How to Start a Cleaning Business in Australia (2026)

My sister Jen and I built Oak Bay Clean to $2.8M in sales starting in 2021, and we did it in Canada. Australia is the country where I most want you to read the fine print.

The registration is easy. An ABN is free and takes minutes. The GST threshold is generous. What is not easy is how you engage your cleaners, because Australia's employment rules are strict, and cleaning is a sector the regulator watches, and Fair Work has named cleaning as an industry it is actively watching.

So this guide is the model, with the Australian details checked against the ATO, ASIC and the Fair Work Ombudsman. Where a rule differs from North America, I say so, and one of them differs enough to end a business.

The short answer

• To start trading: get an ABN (free), register your business name with ASIC, get public liability cover, and put your prices on a website that takes bookings.
• Before you engage a single cleaner: understand sham contracting. Talk to an accountant. This is not the country to guess in.
• As you grow: register for GST once your turnover hits $75,000.

Step 1: Get an ABN

An Australian Business Number is free, you apply through the Australian Business Register or the Business Registration Service, and it usually comes through quickly.

You need it for almost everything else: registering a business name, registering for GST, invoicing, and being taken seriously by anyone commercial.

Step 2: Register your business name

If you trade under anything other than your own personal name, you register that business name with ASIC. There is a fee, and ASIC indexes its fees every 1 July in line with CPI, so check the current ASIC fee schedule rather than trusting a number in a blog post, including this one.

Then choose the name properly, because it is the cheapest marketing advantage you will ever get.

Location plus keyword. Oak Bay Clean. Cincy Maids. Geelong Cleaning Co. Someone in Geelong types "cleaners in Geelong" into Google and a name like that hands them the answer. A clever invented name does not. Read how to name a cleaning business before you register anything.

Step 3: Understand sham contracting before you hire anyone

Our model runs on independent contractors. In the United States they are 1099 contractors who bring their own supplies, pick their own jobs, and file their own taxes. It works cleanly there.

Sham contracting is when a business tells a worker they are an independent contractor when the relationship is really employment. It is illegal under the Fair Work Act.

Three things make this urgent for you specifically:

• The ATO can see your contractor payments. Cleaning is one of the industries covered by Taxable Payments Annual Reporting, so payments to contractors are reported and then matched against tax returns, ABN records, super reporting and Single Touch Payroll. Two of the warning signs they look for: a contractor who works almost exclusively for one business, and someone with an ABN who never lodges a return.
• The penalties are severe. For a business with 15 or more employees, the maximum penalty is the greater of $495,000 or three times the underpayment, per contravention.
• The defence got harder. The old test asked whether you were reckless about the worker's status. The new test asks whether you reasonably believed they were a contractor. "I didn't know" is no longer a defence. You have to be able to show you had grounds to believe it.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has taken Sydney cleaning companies to court over exactly this. Green Clean was penalised $124,186, along with its former manager, after misclassifying two international students from Nepal as contractors and underpaying them. In a separate case the regulator alleged five migrant cleaners, Sri Lankan and Nepalese students in their late teens and early twenties, were underpaid more than $125,000 while misclassified as contractors.

Both routes work in Australia. You can engage contractors who are independent in fact, or you can employ cleaners properly under the award. What you cannot do is take the American model, print the word contractor on an agreement, and control when, where and how someone cleans. That is the arrangement Fair Work is looking for.

Step 4: Insurance

Public liability is not a legal requirement, and you should have it before anyone cleans anything. It covers damage to a client's property and injury to a third party. Clients and commercial sites will ask for the certificate.

Workers compensation is compulsory once you have employees. It is administered state by state, so the scheme and the rules depend on whether you are in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland or elsewhere. Check your own state's scheme.

If your cleaners are independent contractors, they carry their own insurance. Ask to see it, and check it every year, because a lapsed policy is the kind of thing you discover on the day something breaks.

Step 5: Police checks

There is no law requiring a police check for domestic cleaning. Clients want one anyway, because you are asking them to hand a stranger a key to their home.

Cleaners get a nationally coordinated criminal history check through an ACIC-accredited body. On the contractor model, they arrange their own and show you the certificate, in the same way they bring their own supplies and their own insurance.

Step 6: Watch the GST threshold

You must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, or once you expect it to. You have 21 days to register from the point you become aware you will cross it.

