Cleaning contract: what to put in it, and how to show the service was delivered

01

What a cleaning contract is, and the law around it

A cleaning contract, or contract cleaning agreement, is a commercial contract for services between a client, such as a company, a school, a body corporate, a managing agent or a government department, and a contract cleaning company. It usually has three parts: the terms and conditions (parties, term, price, payment, liability, insurance, termination), the cleaning specification (what is cleaned, where and how often) and the service levels (how well, how fast, and how anyone will know). In a small contract all three sit in one document.

No South African law requires a cleaning contract in a particular form. What the law requires is the outcome, and it places duties on both parties that the contract has to fit around:

• Sections 8(1) and 9(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 require every employer to provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of its employees, and to conduct its undertaking so that other people directly affected by its activities are not exposed to hazards. Both parties owe both duties: each to its own employees under section 8, and each, under section 9, to everyone else its activities directly affect, including the other party's staff and the people in the building.
• Regulation 13H(2)(c) of the General Safety Regulations, as amended by the General Safety Regulations, 2025 (Government Notice 5954) of 6 March 2025, requires an employer to keep every indoor workplace "clean, orderly and free of materials, tools and similar things which are not necessary for the work done in such work place".
• Regulation 9 of the Facilities Regulations, 2004 requires the rooms and facilities they provide for, ablutions and change rooms included, to be kept "in a clean, hygienic, safe, whole and leak-free condition, and in a good state of repair".

Outsourcing the cleaning does not outsource those duties. The OHS Act defines a mandatary as including "an agent, a contractor or a subcontractor for work", without taking away its status as an employer in its own right, and section 37(2) presumes the client liable for its mandatary's contraventions "except if the parties have agreed in writing to the arrangements and procedures between them to ensure compliance by the mandatary with the provisions of this Act". That section 37(2) agreement is usually signed with, or annexed to, the cleaning contract. It sets out arrangements; it is not an indemnity.

Contract cleaning also has its own wage rules, under Sectoral Determination 1: Contract Cleaning Sector, and they reach the client as well as the contractor. Section 04 explains how.

02

What a cleaning contract should include

There is no standard South African cleaning contract template, and an office park, a hospital, a shopping centre and a sectional title scheme need different detail. But a workable contract for cleaning services covers:

• The parties and the premises: the sites and buildings covered, and the areas excluded. Windows at height, carpet shampooing, high-level dusting, waste removal from site, gardening and hygiene services are the usual grey areas; if gardening or hygiene services come from other suppliers, say where their work ends and the cleaners' begins.
• The term: the start date, the length, renewal, and the notice either side must give to end it.
• The specification: the tasks by area and frequency, in a cleaning schedule annexed to the contract rather than paraphrased in it, so the two cannot drift apart.
• Service hours: when the cleaners are on site, and who responds to call-outs in the evening, at weekends and on public holidays.
• Standards and service levels: what "clean" means for each type of area, response and rectification times, and how performance is measured and by whom.
• Staffing: the number of cleaners and supervisors, shifts, site induction, uniforms and identification, and cover for leave and absence.
• Equipment, chemicals and consumables: who supplies machines, chemicals, black bags, toilet paper, hand soap and paper towels, who keeps the supply topped up, and where the items are stored.
• Health and safety: the section 37(2) agreement, risk assessments, safety data sheets, personal protective equipment, training, and how incidents and injuries on duty are reported.
• Price and payment: the monthly fee, how extra work is quoted and approved, and how the price moves when minimum wages change.
• Reporting, escalation and termination: what is reported and how often, how complaints are answered, any penalty for missed service levels, and when the client may end the contract for persistent failure.
• The client's obligations: access, keys, storage, somewhere for the cleaners to change and eat, and notice of changes to how the building is used.
• Staff at the start and the end: what happens to the cleaners already on the site when the contract starts, and to this company's cleaners when it ends.

Insurance, liability and the legal terms belong in the terms and conditions. Keep the specification and service levels to what is managed from week to week, so the site supervisor and the client's facilities manager actually use them.

03

Setting standards that can be checked

The weakest clause in most cleaning contracts is the one nobody can measure: "a high standard of cleanliness at all times". Each standard should say what is measured, the target, the period, and where the evidence comes from.

