Every price guide for end of lease cleaning in Australia quotes you a three-bedroom house. We went back through 1,724 completed bond cleans and found that a three-bedroom house is not what most people are cleaning. It is a two-bedroom unit, and it has one bathroom.
That gap matters, because the number you are quoted for a three-bedroom house is not the number you will pay, and the guides that publish those tables are not working from completed jobs. They are working from other guides.
Quick answer: As at September 2026, an end of lease clean through Simply Maid costs $423 for a one-bedroom home, $455 for a two-bedroom with one bathroom, $519 for a three-bedroom with two bathrooms and $615 for a five-bedroom with three — fixed, GST included, oven included, with a 48-hour re-clean if the agent is not satisfied. Across 1,724 completed bond cleans, 87% added at least one paid extra, the median booking carried two of them, and the single most common addition was the oven.
What We Analysed, and What It Can and Cannot Tell You
This is a first-party study. Everything in the "what renters actually book" sections comes from Simply Maid's own booking records: 1,724 completed end of lease cleans out of 56,885 completed cleans in total, serviced between December 2015 and September 2026 across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and the Gold Coast. Cancelled and unfulfilled bookings are excluded.
Two limits, stated plainly at the top rather than buried at the bottom:
This is our book of work, not a national sample. 82% of these bond cleans are in Sydney. Where we report a national pattern, it is a pattern in our data; where a city has too few jobs to say anything, we say so instead of publishing a number.
Historical prices in this dataset are stale, so we do not publish them as "the cost". Most of these records were priced on our previous platform, some as long ago as 2016. Quoting a 2018 median as today's cost would mislead you by a third. Every dollar figure presented as a current price is generated live by our pricing engine — the same engine that quotes you in the booking form — and dated. The historical records are used for structure: what size homes get bond-cleaned, what extras people add, and when they book.
There is a third thing this dataset cannot do, and it is worth being blunt about because our competitors are not. We cannot tell you how many hours a bond clean actually took. Our older records store the time a job was scheduled for, which came from a pricing formula, not a stopwatch. Every 2-bedroom bond clean in the old system was scheduled at 180 minutes because that is what the formula said, not because that is what it took. So when you read "a bond clean takes 4–6 hours" on a competitor's page, ask where the number came from. Ours are scheduling allowances, and we label them as such.
What an End of Lease Clean Costs Right Now
These are our live prices as at 5 September 2026, generated by the same pricing engine that quotes the booking form. They are fixed prices, not estimates, and they include GST and our Care & Cover fee.
Home | End of lease clean | Time allowed | A regular clean of the same home |
|---|---|---|---|
1 bed, 1 bath | $423 | 4h 30m | $221 |
2 bed, 1 bath | $455 | 4h 50m | $253 |
2 bed, 2 bath | $487 | 5h 10m | $285 |
3 bed, 1 bath | $487 | 5h 10m | $285 |
3 bed, 2 bath | $519 | 5h 30m | $317 |
4 bed, 2 bath | $551 | 5h 50m | $349 |
5 bed, 3 bath | $615 | 6h 30m | $413 |
Three things fall out of that table.
A bond clean is priced at between 1.5 and 1.9 times a regular clean of the same home — 1.9 times for a one-bedroom, 1.7 for a two-bedroom with two bathrooms, 1.5 for a five-bedroom. Not five times, not triple. The gap is the oven, the inside of every cupboard and drawer, the window tracks, the skirting boards, the walls and the light fittings — the items a regular fortnightly clean never touches because nobody inspects them. The multiple shrinks as homes get bigger because those fixed items do not multiply with floor area: there is one oven whether the house has two bedrooms or five.
A bathroom costs about as much as a bedroom. Adding a second bathroom to a two-bedroom home moves the price the same $32 as adding a third bedroom does. Wet areas are the slowest rooms in the house, and any quote that prices only on bedrooms is guessing.
Our price does not change by city. A three-bedroom bond clean is $519 in Adelaide and $519 in Sydney. We know that is unusual — most cost guides publish a city table showing Sydney 20–25% dearer — and we are not going to invent a city loading we do not charge. If you see a per-city price table, it is describing that publisher's market survey, not a single operator's rate card.
