How to start a cleaning business in Canada

Pick the kind of cleaning business first

"Cleaning business" covers very different companies. A woman cleaning three condos a week in Liberty Village and a crew of twelve doing office towers at night are both cleaning businesses, but they buy different gear, find customers in different places and get paid on different schedules. Decide which one you're starting before you spend a dollar.

Most owners start residential, because the start-up cost is lowest and the first customer can be a neighbour. Recurring house cleaning is also the steadiest money in the trade: a customer on a two-week schedule is 26 bookings a year you don't have to sell again. If you're aiming at offices instead, read the commercial cleaning guide after this one. The registration steps are the same; the selling isn't.

What it costs to start a cleaning business

Here's what owners who started in the last few years actually spent, gathered from operators who published their numbers. These are Canadian dollars where owners gave them, and they assume you already have a car and a phone.

Add it up and a solo residential start lands somewhere between $800 and $2,500, with insurance as the biggest single line. Commercial starts cost more, mostly because buildings ask for higher insurance limits and you'll want a floor machine sooner.

Don't skip the second number most guides leave out: cash to live on while you build. A new residential business usually takes a few months to fill a week. If you're leaving a job, have two or three months of personal expenses set aside, or start on evenings and weekends and switch over once you're booked.

How to register a cleaning business in Canada

Registration is less work than it sounds. For most new cleaners it's two forms and about $60. Here's the order to do it in.

1. Sole proprietorship or corporation

A sole proprietorship is you, trading under a name. It's cheap and simple, and your business income goes on your personal tax return (form T2125). The catch is that you're personally on the hook for the business's debts and claims. A corporation is a separate legal person. It costs more to set up and to run (a separate tax return every year, usually with an accountant), and in exchange it limits your personal liability and can save tax once profits are high.

Most cleaners start as sole proprietors and incorporate later, once the business is clearly working. Liability insurance covers the most likely claims either way: the broken vase, the flooded floor.

2. Register the name with your province

If you trade under your own legal name ("Maria Santos"), most provinces don't need a registration at all. If you trade under anything else ("Sparkle & Co. Cleaning"), you register it. Search the name first, and check that the domain and social handles are free while you're at it.

In Ontario, both registrations go through the Ontario Business Registry. You'll get an Ontario Business Identification Number (BIN). That isn't your tax number; that comes next.

3. Get a CRA business number

Your business number (BN) comes from the Canada Revenue Agency and is free. You need it for GST/HST, payroll and anything else you do with the CRA. Some provincial registries can request one for you as part of registering; otherwise get it directly from the CRA's Business Registration Online.

4. Register for GST/HST when you need to

You don't have to charge GST/HST until your taxable sales pass $30,000, either in a single calendar quarter or over four quarters in a row. Until then you're a "small supplier." Once you pass it in one quarter, you charge tax starting with the sale that put you over.

Many cleaners register early anyway, for two reasons. You can claim back the tax you pay on supplies, gas and equipment (input tax credits). And commercial customers often prefer a supplier who's registered. The trade-off: if you register early, you charge 13% HST in Ontario on every residential clean, which makes your price look higher than the unregistered cleaner down the street. What you can't do is charge HST without being registered.

5. Open a business bank account

Not a legal requirement for a sole proprietor, but do it on day one. Mixing personal and business money is how owners lose track of what they actually earn, and it makes tax time miserable. Keep your records for six years; the CRA can ask for them.

Licences, insurance and the rules that do apply

There's no provincial licence for general cleaning anywhere in Canada. Whether you need a city business licence depends on where you work, and the answer varies a lot:

• Toronto: none of the city's 93 licence types covers cleaning or janitorial work. The Building Renovator licence only matters if you also do repair work.
• Ottawa and Mississauga: neither city's licensing by-law lists cleaning.
• Calgary: residential and commercial cleaners need a business licence, which includes a Calgary Police Service check (about two weeks).
• Vancouver: every business working in the city needs a business licence. The fee depends on the licence type and your income.

Insurance isn't required by law for a cleaning business in Canada, but you won't get far without it. Condo boards, property managers and most commercial customers ask for a certificate before you start, and a single flooded floor can cost more than ten years of premiums. Plan for commercial general liability with at least $2 million in coverage.

If you hire, workers' compensation is the one that's compulsory. In Ontario, cleaning isn't on the WSIB's list of optional industries, so you register within 10 days of hiring your first worker. In BC, WorkSafeBC expects you to register when you hire.

The full breakdown, with insurance costs, bonding, WSIB rates and city-by-city licences, is in the cleaning business licence and insurance guide.

How to price your cleaning services

Pricing is where new cleaning businesses quietly fail. Not because they charge too much, but because they quote a job at what feels fair, then discover it took five hours instead of three. The fix is to price the hours first, then turn the hours into a price.

