A residential exit clean has a referee: the ingoing condition report. Commercial leases don't work like that. Your make good clause usually says something like "return the premises in a clean and tidy condition, fair wear and tear excepted" — and then a building manager, a landlord's rep and sometimes a quantity surveyor decide what that sentence means on the day. That's why commercial end of lease cleaning in Sydney gets argued over far more than a two-bedder in Bondi ever does. The clean is the last line item before your bank guarantee is released, and it's the cheapest part of the make good to get right.
We've cleaned out tenancies from single-floor suites in North Sydney to 1,200 sqm warehouses in Marrickville and strip-mall shopfronts in Burwood. The pattern is consistent: the strip-out contractor leaves, dust settles on everything, and the tenant discovers the landlord expected a proper commercial clean rather than a mop and a vacuum. Below is what actually gets ticked off.
What does a commercial make good clean actually include?
Pull out your lease before you book anything. The make good clause and the schedule of condition (if one exists) set the standard. Most Sydney office leases land in the same place, though, and the clean portion breaks down like this:
- Floors — carpet tiles hot water extracted or vinyl stripped and re-sealed. Sealing vinyl is a make good item in maybe a third of the leases we see, and it's the one tenants forget to price.
- Glass, inside and out (reachable) — partition glass, meeting room walls, shopfront windows, entry doors, and the inside of external windows up to safe reach. Anything above ground needs an abseil or boom crew, which is a separate trade.
- Kitchenette / breakout — inside all cupboards, fridge cavity, dishwasher filter, microwave, splashback, sink and tap descaled, bin store degreased.
- Amenities — toilets, basins, hand dryers, mirrors, chrome, tile grout, floor wastes, sanitary bins removed and the cavity cleaned.
- Air vents, grilles and ceiling — return air grilles get grey filth on them, and they photograph badly. Ceiling tiles that are water-stained are a repair item, not a clean item, so flag them early.
- Light diffusers — the plastic troffers over fluorescents. Dust and dead insects. Landlords' reps check these more than you'd think.
- Blinds and window furnishings — vertical and roller blinds wiped slat by slat, or the lease may require replacement.
- Skirting, sills, cable trays, comms room — post-strip-out dust migrates into every horizontal surface, and the comms cupboard is nearly always filthy.
- Back of house — loading dock, bin area, stairwells, store rooms, and any car space you hold on the lease.
Warehouses add their own list: concrete floor scrubbed with a ride-on, oil stains treated, mezzanine handrails, roller door tracks, forklift rubber marks on walls, and pallet racking dust if the racking stays.
How much does commercial end of lease cleaning cost in Sydney in 2026?
Commercial pricing is per square metre, not per bedroom. Two identical 200 sqm suites can differ by $600 based on carpet condition, kitchen size and whether a strip-out has just happened. These are the ranges we're quoting in September 2026 across Sydney metro.
| Premises type | Size guide | Typical make good clean | What moves the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small office suite | 60–120 sqm | $650 – $1,300 | Kitchenette size, glass partitions, carpet tiles |
| Mid-size office floor | 200–400 sqm | $1,400 – $3,200 | Amenities count, light diffusers, post-strip-out dust |
| Whole floor / tenancy | 500–900 sqm | $3,000 – $6,500 | After-hours access, dock lift bookings, vinyl sealing |
| Retail shopfront | 50–150 sqm | $700 – $1,800 | Shopfront glass, grease if food, cool room |
| Café / food tenancy | 60–200 sqm | $1,600 – $4,500 | Canopy and duct, grease trap area, tiled floor grout |
| Warehouse / industrial | 300–1,200 sqm | $1,800 – $6,000 | Floor scrubbing, oil stains, high-level dusting |
As a rule of thumb, budget $4–$8 per sqm for office space in reasonable condition, and $9–$14 per sqm if it's a food tenancy or the space has been neglected for a five-year term. Carpet tile extraction is usually quoted separately at $4.50–$7 per sqm; you can see how that stacks up against residential rates on our pricing and instant estimate page. Vinyl strip and seal sits around $12–$18 per sqm because it's three coats and a lot of dry time.
Pro tip: get the clean quoted after you have the strip-out scope, not before. A tenant in Alexandria booked us for a 340 sqm clean, then their builder removed a partition wall the following week and dumped gyprock dust through the whole tenancy. We re-cleaned it, but they paid twice. Sequence is everything — demolition, then repairs and painting, then clean, then handover inspection.
Who inspects a commercial premises at handover — and what do they look for?
Rarely the leasing agent alone. On a strata-titled suite you'll often get the building manager plus the landlord's asset manager. On a larger tenancy, the landlord may engage a make good consultant who walks the floor with the original schedule of condition and a camera. They are not looking for the same things a residential property manager checks, so don't hand over a domestic checklist and hope.
What they consistently pull us up on:
- Adhesive residue where signage, whiteboards or cable trunking came off the walls.