Write the specification by area type, reception, offices, boardrooms, kitchens, ablution facilities, stairwells and lifts, parking, and describe the result, not just the task: "toilets, basins and urinals free of visible soiling and odour; soap, paper towels and toilet paper stocked" can be checked; "clean toilets" cannot.

Response and rectification times work best in a few priorities. As an illustration, not an industry standard:

• Urgent: a spill that creates a slip hazard, a blocked toilet, ablutions out of soap or paper. Attend within minutes and make safe at once.
• High: a missed clean in a busy area, or a failure a visitor would notice. Put right the same day.
• Routine: a task missed in a lower-use area, or a request for extra work. Put right by the next scheduled clean.

Set times the company can meet with the staff it has on site. A 15-minute response in a building with one cleaner on an afternoon shift, or during load shedding when the lifts are down, is a promise the contract has already broken.

Measure two things. Quality is an inspection score: a supervisor or the client's representative inspects a sample of rooms against the specification and scores each item pass or fail. Delivery is the scheduled cleans and checks completed against those planned. A contract that measures only quality can be met by a team that cleans half the rooms well; one that measures only delivery, by a team that visits every room and cleans none of them properly.

04

Wages, staff and safety: the South African specifics

Minimum wages. Government Notice R. 7083 of 3 February 2026, made under the National Minimum Wage Act 9 of 2018, set the minimum hourly rates for contract cleaning employees under Sectoral Determination 1 from 1 March 2026:

• Area A (the City of Cape Town, Greater East Rand Metro, City of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela metros, and the Emfuleni, Merafong, Mogale City, Metsimaholo, Randfontein, Stellenbosch and Westonaria local councils): R33,27 an hour, R6 487,15 a month.
• Area B (all of KwaZulu-Natal): the collective agreement of the Bargaining Council for the Contract Cleaning Service Industry (BCCCI) applies instead.
• Area C (the rest of South Africa): R30,33 an hour, R5 913,90 a month.

The monthly figures assume a 45-hour week and 4,333 weeks (just over four and a third) a month. The rates change each year, usually from 1 March, so the contract should say how the labour part of the fee moves when they do; otherwise a contract that was fair in February becomes unlawful to perform in March.

The price and section 200B. The 2026 notice warns that "[a]ny provider that contracts with a contract cleaning company at levels that makes it impossible for the contract cleaning company to meet its obligations" under the National Minimum Wage or Basic Conditions of Employment Acts "can be held liable in terms of section 200B of the Labour Relations Act", words that take in the client buying the service. Section 200B, inserted by the Labour Relations Amendment Act 6 of 2014, treats as an employer anyone who carries on associated or related business through an employer where "the intent or effect" is to defeat the purposes of employment law, and makes them jointly and severally liable. A tender price that cannot cover the minimum wage for the hours the specification needs is a warning, not a saving.

Staff when the contract changes hands. Section 197 of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 provides that when a business, including "the whole or a part of any business, trade, undertaking or service", is transferred as a going concern, the new employer is automatically substituted for the old one in all contracts of employment. Whether that happens when a cleaning contract moves to another company, or back in-house, depends on the facts and has been argued in the courts many times. The contract cannot decide the law, but it can make both sides plan for it: who employs the cleaners on day one, what the outgoing company hands over, and who bears the cost if a transfer is found. Take legal advice at both ends of the contract.

Chemicals and safety paperwork. The Regulations for Hazardous Chemical Agents, 2021 require an employer, after consulting the health and safety representative or committee, to assess whether employees may be exposed immediately and thereafter at intervals not exceeding two years, and they set out what a safety data sheet must contain. The contract should list the chemicals allowed on site, say where their safety data sheets are kept and who issues PPE. Clients commonly also ask for proof of registration with the Compensation Fund and for the contractor's safety file.

05

Measuring, reporting and putting things right

A cleaning contract that is signed and filed does nothing. The ones that work are run on three sources of evidence, and the contract should name all three:

1. Inspections: daily by the cleaning supervisor, and a monthly joint inspection by the contract manager and the client's representative against an agreed cleaning checklist. Joint inspections take the heat out of disputes, because both sides saw the same rooms.
2. Records of work done: each scheduled clean and check, by whom and when, and what was missed and why.
3. Complaints and requests: every reported problem, when it was reported and put right, and whether it keeps coming back.

