Cleaning contractors in the United States

There is usually no licence to check

Residential and janitorial cleaning is not a licensed construction trade in the states whose licence files this site reads, so the licensed share on a cleaning hub is shown as not published rather than as a percentage. That is a fact about the source files and about how the trade is regulated, not a statement about any business listed below.

What a company does normally hold is a local business registration and a tax registration, which are not published as a searchable trade credential anywhere. The substitute checks are insurance and employment, below.

Bonded, insured, and employees rather than contractors

Three questions do most of the work here. Does the company carry general liability insurance, for damage to the house. Does it carry workers' compensation coverage, so an injury in your home is its insurer's problem rather than yours. And are the cleaners employees of the company or independent contractors, which decides who is responsible for both of those and for payroll taxes.

A surety bond is often advertised as being bonded. It is a specific and narrow instrument, usually covering theft by an employee, and it is not a substitute for liability insurance. A company that answers all three questions in writing is giving you more than a licence number would in most states.

Because this is work done inside a house, often with a key and often when nobody is home, background screening policy and staff turnover are fair questions and not rude ones.

What is being sprayed, and on what

Cleaning products are chemicals, and a company applying them at commercial strength should be able to say which ones. Products making a public health claim, disinfectants and sanitisers, are registered pesticides with EPA registration numbers and labels stating contact time and ventilation, and using one against its label is the same violation it would be in any other trade.

Mixing is the common failure: chlorine bleach with an ammonia or acid product produces a hazardous gas in an enclosed bathroom. Any company sending people into houses should have a written practice about it, and safety data sheets available for the products they carry.

Surfaces have their own rules. Natural stone, unsealed grout, waxed wood and some engineered surfaces are damaged by ordinary acid or alkaline cleaners, and the damage is not reversible by cleaning it again.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Safer Choice and disinfectant labels

One-off, recurring, and specialty are three markets

A recurring house clean, a move-out or post-construction clean, and a specialty service such as carpet, duct or window cleaning are priced and staffed differently even where one company sells all three. The counts on this page pool them, because a business record does not say which of the three it earns its living from.