How to Start a Cleaning Business in the UK (2026)

My sister Jen and I built Oak Bay Clean to $2.8M in sales starting in 2021, and we did it in Canada. We have members starting a cleaning business in the UK, in England, Scotland and Wales, and every one of them hit the same wall: the model is identical, and the paperwork is not.

This is the model, with every UK legal detail checked against GOV.UK. Where a rule differs from North America, I say so. Getting employment status wrong is the mistake that costs UK owners the most money.

The short answer

Starting a cleaning business in the UK takes a few hundred pounds and a few days. Pick your structure based on where you are right now:

• If you are testing the idea: register as a sole trader. It is free, you can start trading straight away, and you register for Self Assessment once you earn more than £1,000 in a tax year.
• If you plan to hire cleaners and grow: register a limited company. It costs £100 online and protects your personal assets, which matters the moment other people are cleaning inside strangers' homes on your behalf.
• If you already have a full-time job: start as a sole trader on weekends, take bookings online, and switch structures when the money justifies the admin.

Then get public liability insurance, get a basic DBS check, pick a name people can find on Google, and put your prices on a website that takes bookings. That is the whole first week.

Step 1: Choose sole trader or limited company

These are the two structures worth your time. A partnership is an option if you are starting with someone else, which Jen and I effectively did.

You must register for Self Assessment as a sole trader once you earn more than £1,000 in a tax year, which runs 6 April to 5 April. You can register earlier if you want to.

Most cleaners start as a sole trader and move to a limited company as income grows. There is nothing wrong with that. The switch is normal and your accountant will handle it.

Step 2: Get insured before your first job

Public liability insurance is not a legal requirement, and you should still have it before anyone cleans anything. It covers damage to a client's property and injury to a third party while you are working. Quotes commonly start around £50 a year. Clients ask for it, letting agents demand it, and one broken glass hob costs more than a decade of premiums.

Employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement the moment you become an employer. It must cover you for at least £5 million and come from an authorised insurer. You can be fined £2,500 for every day you are not properly insured, and another £1,000 for failing to display the certificate where staff can see it. The only exemption is if you employ a family member.

Employers' liability is tied to being an employer. Whether you are an employer depends on employment status, and UK employment status has a category that North America does not have.

Step 3: Understand employment status before you engage a single cleaner

The North American playbook breaks here.

In the United States the contractor model is clean. Cleaners are 1099 independent contractors who bring their own supplies and file their own taxes. Our whole model runs on it.

The UK has three statuses, not two: employee, worker, and self-employed. That middle one is the trap. A worker is entitled to the National Minimum Wage and holiday pay even though they are not a full employee. And status is decided by the reality of the working relationship, not by what the contract calls it. HMRC can regard someone as employed for tax even if you have both signed something that says self-employed.

GOV.UK says someone is probably self-employed if most of these are true:

• they put in bids or give quotes to get work
• they are not under direct supervision when working
• they submit invoices for the work they have done
• they are responsible for paying their own National Insurance and tax
• they do not get holiday or sick pay
• they work under a contract for services

Now hold that list against how most cleaning companies operate. If you set the price, set the schedule, tell the cleaner how to clean, supply the products, and they cannot send a substitute, you are describing supervision and control. That looks like a worker, and possibly an employee, no matter what the paperwork says. Getting it wrong means unpaid tax and penalties.

The model still works here. Decide with your accountant whether you are engaging self-employed cleaners or employing staff, then build the business to match that choice. Both routes work. Pretending an employee is a contractor is the one that ends badly.

Step 4: Get a basic DBS check

A DBS check is not legally required for domestic cleaning. Clients still want one, because you are asking them to hand a stranger a key to their home.

A basic DBS check costs £21.50, takes around three days, and the individual applies for their own through GOV.UK. You must be 16 or over. Basic is the level available to you: standard and enhanced checks are reserved for eligible roles, and general domestic cleaning is not one of them, so any company promising you an enhanced check for a house cleaner is confused.

Basic DBS covers England and Wales. In Scotland you use Disclosure Scotland, and in Northern Ireland you use AccessNI.

Since the individual applies for their own check, this fits the self-employed model neatly. Your cleaners arrive with their own certificate, the same way they arrive with their own insurance and their own supplies.

Step 5: Name the company so people can find it

This is the cheapest advantage in the whole business and most people throw it away on a clever name.

