8 minute read · Updated 23 August 2026
The end of tenancy cleaning checklist
Everything an inventory clerk checks, room by room. Use it, print it, or hand it to whoever is doing the clean.
Who this is for: Tenants moving out, landlords preparing a property, and agents managing a check-out.
First, the thing nobody tells you
In England, since June 2019, a landlord cannot require you to pay for professional cleaning as a condition of your tenancy. The Tenant Fees Act made that a prohibited payment. If your agreement says you must produce a receipt from a professional cleaner, that clause is not enforceable.
What you do have to do is return the property as clean as it was when you moved in, allowing for fair wear and tear. That is judged against the check-in inventory, not against a standard someone invents at the door.
So the honest position — from a company that sells cleaning — is this: you are allowed to do it yourself. Plenty of people do, and get their full deposit back. This checklist is what you would need to cover.
Before you start
Find your check-in inventory. It is the document you will be judged against, and it usually includes photographs. If the oven was greasy when you arrived and the inventory says so, you do not have to hand it back spotless.
Photograph everything when you finish, dated. If a deduction is proposed later, dated photographs of the state you left it in usually end the argument.
Do it empty. Cleaning around furniture and boxes takes twice as long and misses the places that get checked.
Work top to bottom, back to front. Dust falls. Hoover last, and clean yourself out of each room towards the door.
The kitchen — where most deposits are lost
More deduction disputes start here than anywhere else in the property, and the oven is the single most argued-about item.
Oven, hob and extractor
- Oven interior — floor, sides, roof and the back
- Oven door glass, including between the panes if it comes apart
- Shelves, runners and the grill pan
- Hob, burners, pan supports and the control knobs
- Splashback and the wall behind
- Extractor hood, and the filter — take it out and degrease it
Fridge, freezer and appliances
- Fridge emptied, shelves and drawers washed, seals wiped
- Freezer fully defrosted — allow a day for this, it cannot be rushed
- Leave both switched off with the doors propped open, or they will smell
- Washing machine — drawer removed and descaled, door seal wiped out
- Dishwasher — filter cleaned, seals wiped
- Microwave, kettle and toaster, inside and out. Empty the crumb tray
Units and surfaces
- Inside every cupboard and drawer, emptied and wiped
- Cupboard doors and handles, including the greasy ones by the hob
- The tops of wall units — dust settles there and clerks check
- Worktops, including under anything that normally sits on them
- Sink, taps and drainer, descaled
- Under the sink, including the pipework and any spills
- Tiles and grout
- Bin, inside and out
Bathrooms
Limescale is the one that gets noticed. Hard water leaves it on glass, taps and shower heads, and a quick wipe will not shift it — it needs a descaler and time.
Everything wet
- Shower screen or curtain, both sides, descaled
- Shower head — soak it if the holes are blocked
- Bath, including the overflow and the sealant line
- Basin, taps and the plughole
- Toilet — bowl, under the rim, the seat and its hinges, the cistern, and behind the pan
- Tiles and grout, and any mould in the corners
Everything else
- Extractor fan cover and vent
- Mirror and cabinet, inside and out
- Towel rails and radiator
- Floor, including behind the door and around the pedestal
Bedrooms and living areas
The obvious
- Inside wardrobes and drawers, emptied and wiped
- The tops of wardrobes — dust, and often forgotten items
- Under the beds, if they move
- Windows inside, sills and frames, and the runners
- Mirrors, streak-free
- Carpets hoovered, including the edges and under furniture
The bits people forget
- Skirting boards, and the tops of doors
- Light switches, sockets and door handles
- Radiators, including behind them
- Curtain rails and blind slats
- Ceiling corners for cobwebs
- Picture hooks removed and holes filled, if your agreement asks for it
Hall, stairs and the outside
Circulation
- Front and back door, both sides, and the frames
- Bannister, spindles and the stair edges where the hoover misses
- Meter cupboard and any airing cupboard
- Loft hatch, if there is one
Outside
- Bins emptied and rinsed — a full bin at check-out is a deduction
- Doorstep and any porch
- Garden tidy and grass cut, if your agreement says so
- Anything you were storing in a shed or garage, removed
The things that get missed most
From the jobs we get called back to, in order: the oven door glass, the extractor filter, the washing machine drawer, the tops of kitchen units, behind the toilet, and the bins. None of them take long. All of them get checked.
One more: the freezer. It needs a full day to defrost properly, and it is the one job that cannot be done on the morning of the check-out.
If a deduction is proposed anyway
Ask for the check-in inventory and the check-out report side by side, with photographs. A deduction has to show a difference between the two, beyond fair wear and tear.
Your deposit should be in a government-approved protection scheme, and every scheme has a free dispute resolution service. You do not need a solicitor and it does not cost you anything to use it.
Landlords cannot charge you for betterment — replacing something old with something new at your expense — or for wear that is simply the passage of time.
Where this comes from
Every figure and legal position on this page, and the document it came from. If something here is out of date, these are how you would find out.
- Statistical Briefing 2024/25 — reasons for disputes in TDS Insured (Table 9)Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) · 2024–25
If you would rather not
End of tenancy cleaning
If you would rather not do it yourself, we clean to this list and photograph every room on completion — so if a deduction is ever proposed, you have dated evidence of how it was left.
Quoted on the property
Priced on bedrooms, bathrooms and condition rather than an hourly rate, so you know the figure before we start. Call us and we will give you a number on the phone. Landlords and agents with several properties are priced across the lot rather than one at a time.
Get a price for an end of tenancy clean — we price these on the phone, because what an inspection actually needs varies far more than a changeover does.
Also worth reading
- The Airbnb changeover checklistWhat to check between guests, what to check monthly, and the small things that cause bad reviews.
- Deposit deductions for cleaningWhat can be taken, what cannot, and what actually happens if you disagree. Written from the scheme rules and the published figures rather than from what everybody says.
- Airbnb changeover cleaning prices explainedHow the figure is built, what sits outside it, and where a website has to stop and a phone call has to start. Our own card, not a survey of the market.
- Why cleaning quotes vary so muchTwo quotes for the same flat, three times apart, and neither document says which job it is. What causes that, what you are entitled to be told, and the questions that make two numbers comparable.
- Office cleaning contracts: how pricing actually worksThree proposals, three different shapes, and no way to line them up. What a specification should actually contain, what sits on every hour, and the obligation that arrives with a change of contractor.
- Linen for short lets: own it, hire it, or ask guests to bring itIf you run one or two flats with a working washer-dryer, own your linen and do not buy stock from us. We sell it, and at your size you do not need it. Here is everything that decides the answer, including the parts that cost us the sale.
- How long should an Airbnb changeover actually take?We will not tell you how long your changeover takes, because nobody has published a figure we could stand behind and we are not going to invent one. Here is what we found instead, and what to ask for in its place.