GST turnover is your business income, not your profit. That catches people out, because a cleaning company can be turning over $75,000 while taking home a fraction of it.

This matters more in cleaning than in most trades, because your customers are households who cannot claim GST back. Crossing the threshold means either lifting your prices by 10% or wearing it out of your margin. Know the number is coming and plan the pricing before you hit it.

Step 7: Price the job, not the hour

Plenty of Australian cleaners quote hourly. We price the job, and it is one of the biggest reasons our margins hold.

Hourly pricing punishes your best cleaners. The experienced one who finishes a three-bedroom house in two and a half hours earns less than the slow one who takes four. It also invites the client with a stopwatch to argue about time instead of quality.

Set flat packages by the size of the home and the frequency of the clean. Publish them. Let people book online without phoning you. About 80% of our clients at Oak Bay Clean are recurring, and they book online.

Step 8: Get your first clients

Take the booking and then figure it out. Answer the phone on day one, before you have a single cleaner.

• Real estate agents and property managers. They need end-of-lease cleans constantly and they need someone reliable. One of the emails we sent in our first year went to a realtor named Danielle. Since she said yes in September 2021, she has booked 47 cleans with us. That is $16,718.34 from a single email.
• Google Business Profile. Free, and the highest-return thing you will do in your first month. Fill in every field, post updates, gather reviews, and reply to all of them.
• Local Facebook groups. Answer the "can anyone recommend a cleaner" posts. Every day.
• Existing clients. Every one-off clean is a recurring client you have not asked yet.

Sending 20 personal emails a day to agents is not hard. Doing it every single day until it works is the hard part, and that is the difference between building a company and having a hobby.

What it costs to start

You are not buying vans, uniforms, or a warehouse of equipment. On the contractor model your cleaners bring their own supplies, which is why the startup cost is so low. Skip the branded cars and the business cards in month one. Sandra, one of the owners we interviewed, spent that money and told us plainly she wished she had not.

The part that is the same everywhere

The paperwork changes at the border. The business does not.

You need about a hundred recurring clients to build something that pays you properly. You get them by answering the phone, publishing your prices, showing up when you said you would, and paying your cleaners better than the company down the road. Jen and I were a burned-out school teacher and a screenwriter who knew nothing about this industry, and the model worked anyway.

Just get the employment question right first. In Australia, more than anywhere, that is the one that decides whether you still have a business in three years.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a licence to start a cleaning business in Australia?

There is no national licence for domestic cleaning. You need an ABN, which is free, and you register your business name with ASIC if you trade under anything other than your own name. What clients expect is public liability insurance and a police check.

How much does it cost to start a cleaning business in Australia?

Very little. An ABN is free. The ASIC business name fee is modest and indexed each July. Your main costs are public liability insurance, booking software, and a police check. On the contractor model your cleaners bring their own supplies, so you are not buying equipment.

Can I hire cleaners as independent contractors in Australia?

Only if they are independent in fact, not just on paper. Sham contracting, telling a worker they are a contractor when the relationship is really employment, is illegal under the Fair Work Act. The Fair Work Ombudsman has named cleaning as an industry where this is common, and it is actively litigating against cleaning companies. Check the status with Fair Work and the ATO, and speak to an accountant first.

What are the penalties for sham contracting in Australia?

For a business with 15 or more employees, the maximum penalty is the greater of $495,000 or three times the underpayment, per contravention. The defence also got harder: you now have to show you reasonably believed the worker was a contractor, so not knowing is no longer a defence.

When do I need to register for GST in Australia?

When your GST turnover reaches $75,000, or when you expect it to. You have 21 days to register once you become aware you will cross it. GST turnover is your business income, not your profit, which catches people out.

Do cleaners in Australia need a police check?

Not by law for domestic cleaning, but clients expect one. Cleaners get a nationally coordinated criminal history check through an ACIC-accredited body. On the contractor model they arrange their own and show you the certificate.

Is workers compensation compulsory for a cleaning business in Australia?

Yes, once you have employees. It is administered state by state, so check the scheme where you operate. If your cleaners are independent contractors, they carry their own insurance, and you should ask to see it and check it every year.

What should I charge for cleaning in Australia?

Price the job, not the hour. Set flat packages by home size and frequency, publish them, and let people book online. Hourly pricing punishes your fastest cleaners and invites arguments about time instead of quality.