landlords preparing a rental between tenants book much the same scope as an end of lease clean, and the price bands are the same. Property managers may arrange the clean and pass on the invoice, sometimes with an added management fee. Booking the cleaner directly can avoid that fee, although the manager may prefer a cleaner they already use for inspections. Repairs, painting or pest treatment should be finished before the clean, so dust and spray do not land on cleaned surfaces. Clean, empty rooms also photograph better for the next rental listing.

Where Travel Fees Start Around the Territory

Travel fees in Canberra depend on where the cleaner is based and how far your home sits from their other bookings. A cleaner based in Belconnen may charge nothing for Gungahlin or the inner north but add a fee for Tuggeranong, while a Tuggeranong business may do the opposite. Newer Molonglo Valley suburbs such as Whitlam and Denman Prospect sit at the western edge of the city, so some cleaners add a small fee there. Rural properties near Hall or Tharwa are the most likely to carry a fee, which can be a flat amount or an extra half hour. Ask each cleaner whether a travel fee applies before you compare totals.

Regular bookings rarely attract a travel fee, because the cleaner can group nearby homes into the same day. One-off jobs at the edges of the territory are the ones where travel shows up on the quote. Cleaners based in Queanbeyan or Googong, across the border in New South Wales, also take Canberra jobs, and their travel terms differ again. Parking can matter too, since paid parking in the city centre or a visitor bay in an apartment block may be passed on to you.

Penalty Rates, Surcharges and Short Notice Bookings

Weekend and public holiday cleans cost more because cleaners who employ staff pay higher wage rates on those days. The Cleaning Services Award 2020 sets higher minimum rates for Saturday, Sunday and public holiday work, and businesses pass those costs into their prices. Canberra has two public holidays that apply only in the ACT, Canberra Day on the second Monday in March and Reconciliation Day, which fell on Monday 1 June in 2026. The ACT Government website publishes the date of every holiday, which helps when planning a regular booking around them. Where a regular slot lands on a public holiday, the cleaner may move the visit, skip it or add a surcharge, so agree on the approach early.

Same day and next day bookings can carry a short notice fee, since the cleaner has to rearrange other work to fit you in. Evening cleans, after the household has finished for the day, may be priced at a higher hourly rate for the same reason. Some businesses add a seasonal loading for cleans booked between Christmas and New Year, when staff are on leave. The lowest prices tend to go to weekday daytime visits booked on a regular schedule, when cleaners can plan their routes in advance. If you are flexible about the day, say so in the quote request, because it gives the cleaner room to offer a better price. Cancellation terms are the other side of this, and the hiring guide linked earlier sets out how notice periods work.

Cleans booked just before or after an event, such as a family gathering or a party, are priced as one-off work at about $55 to $75 per hour. Cleaning up after a party can need extra time for floors, glassware and outdoor areas, so describe the event when you ask for a price. Scheduling the clean for the morning after, instead of the same night, avoids an evening rate. Some households add a short visit before guests arrive and a longer one afterwards, which spreads the work across two smaller bookings. Rubbish and recycling left from the event should be bagged and out of the way before the cleaner starts.

What a Cleaning Arrangement Costs Over a Full Year

Comparing frequencies is easier when you look at the yearly cost instead of the price of one visit. A three bedroom house cleaned fortnightly at $130 to $220 a visit costs about $3,380 to $5,720 over 26 visits. Cleaning the same house weekly at an estimated $110 to $190 costs about $5,720 to $9,880 over 52 visits, which buys twice the cleans for well under twice the money. Monthly visits at an estimated $180 to $300 come to about $2,160 to $3,600 a year, but each visit has more to do and the home goes longer between cleans. Adding one deep clean each year, at about $350 to $550, keeps the less visible parts of the home in order.

Some households pair a monthly visit with two deep cleans a year as a middle path between cost and upkeep. Holidays and breaks also change the yearly figure, since a paused booking means fewer visits. Certain businesses hold your slot while you are away for a few weeks, while others charge a holding fee or give the slot to another client. Price rises are another factor, and a regular arrangement should say how much notice the cleaner gives before increasing the rate. Writing the yearly total into your household budget makes it easier to judge whether weekly or fortnightly visits suit you. The table below sets out the yearly totals for each plan on a three bedroom house.

Comparing a cleaner's yearly cost with your own time is a personal judgement, but the numbers help. Fortnightly cleans of three to four cleaner hours add up to roughly 80 to 100 hours a year of work you no longer do. Sprays and cloths cost a household far less than that labour, since a bottle or a pack of cloths lasts for months. Equipment is the larger cost for people cleaning themselves, as a good vacuum and steam mop can cost several hundred dollars. Hiring a cleaner removes that outlay, because the cleaner brings their own gear. Some households set a yearly cleaning budget first and then choose the visit frequency that fits inside it.