- Carpet tile shading and traffic lanes at lift lobbies and desk clusters.
- Kitchen sink and tap limescale — Sydney water leaves it and nobody descales as they go.
- Grubby switch plates, door hardware and glass door push plates at hand height.
- Dust on top of door frames and on the horizontal face of ceiling grid.
- The comms/server cupboard — unswept, cable offcuts, dust bunnies.
- Amenity grout and the silicone bead behind basins.
- Floor wastes in kitchens and amenities smelling because the trap dried out in a vacant month.
The logic mirrors what happens in residential exits, which we broke down in detail in our guide to what Sydney agents flag on the exit report — the categories change, the psychology doesn't. Reps look at hand height, eye height and anything that photographs as a grey line.
When should you book the clean, and how long does it take?
For a 200–400 sqm office, allow a full night shift with a crew of four to six, or two shorter nights if the building restricts after-hours access. Carpet extraction adds 3–5 hours plus drying, and in September the humidity off a wet week can push carpet tile drying to 5–6 hours with air movers running. Vinyl strip and seal needs the floor empty and untouched for 8–12 hours.
Book the clean at least two weeks out and lock in the handover inspection for the following business day, not the same afternoon. Two reasons: it gives us the 72-hour window to fix anything flagged, and it means the building's dock lift and after-hours air conditioning are actually booked. We lose more time to a locked loading dock and a security pass that never got issued than to dirt.
Spring is the busiest window in Sydney for both residential and commercial moves — the same crunch we mapped in the spring end of lease booking calendar. If your lease expiry is 30 September or 31 October, the last week of the month is genuinely tight.
What paperwork does the landlord want with the clean?
This is where commercial diverges hardest from residential. A tenant handing back a tenancy is usually required to provide evidence, and "we cleaned it" isn't evidence. What we supply on a make good clean:
- Tax invoice with scope listed line by line — floors, glass, amenities, kitchen, vents, diffusers. A one-line "cleaning" invoice invites questions.
- Carpet or hard floor certificate — the machine used, the method (hot water extraction), the date. Our carpet steam cleaning receipts are the same format landlords and property managers accept for residential bonds.
- Before-and-after photos, time-stamped, room by room. We keep these on file for 12 months; there are samples in our before-and-after job gallery.
- Certificate of currency — $20 million public liability. Most Sydney building managers won't issue an after-hours pass without it, alongside a SWMS and inductions.
Keep that pack with your make good sign-off. If the landlord later claims cleaning costs against the bank guarantee, a scoped invoice and dated photos end the conversation quickly.
How is a commercial make good clean different from a residential bond clean?
Scale is the obvious answer, but the practical differences are what catch tenants out.
Access is a project in itself
After-hours work, security escorts, lift bookings, dock permits, and air conditioning that shuts off at 6pm so your crew works in 28 degrees. Building inductions can take a week to process in a managed tower.
The standard is contractual, not conventional
Residential exits are measured against the ingoing report and NSW Fair Trading guidance. Commercial is measured against whatever your lease says — which might oblige you to replace floor coverings, repaint in a specified finish, or reinstate the space to base build. Cleaning is one line in a much bigger scope.
Equipment is heavier
Ride-on scrubbers for warehouse concrete, truck-mount or high-flow portables for carpet tiles, rotary machines for vinyl, telescopic poles for high-level dusting. Honestly, skip the idea of a domestic vacuum and a bucket here — you'll spend three nights doing what a proper crew does in one.
Staged handovers happen
Half a floor goes back in October, the rest in December. We split the clean to match, then re-clean the retained portion at final handover. If you're weighing whether you need a full exit standard or something lighter for an interim handover, our comparison of an exit clean against a deep clean is a useful frame.
Can you keep the clean cheaper without risking the guarantee?
Yes, with a bit of discipline in the last three months of the lease.
Keep your regular contractor on until the day of the make good clean — don't cancel the monthly service to save $400 and then pay $1,200 extra for built-up grime. Tenants on an ongoing Sydney office cleaning plan consistently come in at the lower end of the per-sqm range, because the amenities and kitchen have never been allowed to go feral.
Empty the space properly. Every abandoned monitor, box of files and broken chair we have to work around adds time, and rubbish removal is charged separately (skip bins in inner Sydney run $350–$700 depending on size and access). Take signage down before we arrive so we can treat the adhesive shadow while the wall is accessible. And if the carpet has one bad patch at the old kitchen doorway, tell us — spot treatment beforehand beats a landlord demanding whole-floor replacement.
One more thing worth checking: whether your lease requires the clean to be done by a licensed and insured contractor. Plenty do. A cash-in-hand crew with no certificate of currency will get turned away at the security desk, and then you're rebooking inside your last week.
If you've got a lease expiry coming up, send us the floor plan, the make good clause and your handover date — we'll quote a fixed price with the scope written out line by line. Ask us for a free commercial make good quote and we'll tell you honestly which items are cleaning and which ones are your builder's problem.