The Typical Bond Clean Is a Two-Bedroom Unit
Here is the finding the price guides miss. Across 1,724 completed end of lease cleans:
Home size | Share of all bond cleans |
|---|---|
1 bedroom | 25.2% |
2 bedrooms | 46.8% |
3 bedrooms | 17.1% |
4 bedrooms | 6.8% |
5 or more | 4.0% |
Seven in ten bond cleans (72.0%) are one- or two-bedroom homes. The single most common booking is a two-bedroom, one-bathroom property — 26.3% of the entire dataset — followed by a one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 24.6%. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, the worked example in most published cost guides, accounts for 10.1%.
This is not a Sydney quirk. Melbourne's mix is almost identical: 25.3% one-bedroom, 47.1% two-bedroom, 27.6% three or more, against Sydney's 26.3%, 47.4% and 26.3%. Two cities, 1,587 bond cleans between them, the same shape.
The practical consequence: if you are a renter reading a guide that opens with "$550–$650 for a three-bedroom house", you are reading a number for a property most renters moving out of are not in. Ask for your own bedroom and bathroom count to be priced.
Almost Nine in Ten Bond Cleans Buy an Extra
This is the part of the bill nobody publishes, and it is the largest single difference between a bond clean and any other kind of clean.
87.2% of end of lease cleans added at least one paid extra. Among regular house cleans, the figure is 11.8% — a seven-fold difference. The median bond clean carried two paid extras; 12.9% carried four or more.
Extra | Share of bond cleans | Share of regular cleans |
|---|---|---|
Inside cupboards and drawers | 77.6% | 0.1% |
Inside oven | 77.5% | 1.5% |
Balcony or patio | 25.5% | 4.0% |
Carpet steam clean | 18.2% | 0.3% |
Wall washing | 9.6% | 0.2% |
Inside fridge | 7.1% | 0.9% |
Blinds | 4.3% | 0.3% |
Read that first row again. Four out of five renters moving out paid extra to have the inside of the oven and the inside of the cupboards cleaned. These are not optional flourishes at the end of a tenancy — they are the two items most likely to be photographed at the exit inspection. In an older price structure they were add-ons, which is why they show up in the data as purchases. In our current End of Lease Clean they are included, along with the fridge and the cupboard interiors.
That difference is the single most useful thing to check when you compare two quotes. A $380 quote with the oven as a $60 add-on and cupboard interiors at $50 is a $490 quote. Ask for the inclusions list before you compare the headline number.
The habit has also shifted over the decade. Comparing bond cleans serviced in 2016–2019 with those in 2020–2024:
Extra | 2016–2019 (n=849) | 2020–2024 (n=860) |
|---|---|---|
Carpet steam clean | 16.4% | 20.3% |
Balcony or patio | 24.3% | 27.2% |
Wall washing | 13.0% | 6.4% |
Carpet steam cleaning has become more common, wall washing markedly less so. Carpet is the item agents most often ask for a receipt on, which is very likely what is driving it.
Australia Moves in January and Cleans in November
Set the bond cleans against every other clean in the same dataset and the two calendars pull apart. Using calendar years 2017–2024, where 100 is an average month:
Month | End of lease cleans | All other cleans |
|---|---|---|
January | 110 | 93 |
February | 110 | 98 |
March | 88 | 103 |
April | 107 | 92 |
May | 99 | 102 |
June | 103 | 95 |
July | 101 | 92 |
August | 109 | 100 |
September | 85 | 97 |
October | 99 | 106 |
November | 91 | 115 |
December | 101 | 106 |
November is the busiest month of the year for household cleaning and one of the quietest for bond cleans. January is the reverse. The pre-Christmas clean and the end-of-lease clean are driven by completely different things — one by guests arriving, the other by leases ending — and they peak two months apart.
The practical version: if you are moving in January or February, you are competing for cleaners with everyone else who is moving, and you should book earlier than you think. If you are moving in September, you are booking in the quietest month in the dataset.
Within the week, bond cleans cluster where regular cleans do not. Saturday is the single busiest day for end of lease cleans (18.8%), ahead of Friday (16.8%), and 23.7% of bond cleans fall on a weekend against 16.8% of regular cleans. Keys usually have to be back on the last day of the lease, and last days do not care that it is a Saturday.
Why Any of This Matters: Cleaning Is the Number One Reason Bonds Get Claimed
Simply Maid's data says what renters buy. Government data says what happens if they get it wrong, and the two fit together.
In Queensland, the Residential Tenancies Authority reports that in 2024–25 cleaning was the single most common reason for a claim against a rental bond, at 21.5% of claim reasons — ahead of rent (17.6%), repairs (16.2%) and water charges (13.4%). In the same year 57.6% of Queensland tenants got their full bond back, and tenants recovered an average of 75.2% of the bond.
