Office Cleaning in Los Angeles: Scope, Schedules and California’s Janitorial Registration

Office cleaning in Los Angeles covers a wide range, from a tower floor Downtown cleaned every night by a janitorial contractor to a six-desk studio that needs two hours on a Friday evening. This page is written for the second kind: small offices, studios, suites and storefront workplaces that want a regular clean without a facilities department.

It covers what a small office visit includes, how often offices are cleaned, the California registration that applies to office cleaning and that a customer can be fined for ignoring, the paperwork a building will ask for, and what to put in a written scope. The state rules come from the Labor Commissioner’s Office. They are summarized here and are not legal advice.

Maid Service Los Angeles is a referral service, not a cleaning company or a janitorial contractor. We connect you with independent local cleaning providers, some of whom take small offices alongside homes. The provider sets the scope and the price, and it is for you to check their registration and insurance before you sign anything. This page shows you how.

What small office cleaning covers

The list is the provider’s to set and yours to agree. A regular visit to a small office normally covers these areas.

• Desks and work surfaces. Clear areas wiped. Expect papers, screens and keyboards to be left alone unless you ask.
• Floors. Carpet vacuumed, hard floors swept and mopped, entry mats shaken out or vacuumed.
• Restrooms. Toilets, urinals, sinks, mirrors, partitions and floors cleaned, with soap, paper towels and toilet paper restocked from your supplies or theirs.
• Kitchen or break area. Counters, sink, table, the outside of appliances and the inside of the microwave. Whether dishes and the refrigerator are included needs to be agreed.
• Trash and recycling. Trash cans emptied, new bags put in, and full bags taken to the building’s enclosure.
• Glass and entry. Entry door glass, interior partitions and the reception counter.
• Touch points. Door handles, light switches, shared phones and handrails wiped.

Less frequent jobs are usually priced separately: machine carpet cleaning, interior window washing, stripping and refinishing hard floors, upholstery, and high dusting of vents and light fixtures.

How often, and when

Workplace	A starting point to discuss	Notes
A small office with few visitors	Once a week	Often on a Friday evening or over the weekend
An office that sees clients every day	Two or three times a week	Restrooms and reception are the areas visitors see
A storefront or studio with steady foot traffic	Every weekday	Floors and entry glass show it first
Any office	A periodic deeper clean	Carpets, windows and floor finishing on a calendar agreed in advance

Small offices are usually cleaned outside working hours, so access is part of the job: who holds a key or fob, who has the alarm code, whether building security needs a name on a list, and what the cleaner does on finding a door unlocked or someone still at a desk. Put it in writing.

A small cleaning provider or a janitorial contractor

Not every workplace suits the kind of provider this site connects you with. As a rough guide:

Your workplace	Likely fit
A suite, studio or storefront of a few rooms, cleaned one to three times a week	A small cleaning provider who also takes offices, once you have checked their registration and insurance
Several floors, or a building with shared lobbies and restrooms	A janitorial contractor with supervisors and a staffed account
Treatment rooms in a medical or dental practice	A contractor trained for clinical spaces. A waiting room and a front desk are ordinary office cleaning.
A workplace that needs someone on site through the day	A janitorial contractor that provides daytime staff
A home office	A house cleaner, as part of the home

Whichever it is, make the registration check described in the next section before you sign.

California’s janitorial registration: check it before you sign

California has a registration rule for janitorial work that does not reach cleaners who work only in homes. Under the Property Service Workers Protection Act, janitorial employers have had to register with the Labor Commissioner’s Office since July 1, 2018. The application fee is $500, the registration is valid for one year, and it must be renewed every year for another $500.

The definition is wide. The Labor Commissioner’s Office says a janitorial employer is anyone that employs at least one covered worker, or that otherwise engages, by contract, subcontract or franchise arrangement, for janitorial services to be provided by covered workers. A covered worker is any individual working predominantly as a janitor, whether as an employee, an independent contractor or a franchisee.

Here is why that matters to a business looking for a small cleaning provider. The office’s examples of businesses that do not have to register include a person or entity that only cleans residential dwellings, such as private residences, condos or mobile homes. Its examples of businesses that do have to register include a provider of janitorial services for commercial establishments, office buildings among them, that employs no one at all. So a cleaner who works only in homes is outside the program, and one who also takes on offices may not be. Whether a particular provider has to register is for the Labor Commissioner’s Office to say. The practical step is to ask the provider, and to look the business up.