1. Know your times. Track how long your first ten jobs take, door to door. Use the average, not your best day.
2. Set an hourly rate that covers everything. Your pay (or your cleaner's, plus payroll costs), supplies at about 3% of the price, gas, insurance, software and a profit margin. Many owners land well above what they'd pay a cleaner per hour, because labour is only about half the price once a cleaner does the work.
3. Quote a range or a flat price, not a guess. Flat prices by bedrooms and bathrooms are easier for customers to say yes to. Keep the range for homes you haven't seen.
4. Charge more for the first clean. A first visit or a deep clean takes longer than the regular one after it. Price it separately so the regular price stays honest.
5. Show tax clearly. In Ontario, consumer law requires the total price in the agreement. If you're registered, show the HST as its own line.

For a sense of the market: owners report a standard recurring clean at about $150 to $200 in Toronto and Victoria. Move-outs and deep cleans run higher, and post-construction is priced by the square foot.

Write a service agreement before the first clean

A handshake works until the first disagreement about a cancelled clean or a broken lamp. A one-page agreement prevents most of them. In Ontario, recurring home cleaning is a future performance agreement under the Consumer Protection Act, 2002, which comes with specific rules:

• Any agreement over $50 must be in writing, and the customer gets a copy.
• It must list your name and address, the customer's name and address, a description of the service, an itemized price and the total, the payment terms and the start date.
• If you don't start within 30 days of the promised date, the customer can cancel.
• If you sign the customer up in their home, they generally have 10 days to cancel. Ontario's ban on unsolicited door-to-door sales covers things like furnaces and duct cleaning, not house cleaning.

Other provinces differ. BC tightened its rules for future performance contracts on August 1, 2026. In Quebec, a client can end a service contract at any time and owes only for work already done, and contracts and invoices must be in French first.

More Knocks sends quotes customers sign on their phone and keeps the signed copy on the booking, so the agreement and the job live in the same place.

Get your first ten customers

Your first customers won't come from a website. They'll come from people who already trust you, and from the places your neighbours ask for recommendations. In rough order of how fast they work:

1. People you know. Tell friends, family and former co-workers what you charge and which days you have open. Ask each one for a name, not a favour.
2. A Google Business Profile. Free, and it's what shows up when someone nearby searches for a cleaner. Set it up as a service-area business so your home address stays hidden.
3. Local Facebook groups and community boards. Neighbourhood groups get "can anyone recommend a cleaner?" posts every week. Answer them helpfully, not with a sales pitch.
4. Realtors and property managers. One realtor who sends you move-out cleans can fill a month-end every month.
5. Reviews from day one. Ask every happy customer for a Google review the same day. Five reviews puts you ahead of most new cleaners in your area.

The full playbook, including neighbourhood mail costs, door hangers, referral offers and the email rules you need to follow, is in the guide to getting cleaning clients.

Your first hire: employee or contractor

Somewhere around 15 to 20 cleans a week, you'll run out of hours. Before you hire, decide whether the person is an employee or an independent contractor, because the CRA, your province and the workers' comp board each decide for themselves, whatever your agreement says.

The CRA looks at control (who sets the schedule and the way the work is done), tools and equipment (who supplies them), the chance of profit or risk of loss, and whether the person can send someone else. A cleaner who works your schedule, at your customers' homes, with your supplies, is very likely an employee.

If they're an employee, in Ontario you'll need to:

• Pay at least $17.95 an hour (from October 1, 2026). Travel time between customers' homes during the day generally counts as work time.
• Open a CRA payroll account and deduct CPP (5.95% each, matched by you) and EI (you pay 1.4 times the employee's premium).
• Pay 4% vacation pay (6% after five years) and public holiday pay.
• Register with the WSIB within 10 days. Janitorial work falls under Class M, which was $1.43 per $100 of insurable payroll in 2026.
• Give them the employment standards poster and complete basic health and safety awareness training.
• Issue a T4 slip each February.

Want to see the real cost of one hire before you post the ad? The guide to how much to pay cleaners has wages by city and the full employer cost per hour.

Ontario checklist: start a cleaning business in Ontario

Everything above, in order, for Ontario. Each step was checked against the official Ontario or federal page in October 2026.

Ontario passed a new Consumer Protection Act in 2023. As of October 2026 it hadn't come into force, so the 2002 Act's rules above still apply. Check the Ontario consumer protection pages before you print a stack of agreements.

Starting a cleaning business in the US instead

The steps are the same shape in the US, with different offices. Register your business with your state (and your city or county, where it asks), get a free EIN from the IRS if you'll hire or form an LLC, and check your state's rules on sales tax: some states tax cleaning services and most don't. Many owners form an LLC for the liability protection.

Insurance works the same way. One US insurance marketplace puts general liability for janitorial businesses at an average of about $50 a month (for $1 million per claim and $2 million a year), and a janitorial bond at about $11 a month. Pricing, contracts and the hunt for your first ten customers follow everything above.