What commercial cleaning costs
Commercial cleaning on the mid-Island runs roughly $40 to $60 per cleaner-hour, which puts a small office between $60 and $150 a visit depending on floor mix and washroom count. Island Commercial Cleaning prices every contract from a walkthrough, using measured area and task frequency.
Updated August 2026
Workloading is the method of measuring cleanable area by floor type, assigning a frequency to every task, and applying a production rate to each one to arrive at the labour hours a building needs.
| Driver | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Cleanable area by floor type | Carpet, hard floor and VCT clean at different rates, so the mix matters more than the total |
| Frequency | Nightly, three times a week, weekly or monthly — the largest single lever |
| Scope of work | Which tasks are every visit and which are periodic |
| Washroom fixture count | Restroom work is rated per fixture, not per room |
| Occupancy and traffic | A shared entrance carries more soil than an interior corridor |
| Access window | After hours, weekends, or during business hours |
| Floor care cycle | Restorative and interim work priced separately from the routine |
What a quote is built from
We price from labour, and we work out labour by measuring the building. Carpet, vinyl, polished concrete and quarry tile each clean at a different rate, so the mix of surfaces tells us more than the total floor area does. We also count washroom fixtures, because restroom work is rated per fixture rather than per room, and we note the desks, counters and fittings that a square-foot figure never captures. Those three measurements are what turn a building into a number.
Production rates, and what they actually are
ISSA publishes benchmark production rates in The Official ISSA Cleaning Times, first issued in 1963 and last revised in 2021. Restroom cleaning is listed at 3 minutes per fixture. A 14-inch flat mop with a dual-chamber bucket is rated at 5,355 square feet an hour. Carpet vacuuming is rated near 10,000 square feet an hour, and light-duty spot work — trash, spot-wipe, dust and debris bundled together — carries a 1,000 square foot rate. ISSA describes these as benchmark figures compiled from thousands of sources as a guide for bidding and estimating, not as formal time-motion studies. They set the shape of a quote rather than deciding it.
Frequency does more to the number than anything else
Frequency is the number of times a year a task is performed, and it moves the total more than anything else on this page. The same office on a nightly schedule and a three-times-weekly schedule differs by roughly forty per cent in annual labour before floor type or fixture count is considered. We set frequency at the walkthrough, task by task, and write it into the scope so the schedule and the price describe the same building.
What it costs on the mid-Island
Published commercial cleaning rates in British Columbia run $40 to $60 per cleaner-hour, and we work inside that band. A 3,000 to 5,000 square foot office with two washrooms takes us about one and a half to two and a half hours a visit, which is $60 to $150 each time we attend. Non-recurring work — one-off deep cleans and post-construction — is quoted per square foot instead, at $0.10 to $0.30. Every building is different, and the walkthrough is what turns these ranges into a fixed monthly figure.
| What | Range | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| One cleaner, per hour | $40 to $60 | Published British Columbia commercial cleaning rates, 2026 |
| Small office, 3,000 to 5,000 sq ft, per visit | $60 to $150 | One and a half to two and a half hours at the hourly range |
| Weekly service, per month | $260 to $650 | About 4.3 visits a month |
| Three times a week, per month | $780 to $1,950 | About 13 visits a month |
| Nightly weekday service, per month | $1,300 to $3,250 | About 21.7 visits a month |
| One-off and post-construction cleans, per sq ft | $0.10 to $0.30 | Published British Columbia rates for non-recurring work |
Hourly and per-square-foot figures are published British Columbia contractor rates for 2026. Visit and monthly figures are those rates applied to the hours a building of that size takes.
Floor care sits on its own cycle
Floor work is not part of a nightly rate and should not be buried in one. Trade publication CleanLink reports hot water extraction running near 1,000 square feet an hour against roughly 5,000 for low-moisture interim methods, using six to eight gallons of water per thousand square feet where encapsulation uses about one gallon and eight ounces of product. The same source notes encapsulation can be run three to four times between full extractions. Hard floor strip and recoat is judged on wear rather than on a published standard — vendor guidance suggests high-traffic areas come up more often than back-of-house, and no standards body sets a figure.
Tax, and one thing worth knowing this year
Cleaning services are exempt from provincial sales tax in British Columbia. The Province's Small Business Guide to PST lists janitorial services among its exempt cleaning services, and the exemption survived this year's changes: from 1 October 2026 British Columbia extends PST to accounting, architectural, engineering, security and non-residential real estate services, including strata management — and cleaning is not on that list. GST at five per cent applies as it does to any taxable service. A strata manager comparing invoices in the last quarter of 2026 will see tax appear on one line and not the other, and that is the reason.
Ranges are a starting point; the walkthrough is what produces the number. Request a walkthrough and we will put these figures against your building.