The formula is location plus keyword. Oak Bay Clean. Cincy Maids. Wexford Cleaning Services. Notting Hill Clean Co. Somebody in Leeds types "cleaners in Leeds" into Google, and a company called Leeds Cleaning Co hands them the answer on a plate. A company called Sparkle Unicorn Solutions does not.

Check the name is free on the Companies House name availability checker before you print anything. Then set up a Google Business Profile the same day, because in a local service business that listing is your shopfront. We go deeper on this in how to name a cleaning business.

Step 6: Put your prices online and take bookings

Most UK cleaning companies quote hourly, somewhere around £12 to £25 an hour depending on the region. We price the job, not the hour, and it is one of the biggest reasons our margins hold.

Hourly pricing punishes your best cleaners. An experienced cleaner who finishes a three-bedroom house in two and a half hours earns less than a slow one who takes four. It also invites the conversation you never want, which is a client with a stopwatch arguing about time instead of talking about 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. When Jen and I look at our numbers, around 80% of our revenue is recurring clients booking weekly, biweekly or monthly, and about 80% of our clients book online without ever speaking to us.

The tools that work in the UK

The US stack does not transfer cleanly:

• Phone. Quo (formerly OpenPhone) only sells US and Canada numbers, so it does not work for a UK business. RingCentral does offer UK local numbers across hundreds of area codes, with additional numbers from about £4 a month. Get a business number and keep it off your personal mobile.
• Booking and scheduling. You need a site that shows prices, takes the booking, takes the card, and assigns the cleaner. We use Convertlabs.io (that is our affiliate link, and it gives you 30 days free). Check the payment and currency setup suits a UK business before you commit.
• Google Business Profile. Free, and the single highest-return thing you will do in your first month.

Step 7: Get your first clients

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

What works, in the order we would do it:

• Estate and letting agents. They need end-of-tenancy 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 in revenue from a single email.
• Google Business Profile. Post updates, gather reviews, reply to every one of them.
• Local Facebook groups and Nextdoor. Answer the "can anyone recommend a cleaner" posts. Do it every day.
• Existing clients. Every one-off clean is a recurring client you have not asked yet.

Sending 20 personal emails a day to letting agents is not hard. Answering posts in local groups 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. Our full guide to getting clients for a cleaning business goes step by step.

Step 8: Watch the VAT threshold as you grow

You must register for VAT when your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or when you expect to go over £90,000 in the next 30 days. You can register voluntarily below that if you want to reclaim VAT on expenses.

This matters more in cleaning than in most trades, because your customers are households who cannot reclaim VAT. Crossing the threshold means either raising prices by up to 20% or absorbing it out of your margin. Know the number is coming, plan the pricing, and talk to your accountant before you hit it rather than after.

What it costs to start

On the self-employed model your cleaners bring their own supplies. That is why you can start for a few hundred pounds. 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.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a licence to start a cleaning business in the UK?

No. There is no licence for domestic cleaning. You register as a sole trader with HMRC for free, or register a limited company with Companies House for £100 online. What clients expect is public liability insurance.

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

A few hundred pounds. Sole trader registration is free, a limited company is £100 online, public liability quotes commonly start around £50 a year, and a basic DBS check is £21.50.

Do I need a DBS check to be a cleaner in the UK?

Not legally, but clients expect one. A basic DBS check costs £21.50 and the individual applies for their own. Domestic cleaning is not an eligible role for standard or enhanced checks. Scotland uses Disclosure Scotland and Northern Ireland uses AccessNI.

Can I hire cleaners as self-employed contractors in the UK?

You can, but status is decided by the reality of the relationship, not the contract. The UK has a third category called worker, and workers get the National Minimum Wage and holiday pay. If you control when, where and how someone cleans, they may be a worker or an employee whatever the paperwork says. Use HMRC's CEST tool and speak to an accountant first.

When do I have to register for VAT?

When your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or when you expect to exceed £90,000 in the next 30 days.

Is employers' liability insurance a legal requirement?

Yes, as soon as you become an employer. Minimum £5 million cover from an authorised insurer. The fine is £2,500 for every day you are uninsured, plus £1,000 for not displaying the certificate. Family-only employers are exempt.

How much should I charge for cleaning in the UK?

Price the job, not the hour. Set flat packages by size of home and frequency, publish them, and let people book online.

How long does it take to get going?

Days. Sole trader registration is free and you can trade straight away. A limited company is usually registered within 24 hours online, once you have verified your identity with Companies House.

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.

If someone else has already done it, why can't you?