Regular, deep, move-out or after renovation: which cleaning do you need?

Shower and basin after a CLB cleaning in Budapest. You pay the total you agreed in writing before the visit.

The short answer

Book regular cleaning if the flat is in order and you want it to stay that way. Book a deep clean if it has not had a thorough clean for months, or before guests or a sale. Book a move-out clean before you hand the keys back, a move-in clean before your furniture arrives, and cleaning after renovation once the builders have taken their rubbish away.

The types differ in what the team touches and how long it takes, so they differ in price. Below is what each covers, with real hours and prices from our own jobs in Budapest.

Regular cleaning

Regular cleaning keeps a flat that is already clean in order. The team does the kitchen surfaces, the bathroom, the floors, dusting, mirrors and glass. It does not go inside the oven or the cabinets, and it does not take on old limescale or grease that has built up over months.

It suits a flat cleaned weekly or every two weeks. With us it costs 6,500 Ft per cleaner per hour, from two visits a month, with a minimum of four hours per visit, which is 26,000 Ft. The first visit is often a deep clean, because regular cleaning works only on a flat that starts from a clean state.

Deep cleaning

A deep clean reaches the places a regular clean skips: inside the cabinets, behind and under the furniture and the beds, the tops of the wardrobes, skirting boards, doors and their frames, radiators, switches, limescale on taps and shower glass, grout, and kitchen grease including the outside of the extractor hood. The inside of the oven and the fridge we add on request.

One recent example: a lived-in 62 square metre flat, kept in order by its owner. Two cleaners worked three and a half hours each, so seven hours, at 7,500 Ft per hour, which came to 52,500 Ft. A flat of the same size that has gone months without a clean, with furniture to move, takes six to eight hours with two people.

Our deep cleaning page lists everything a deep clean covers, room by room.

Move-out cleaning

A move-out clean prepares a flat for the handover to the landlord. It is a deep clean of an empty flat, focused on the places landlords check: the oven, the fridge, bathroom limescale, the tops of wardrobes and the skirting boards. An empty flat is faster to clean than a furnished one, because the team has no furniture to move and put back.

Book it for after the furniture leaves, and leave a day between the cleaning and the handover in case the landlord asks for something. Kitchens and bathrooms are where most deposit deductions come from, so make sure both are in the quote.

We explain what landlords can deduct in our article on getting your deposit back in Budapest.

Move-in cleaning

A move-in clean is for a flat you are about to live in: empty, often left in passable shape by the previous tenant, but not clean enough to put your plates in the cupboards. The team cleans the kitchen inside and out, the bathroom, the floors, the doors, the handles and the windows from the inside.

One customer moving into an empty 69 square metre flat asked for the kitchen and both bathrooms done as a deep clean and the bedrooms and living room as a standard clean. We agreed a fixed 40,000 Ft for the whole flat before the visit, because the empty rooms went fast.

There is a full checklist in our guide to move-in cleaning in Budapest.

They cleaned an apartment before we moved in, which was in a rather neglected state after the previous residents. They worked on it for two days and did a beautiful job.Moria Butnaru, Google review written in Hungarian, translated by Google

Cleaning after renovation

Renovation leaves fine dust on surfaces, inside cupboards and on top of door and window frames, plus paint, glue and cement film on the floor and the glass. The dust settles again after the first pass, so this job needs more passes than a normal deep clean. With us it costs 9,500 to 10,500 Ft per cleaner per hour, with a minimum of eight hours, and it starts only after the builders have finished and taken their rubbish away.

Smaller pieces of work can join a larger job. One customer added a 12 square metre storage room, renovated weeks before, to a flat cleaning in the fifth district. It took two hours, 19,000 Ft, and the eight-hour minimum did not apply because it was part of the bigger booking.

Our post-renovation cleaning guide explains the order of work and what to ask for in the quote.

Sofas, mattresses and carpets

Upholstery, mattress and carpet cleaning is a separate service, done with an extraction machine, and priced per item, not per hour. A two-seat sofa starts from 22,000 Ft. A double mattress is 15,000 Ft for one side and 25,000 Ft for both sides, so say which you want. Most fabrics are dry in four to six hours.

You can combine it with a deep clean or a move-out clean in the same visit. Many customers do, because a stained sofa in a flat cleaned that morning is the first thing a landlord or a guest notices.

See our sofa and upholstery cleaning page for what the machine removes and what it cannot.

Airbnb and short-term rental turnovers

A turnover is the clean between one guest leaving and the next arriving. It sits between regular and deep cleaning: the kitchen, the bathroom, the floors and the beds at each turnover, with a deeper pass every few weeks. The timing matters more than anywhere else, because the team works in the window between checkout and check-in.

Hosts tend to book the first visit as a deep clean, then set a routine. Tell the company how many turnovers a month you expect, where the linen and supplies live, and how you hand over the keys.

Our Airbnb cleaning guide covers turnovers step by step.

Offices

Office cleaning follows the same split. A regular contract covers desks, the kitchen, the toilets, the floors and the bins, out of working hours so the team does not get in the way. From two visits a month it costs 6,500 Ft per cleaner per hour with us. A one-off office clean, for example after a move or before an inspection, is 7,500 Ft per cleaner per hour.

See our office cleaning page for what a regular contract includes.

Windows

Window cleaning we price per sash, not per hour, so the total does not grow while the team works. A standard sash, cleaned on both sides with the frame, the sill and the track, starts from 3,000 Ft. Tall, panoramic and balcony doors cost more, and old wooden double windows take longer than new plastic ones, so send a photo and we give you the total.

How often each one makes sense

Regular cleaning works weekly or every two weeks. A deep clean makes sense once or twice a year in a flat that also has regular cleaning, and as the first visit before regular cleaning starts. Sofas and mattresses benefit from a clean once a year, or after a stain or an accident with a pet. Move-out, move-in and after-renovation cleaning happen once, at the moment you need them, so book them a week or two ahead.

How to decide

• The flat is clean and you want to keep it so: regular cleaning
• It has not had a thorough clean for months, or guests are coming: deep cleaning
• You are handing the keys back: move-out cleaning, after the furniture leaves
• You are moving into an empty flat: move-in cleaning, before your furniture arrives
• The builders have left: cleaning after renovation
• The sofa, a mattress or a carpet is stained or smells: upholstery cleaning, alone or with any of the above

Before you book

For any of these, ask for the hours, the total and the exclusions in writing before the visit. You cannot work out the final bill from an hourly rate alone.

We listed the seven questions to ask any company in our guide on how to choose a cleaning company in Budapest.

Common questions