Victoria's Residential Tenancies Bond Authority reports a similar shape: of bonds repaid in 2024–25, 65% went back to renters in full, 10% went entirely to the rental provider and 25% were split. In New South Wales, 70.2% of bond refunds in 2023–24 were agreed by both parties, with a landlord notice of claim issued in a further 27.3% of cases and only 1.6% resolved by a tribunal order.
A note on that 21.5% figure, because it is widely misquoted: it is a share of claim reasons among bonds that were claimed against, not a share of all bonds. Most tenancies end without a cleaning claim at all.
Bonds are capped at four weeks' rent in Queensland, and at one month's rent in Victoria unless the rent is above $900 a week. On that basis a $455 bond clean on a $700-a-week rental is about 16% of a $2,800 bond. That is the trade the data describes: a known cost set against a claim risk on the largest single sum most renters have on deposit anywhere.
What Actually Drives Your Quote
From the way our own pricing works and what the booking records show:
Bedrooms and bathrooms. The two axes that move price on every quote. Wet areas are slow; count them accurately.
Whether the oven and cupboard interiors are included or extra. Nearly 80% of bond cleans need them. This is where two quotes for "the same" job diverge most.
Carpet steam cleaning. About one bond clean in five adds it. Many leases require a receipt where carpets were professionally cleaned at the start of the tenancy — check your lease rather than assuming.
Condition. A property that has not had a proper clean in two years is a different job from one cleaned fortnightly throughout. Our booking form asks; most quotes assume.
Timing. January and February are the busiest months in the data, and Saturdays are the busiest day. Short-notice weekend bookings in peak season are the hardest to fill.
Furnished or empty. Clean an empty property. Cupboards and floors you cannot reach cannot be cleaned, and they are exactly what gets inspected.
One thing that does not drive our quote, and should not quietly drive anyone's: which city you are in.
No, Your Agent Cannot Simply Require a Receipt
This is the most contested claim in the category, so here it is with the source attached.
Across Australian states the tenant's obligation at the end of a tenancy is to leave the property reasonably clean, and in the condition recorded on the entry condition report, fair wear and tear excepted. It is not "professionally cleaned". A blanket lease clause requiring a professional clean and a receipt regardless of the property's actual condition is generally not enforceable, and in several states it is expressly prohibited:
Queensland is the most explicit. The Residential Tenancies Authority states that "if a special term states that a tenant must provide a receipt or engage a 'professional', it is a breach of section 171 of the Act", and that tenants "cannot be required to buy, or agree to buy goods or services from the property manager/owner or a person nominated by the property manager/owner".
New South Wales makes it a prohibited term to require the tenant to have the carpet professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy, and separately prohibits a term requiring the tenant to use a specified business for any of their obligations.
Victoria allows a professional-cleaning requirement only through the prescribed standard-form clause, and only where the property was professionally cleaned immediately before the tenancy began and the renter was told, or where it is needed to restore the property to its condition at the start.
Two qualifications matter. Pets are the common exception — most states allow a reasonable carpet-cleaning condition attached to pet approval. And where carpets were professionally cleaned before you moved in and the condition report records it, you can be held to the same standard on the way out.
The receipt itself usually runs the other way. In several states a landlord claiming against your bond must give you the evidence for the claim — invoices, quotes, receipts — within days, or the claim is defective. If someone in this transaction has to produce paperwork, it is more often the person claiming your money than you.
Where a professional clean genuinely earns its keep is time and risk transfer: 87% of the renters in this dataset chose to buy at least the oven and the cupboards rather than do them, and a written re-clean guarantee means a failed inspection is the cleaner's problem rather than a second unpaid day of your own.
If you do hire one, hire carefully. Consumer Protection WA warned in August 2025 that 87 tenants had complained about vacate cleaners over two years, 80% of them alleging the cleaner "failed to exercise due care and skill" — on jobs costing between $460 and $1,560, usually paid upfront. Its advice is worth repeating: check the ABN and references, never pay in full before the work, walk the cleaner through the property first, and inspect before you hand back the keys. The regulator also reminded agents that "only actual costs can be charged for cleaning or repairs — not pre-estimated or speculative charges".