The risk does not sit only with the cleaner. The Labor Commissioner’s Office says any person or entity that contracts for janitorial services with an employer that is not registered when the contract is executed, extended, renewed or modified is subject to a civil fine of $2,000 to $10,000 for a first violation and $10,000 to $25,000 for a subsequent one. In a news release of April 30, 2025, the office said it had cited Pepperdine University for $40,000, the maximum of $10,000 for each of four unregistered janitorial employers the university had contracted with.

Your own business does not have to register simply because it has its premises cleaned. The office’s example is a restaurant that brings in a janitorial contractor after closing every evening: the restaurant is the recipient of the service and is not required to register. What it must not do is contract with an unregistered employer.

Checking takes a few minutes. The Labor Commissioner’s janitorial registration page links to a public search tool for verifying a registration. The same page says janitorial employers must give their workers in-person sexual violence and harassment prevention training every two years.

Other paperwork to ask for

• Proof of insurance. A certificate showing general liability coverage, and workers’ compensation if the provider has employees. A building manager may want the building owner named on it.
• City business tax registration. The Office of Finance requires all individuals and entities conducting business activities in the City of Los Angeles to hold a Business Tax Registration Certificate.
• Who the workers are. Ask whether the people who will hold your keys are the provider’s employees. The Labor Commissioner’s Office describes a test that starts from the assumption that a worker is an employee, whatever the paperwork calls them.
• A written scope and price. The next section lists what to put in it.
• A reference from another office. Preferably one of a similar size.

Put the scope in writing

A one-page written scope leaves less to argue about later. It should state the following.

1. The rooms and areas covered, and any that are off limits.
2. The tasks done on every visit, and those done weekly, monthly or quarterly.
3. The days and hours of service, and what happens on holidays.
4. Who supplies cleaning products, trash bags, paper goods and soap, and who pays for them.
5. How keys, fobs and alarm codes are issued, stored and returned.
6. The price, what triggers an extra charge, and how often you are billed.
7. How problems are reported and how they are put right.
8. The length of the agreement and the notice either side must give to end it.

The fine for using an unregistered janitorial employer applies when a contract is executed, extended, renewed or modified, so check the registration again each time the agreement changes.

Building rules, parking and trash

In a multi-tenant building the landlord’s rules come first. Ask the property manager what vendors need before the first visit: a certificate of insurance, names for the security desk, permitted hours, and which elevator and loading area to use.

Settle parking too. If the cleaner has to pay to park, as can happen Downtown, in Koreatown, in Hollywood or in Westwood, agree who covers it. On a street inside a Preferential Parking District, a vehicle needs a valid permit to park without risking a citation.

Trash from businesses and apartment buildings in the City is collected through recycLA, the City’s program for commercial and multi-family customers, which covers trash, blue bin recycling and organics. Show the cleaner where each stream goes. Do not expect a cleaner to take away electronics, furniture or chemicals.

Home offices and live-work spaces

If your office is a room in your home, it is cleaned as part of the home, and the house cleaning and maid service pages are the ones to read. If you run a business with staff or visitors from a live-work unit, describe the space plainly to the provider, and ask whether they treat it as a home or as an office.

What office cleaning costs

We do not set prices, and for this service we found no published figure for Los Angeles that we were confident enough to repeat. Office cleaning is normally priced per visit or per month from the floor area, the number of restrooms, the visits per week and the extras.

One figure is public. The City of Los Angeles minimum wage, set at $18.42 an hour from July 1, 2026 and adjusted every July 1, is the least an employee covered by the City’s ordinance can be paid. A price that could not cover it after supplies, travel and insurance deserves a question. Ask two or three providers for a written price against the same written scope, and compare them line by line.

Where in Los Angeles

You can call about a small office anywhere in the City of Los Angeles, including Downtown, Koreatown, Hollywood, Mid-City, Westwood, West Los Angeles, Venice, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Woodland Hills, Northridge and San Pedro. A large floor, a medical facility or a building that needs someone on site through the day calls for a full janitorial contractor, not a residential cleaner.

The state registration rule applies throughout California, including separate cities nearby such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Glendale and Pasadena. The business tax registration and the minimum wage described here are City of Los Angeles rules.

Questions people ask