A monthly report with inspection scores, completion, complaints and actions, reviewed by the client's facilities or building manager and the company's contract manager, is normal. Many clients also want a short daily or weekly summary of what was done, what was missed and what is still open. The cleaning supervisor is usually the person who makes that record true or false.

When the service falls short, the usual steps, mildest first, are rectification at no extra cost; escalation from the site supervisor to the contract manager and a named director, each with a time to respond; a written improvement plan; a deduction from the monthly fee; and termination for persistent failure.

Keep penalties in proportion. Under section 3 of the Conventional Penalties Act 15 of 1962, a court may reduce a penalty that "is out of proportion to the prejudice suffered by the creditor". A small, certain deduction focuses attention better than a large one, which mainly produces arguments.

Review the contract at least once a year and whenever the building's use changes, or the specification becomes a list of tasks for a building that no longer exists.

06

Where the record fails, and what SiteClara does about it

Most cleaning contracts are strong on inspection evidence and weak on delivery evidence. The monthly joint inspection is scored and written up; the daily record is a sheet on the back of the ablution door, signed in advance or not at all. When the client asks whether the boardrooms were cleaned last Tuesday, the company can describe the schedule but not show it, and the first sign of a missed clean is a complaint.

SiteClara gives each location a printed QR poster, with an optional NFC tag behind it. Cleaners scan or tap it on their own phone, with no app to install, and see the scheduled checks due there. They mark each one done, or say what stopped them. The time and the named person are recorded as it happens, with a photo when one is asked for. A problem found on the round is reported on the spot and stays on the team's list of jobs until someone closes it.

The supervisor sees what is due, done and missed, and records why a check was missed. At the end of the day they review the totals and photos, add a note and approve the daily report, which goes to nominated management or client contacts at 08:00 the next morning: what was reported, what was completed, what is still open and how the scheduled checks went, for example 12 of 12 completed. That is the delivery half of the contract, recorded as it happened rather than assembled for the monthly meeting.

07

Questions people ask

What is the minimum wage for contract cleaning in South Africa?

From 1 March 2026 the minimum for contract cleaning employees under Sectoral Determination 1 is R33,27 an hour (R6 487,15 a month) in Area A, the main metros and some named local councils, and R30,33 an hour (R5 913,90 a month) in the rest of the country outside KwaZulu-Natal, where the BCCCI rates apply instead. The rates are set by Government Notice R. 7083 of 3 February 2026, which bases the monthly figure on a 45-hour week and 4,333 weeks a month.

Does a new cleaning company have to take over the old company's cleaners?

Only if the change amounts to the transfer of a business or service as a going concern under section 197 of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, in which case the new employer is "automatically substituted in the place of the old employer" in the existing contracts of employment, unless otherwise agreed under section 197(6). Whether that happens depends on the facts of each case, so all three parties should take legal advice when a contract changes hands.

How can I get cleaning contracts in my area?

Public-sector cleaning contracts are advertised on National Treasury's eTenders Portal, which lists tenders from public sector organisations at all spheres of government and can be searched by organ of state or province. Private clients, such as managing agents and bodies corporate, usually invite quotes directly.

08

Further reading, and a checklist to take away

The Department of Employment and Labour publishes the OHS Act, its regulations and the sectoral determinations on labour.gov.za, and Government Gazette notices are on gov.za. Public-sector cleaning contracts are advertised on National Treasury's eTenders Portal, whose tender documents show how government buyers set out a specification. For the contract terms, and any question about section 197, take legal advice.

Before you sign or renew a cleaning contract, check that:

• the cleaning schedule is annexed, current, and names what is excluded;
• every standard says what is measured, the target, the period and the evidence;
• it measures delivery as well as quality;
• response times are set by priority and can be met with the staff on site;
• the price covers at least the Sectoral Determination 1 minimum wage (or the BCCCI rates in KwaZulu-Natal) for the hours needed, and says how it moves when the rates change;
• a section 37(2) agreement is signed, and chemicals, safety data sheets and PPE are covered;
• it says what happens to the cleaners at the start and the end of the contract;
• penalties, if any, are in proportion;
• the client's own obligations are written down;
• reporting is frequent enough to catch a problem before the monthly meeting;
• there is a date for its next review.