If you would rather do it yourself, our end of lease cleaning checklist is the room-by-room list agents actually inspect, in the order that makes it fastest. For the rules that apply where you live, go to your own tenancy authority — NSW Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Queensland RTA, or your state's equivalent — rather than to a cleaning company, ours included.
Ten Findings, in One Place
1,724 completed end of lease cleans, 3.0% of 56,885 completed cleans over the decade.
46.8% of bond cleans are two-bedroom homes; 72.0% are one- or two-bedroom.
The most common single booking is a two-bedroom, one-bathroom property — 26.3% of all bond cleans.
A three-bedroom, two-bathroom home — the standard worked example in published cost guides — is 10.1%.
87.2% of bond cleans add at least one paid extra, against 11.8% of regular cleans.
77.5% added the inside of the oven; 77.6% added cupboard and drawer interiors.
18.2% added carpet steam cleaning, up from 16.4% (2016–19) to 20.3% (2020–24).
Bond cleans peak in January and February (index 110); all other cleaning peaks in November (index 115) when bond cleans are near their low (91).
Saturday is the busiest day for bond cleans at 18.8%; 23.7% fall on a weekend against 16.8% of regular cleans.
21.6% of bond-clean customers had already had a regular clean with us, and 20.9% booked another clean afterwards.
Journalists, researchers and publishers are welcome to reproduce any statistic or table from this study with attribution and a link to this page. Suggested citation: Simply Maid, "What End of Lease Cleaning Costs in Australia", 2026. For media enquiries or the underlying tables, contact [hello@simplymaid.com.au](mailto:hello@simplymaid.com.au).
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an end of lease clean cost in Australia?
Through Simply Maid, as at September 2026: $423 for a one-bedroom home, $455 for a two-bedroom with one bathroom, $519 for a three-bedroom with two bathrooms and $615 for a five-bedroom with three, fixed and GST inclusive. Published cost guides put the wider market between roughly $250 and $800 depending on size and city, but those ranges are compiled from other guides and marketplace quotes rather than completed jobs, and they vary by two to three times for the same home. Compare inclusions, not headline prices.
How much is a bond clean for a two-bedroom unit?
$455 with one bathroom and $487 with two, as at September 2026. A two-bedroom unit is the most common bond clean in our dataset, accounting for 46.8% of 1,724 completed jobs.
How long does a bond clean take?
We allow 4 hours 30 minutes for a one-bedroom home and 5 hours 30 minutes for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, scaling to 6 hours 30 minutes for a five-bedroom. Those are scheduling allowances rather than measured times — we are not able to publish measured durations from our historical records, and we would treat any competitor's precise "average hours" figure with the same caution.
What does an end of lease clean include?
Ours covers the inside of all appliances, cupboards and drawers, window glass and tracks, skirting boards, door frames and architraves, walls, vents and light fittings, on top of a full clean of every room. The oven, fridge and cupboard interiors are included rather than charged as extras. Carpet steam cleaning, balconies and wall washing are priced separately.
Is a professional bond clean worth it?
That depends on your time and your lease. Your legal obligation is to leave the property reasonably clean and in the condition on the entry report, fair wear and tear excepted — not to hire anyone. What the data shows is that even among renters who did book professionally, 87% chose to pay extra for the oven and cupboard interiors rather than do them by hand. Cleaning is also the single most common reason bonds are claimed against in Queensland, at 21.5% of claim reasons in 2024–25.
Can my agent make me use a professional cleaner?
Generally not, and not simply because a clause says so. The standard across Australian states is "reasonably clean" and the condition recorded at the start of the tenancy. Queensland's Residential Tenancies Authority puts it plainly: a special term requiring a tenant "to provide a receipt or engage a 'professional'" breaches section 171 of its Act. New South Wales prohibits both an end-of-tenancy professional carpet-cleaning term and any term directing you to a specified business. Two exceptions apply in practice: pets, and carpets that were professionally cleaned before you moved in and recorded as such on the condition report. Check your lease and your state tenancy authority.
When should I book my end of lease clean?
Earlier than you think if you are moving in January or February, which are the busiest months in our data, and earlier again for a Saturday, which is the single busiest day. September is the quietest month in the dataset. Book for after the removalists have gone and the property is empty — cupboards and floors that are still full cannot be cleaned.
Does a bond clean cost more in Sydney than in Adelaide?
Not with us: our price is the same in every city we serve. Most published cost guides show Sydney 20–25% dearer than the cheapest capital, which reflects a survey of many operators rather than one company's rate card.