Booking Several Cleaning Trades Together

Carpets, windows, gutters and outdoor surfaces each need their own equipment, so a house cleaner does not normally do them. Some cleaning businesses offer several of these services under one booking, while others refer you to a specialist, and each trade has its own price guide among our cleaning services across the ACT. Bundled pricing can save on travel and minimum charges, but each part should still be shown with its own price. Carpet steam cleaning for a three bedroom home costs about $180 to $300, and AS/NZS 3733:2018, the Australian Standard for cleaning maintenance of residential and commercial carpeting, describes how that work should be done. Rug Doctor and Bissell make carpet cleaning machines for home use, although a hire machine lacks the extraction power of the units carpet cleaners carry in their vans. Booking the carpets for the day after the house clean keeps the damp carpet clear of the house cleaner's foot traffic.

Outside the house, gutters, driveways and pools each have a separate band, shown in the table below. Roof washing and pressure cleaning of walls are larger jobs, priced in roof cleaning in Canberra and pressure cleaning in the ACT. Weekly pool servicing in Canberra costs about $60 to $100 a visit during the swimming season. Offices and shops pay different rates again, so businesses should check the bands for commercial cleaning in Canberra.

Mattresses, rugs and dining chairs are smaller extras that a carpet cleaner can add on the same visit. Rugs are priced by size, and a mattress by its size and whether both sides are cleaned. Fabric needs time to dry before it is used, so plan for the lounge or bed to be out of action for several hours. Booking these items on the same day as the carpets avoids a second call-out fee.

Trimming Paid Hours From Each Visit

The simplest way to lower a cleaning bill is to cut the hours a cleaner spends on tasks you can do yourself. Clearing benches, tables and floors the night before means every paid minute goes into cleaning. Stripping beds and leaving fresh linen out saves time if the cleaner makes the beds, and running the dishwasher keeps dishes out of the sink. Letting the cleaner focus on bathrooms, the kitchen and floors, with dusting left to you, can take an hour off a fortnightly booking. Some households alternate a full clean with a shorter visit for the bathrooms and kitchen only, which cuts the time on every second booking.

Booking cleans with a neighbour on the same street and the same day can bring a lower price, because the cleaner saves travel and setup time. Committing to a regular schedule earns a lower rate with some businesses, but read the notice period before agreeing to a long arrangement. Light upkeep between visits also keeps each clean shorter, and Vileda and Oates make microfibre mops and cloths that pick up dust without sprays. Unger makes squeegees for glass, and wiping a shower screen after each use stops soap scum building up before the next visit. Cutting the scope too far can cost more in the end, since grime left for months is charged at the higher one-off rate when it is finally tackled.

Reliability is part of what a higher rate pays for, and it is easy to overlook when comparing prices. Sole traders who fall ill or take leave may cancel visits, while a business with a team can send someone else. Ask each cleaner what happens to your booking when the usual cleaner is away. A slightly dearer business that never misses a visit can cost less over a year than a cheaper one that cancels every few weeks.

What to Look Out For When a Cleaning Price Looks Low

A quote well below the others may leave something out, so find out what it is. Check whether the price assumes fewer hours than the home needs, which can mean rushed bathrooms or skipped floors. Look at whether the oven, fridge, balcony, inside windows or carpets are in or out of an end of lease package. Confirm whether the cleaner is quoting per cleaner hour or for the whole team, since that changes the total. An hourly rate far below $45 in Canberra raises questions about insurance, pay rates or whether the price assumes cash.

Watch for vague promises such as a full clean or a guaranteed bond refund without a written list of tasks and the terms of any return visit. A request to pay for a block of regular visits in advance deserves a second look before you agree. Prices that change after the first visit should be explained by something you can see, such as extra rooms or heavier build-up than the photos showed. Surcharges added on the day, for parking, stairs or products, should have been on the quote. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says services must be provided with acceptable care and skill, at least as good as a competent provider with average skills would give. Businesses that will not put their price and inclusions in writing make any later disagreement hard to settle.

Setting Cleaning Quotes Against Each Other Fairly

Send every cleaner the same description of the home, including the suburb, bedrooms, bathrooms, living areas, floor types, pets and the visit frequency you want. Photos of the kitchen, the bathrooms and anything heavily soiled let a cleaner quote a firm figure without a site visit. List the extras you want priced on separate lines, so a quote that includes the oven can be weighed against one that does not. For an end of lease clean, say whether carpets and outside windows are part of the job. Three quotes give enough of a spread to see which one is out of line.

Check whether each price includes the goods and services tax, or GST, the 10 per cent tax added to most services. Businesses with a yearly turnover of $75,000 or more must register for GST, so a small sole trader may quote without it, as the Australian Taxation Office confirms. Adding GST to a $200 price makes it $220, which can reverse the order of two close quotes. Writing every price on the same basis, with or without the tax, is the only fair way to rank them.

Find out how long each price holds, since cleaning businesses review their rates over time. Scheduling, the scope of each room and funded home help for older people are covered in house cleaning in Canberra, which suits households setting up a regular arrangement. Keep the accepted quote and the booking confirmation together, since they record the agreed hours, tasks and price. After the first few visits, compare the time actually spent with the hours quoted. If the visits run shorter than quoted, a fair cleaner will adjust the price or add tasks to fill the time. If they run longer, the cleaner should tell you before charging more.