What to include in the cleaning contract for your holiday home
How to write a holiday home cleaning contract
June 2025
The cleanliness of your holiday home significantly influences its reviews & reputation. To ensure high standards that remain consistent across bookings, you can hire a professional cleaner. Here is everything you should include in your holiday home cleaning contract to ensure clear responsibilities from both sides.
What’s the point of a written cleaning contract for renting out my holiday home?
When it comes to cleaning a holiday rental, a contract serves to ensure several benefits for both parties, including:
- Precisely defining the responsibilities of each party, thus establishing the type of service offered and the price to be paid.
- Guarantee by the company to provide the client with a service of the agreed quality level.
- Having references in case problems arise.
- Security for the owner to always receive the service from the same provider, a factor that combines time savings and consistent service quality.
What to include in a holiday home cleaning contract
A good holiday home cleaning contract template should include a series of elements to be effective and to protect you, as a host, from any service failures that could result in a poor welcome for your guests. The best examples of short term rental cleaning contracts often include the following information:
Parties’ details
The agreement must include the personal details of the individuals involved in the collaboration. In addition to general information, tax codes or VAT numbers must be specified, which are essential to make the agreement effective from a fiscal point of view as well.
Description of services
This is a fundamental section of a holiday rental cleaning contract, so it needs to be approached clearly to avoid misunderstandings. The description of services usually includes the following types of cleaning:
- Pre-check-in cleaning: This refers to the complete tidying up of the property before the new guest arrives. In this section, you can specify the services you want to include, such as changing linen, emptying rubbish, and sanitising the rooms.
- Post-check-out cleaning: This is a more thorough clean, as it’s generally requested by the host at the end of a longer-than-average stay. In this case, both the general check of the flat and the cleaning operations will be more meticulous.
- Periodic cleaning: This term refers to extraordinary cleaning that is carried out at a specific frequency, for example, monthly or at the end of the season. This type of service usually includes washing curtains, cleaning windows, and moving furniture, in order to proceed with a more complete sanitisation.
- Additional services: These can be requested periodically by the host, such as laundry washing, replacing hygiene products, and waste management.
Activities to be performed
To define exactly what you want from each type of cleaning, you can proceed by filling out a checklist. To prepare it correctly, create a page for each room in the house and establish the list of activities that need to be carried out depending on whether it’s standard cleaning or seasonal cleaning. To help your cleaners, you can attach photos and videos, to provide a clear picture of what you expect from the work. Finally, prepare a control sheet, useful for operators to verify the various tasks performed.
Equipment and products
Proper management of holiday rental cleaning requires the use of specific equipment. The contract should establish whether you will provide your cleaners with everything needed to carry out the work, or whether the cleaning company will be responsible for sourcing equipment and materials. If the task falls to your cleaning company or cleaner, remember to specify your preferences for certain products, such as eco-friendly ones or those certified for environmental sanitisation.
Calendar and time windows
Considering that on some days you won’t be able to rent out your holiday apartment or that in many situations guests will stay for several consecutive nights, the service doesn’t need to be requested daily. Precisely for this reason, establish some parameters in the terms of the agreement, such as:
- Time window for cleaning, which in most cases is between 11 am and 2 pm.
- Notification method for carrying out the work, e.g., phone call, messaging, or management system. The most reliable system is to use a shared calendar.
- Request for flexibility for last-minute bookings, out-of-hours arrivals, and peak season periods.
Emergency calls
Situations may arise where extra cleaning is necessary or you are not satisfied with the hygienic conditions of the property. To protect yourself from excessive costs, specify the rates for emergency calls, the maximum time within which the provider must intervene, and the communication systems for requesting the service.
Fees and various costs
Include a section that summarises all service costs:
- Standard rates applied for each type of cleaning requested.
- Surcharges for extra work.
- Payment terms, e.g., at the end of each service, weekly or monthly.
- Penalties to be applied in case of delayed payments or if services are not guaranteed.
Invoicing
As a commercial activity, when it comes to cleaning in short-term rentals, the contract must also include invoicing details. Specify how often invoices will be sent, the accepted payment methods, and the maximum balance reachable before payment.
Contract termination
You can set a term for the termination of the contract or include periods during which the service is considered suspended. For example, if you only rent the house for a certain period during the year, such as summer or winter season, you can only include the dates when you will be operational. Furthermore, specify early termination clauses: among the most common are termination in case of serious breaches by the supplier and negative guest reviews received on any holiday rental website due to poor cleaning service. You also have the possibility to establish a competent court in case of legal dispute and specify a required notice period for unilateral termination of the contract, which may involve a penalty from the requesting party.
Contract management
Remember to sign and have the contract signed in all its parts, update it periodically, and write it in simple and unambiguous language.