Do you need a licence for a cleaning business in the UK?

What is legally required

Three things apply to essentially every UK cleaning business, whether you clean two houses a week or run a team.

• Register with HMRC. As a sole trader you register for Self Assessment; as a limited company you incorporate at Companies House and register for Corporation Tax. Registering late is the single most common — and most expensive — mistake new cleaners make.
• Keep records. Income, expenses, mileage and invoices. You do not need accounting software on day one, but you do need every invoice you have issued.
• Have public liability insurance. Not a statutory requirement for domestic work, but in practice non-negotiable: agents, offices and most landlords will ask for the certificate before they book.

What clients expect (even though it is not the law)

These are the things that decide whether you win contracts, not whether you are trading legally. Treat them as commercial requirements.

• Public liability cover, typically quoted at £1m, £2m or £5m depending on the client.
• A basic DBS certificate for you and anyone you send into a home.
• A written service agreement setting out scope, access, cancellation and payment terms.
• Clear, itemised invoices with your business details on them.

The last two you can generate free in your browser with our cleaning service agreement generator and cleaning invoice generator.

Situations that do trigger extra registration

• Employing staff — you must run PAYE and hold employers' liability insurance. Using self-employed subcontractors does not automatically avoid this; the working arrangement decides status, not the label.
• Removing waste from client premises — register as a waste carrier with the Environment Agency (SEPA in Scotland, NRW in Wales).
• Passing the VAT threshold — register for VAT and start charging it. Watch this on a rolling 12-month basis, not a tax year.
• Handling client data — you are a data controller for customer names, addresses and access details. Most small cleaning businesses need to pay the ICO data protection fee.
• Supplying workers to another business — if you place cleaners under someone else's control rather than delivering a cleaning service, employment agency rules may apply.

Working from home

Running the admin side from your kitchen table is fine and does not change your legal status. Three checks are worth doing before you scale up: whether your tenancy or mortgage restricts business use, whether your home insurer needs to know about stored equipment and chemicals, and whether a room used exclusively for business could attract business rates. Storing large volumes of cleaning chemicals also brings COSHH obligations once you have staff.

Frequently asked questions