Cleaner in Dubai

Dubai cleaning companies price by the hour, and the rate drops the longer you book. Published 2026 rates run AED 40 an hour on a 2-hour booking, AED 36 on a 3-hour booking, and AED 30 to AED 34 an hour once you book 4 hours or more. Some long-established Dubai agencies charge a flat AED 45 an hour for daytime slots Saturday to Thursday, with a premium after 6pm and on Fridays.

Then come the two line items that catch people out. If the cleaner brings the vacuum, mop and chemicals instead of using yours, expect an extra AED 10 per hour. And check whether the quoted rate includes VAT - several Dubai price lists quote excluding it, which adds 5% to what you actually pay.

Monthly packages are where the real money sits. Published Dubai packages run AED 400 a month for four 3-hour visits (studio or one-bedroom), AED 480 a month for four 4-hour visits (two to three bedrooms), and AED 900 a month for eight 4-hour visits. That last one works out to AED 112.50 a visit, or roughly AED 28 an hour - the cheapest legitimate standing rate published anywhere in Dubai. Villa plans start around AED 1,200 a month.

Priced per visit instead: a studio is about AED 80 for two hours, a one-bedroom AED 90, a two-bedroom AED 100, a three-bedroom apartment or townhouse AED 120, a 3-4 bedroom villa AED 150, and a 5-bedroom villa AED 180 and up. Sold as packaged blocks of time, the same hours are advertised at AED 110 for two hours through to AED 320 for eight.

One number to hold onto: anything advertised at AED 15 or AED 20 an hour in Dubai is a first-visit promotion, not a rate. Those offers are published as 50-60% discounts and they revert, usually to AED 35-45.

A studio in Discovery Gardens and a four-bedroom villa in Al Barsha are not the same job, and Dubai pricing reflects that harder than most cities because the housing stock is so split.

Apartment deep cleaning in Dubai is published at AED 229 for a studio, AED 399 for a one-bedroom, AED 599 for a two-bedroom, AED 799 for a three-bedroom and AED 1,199 for a four-bedroom. Villa deep cleaning starts higher and climbs faster: AED 799 for a two-bedroom villa, AED 1,399 for three, AED 1,799 for four and AED 2,199 for five. A three-bedroom villa in Dubai Hills costs close to double a three-bedroom apartment in Business Bay for a job with the same name.

Three Dubai-specific reasons. Villas bring stairs, gardens, outdoor kitchens and multiple bathrooms, so crew size and hours both go up. Villas take desert dust at ground level, and dust is what really decides how often you need a clean here - balcony doors in Dubai Marina and JVC, window tracks, AC grilles and skirting build a film within days of a shamal blowing through. And glass shower screens, chrome taps and kettles pick up limescale that wiping does not touch; it needs descaling, and descaling is almost never inside a standard hourly clean.

Which brings up the single biggest cause of disappointment in this city: a standard clean and a deep clean are different products. A standard clean is dusting, vacuuming, mopping, kitchen and bathroom surfaces, dishes, bed-making, laundry and ironing. Inside cupboards, inside the oven and fridge, window tracks, AC vents, balcony scrubbing, and sofa, mattress or carpet extraction are extras - advertised in Dubai at around AED 150 for two sofa pieces, AED 150 for a 4x6 ft carpet and AED 150 for a single mattress.

Book two hours and expect a four-hour outcome and you will be unhappy at any price.

This is the part the price-comparison pages leave out, and in Dubai it matters more than the rate.

There is no freelance domestic worker visa category in the UAE. A cleaner can legally work in your home in exactly two ways: employed by a cleaning company holding a Dubai DED trade licence, or supplied by a Tadbeer centre licensed by MOHRE. That is the entire list. A cleaner on someone else's sponsorship, or one telling you she is on her own visa and free on Fridays, cannot legally be hired by you for part-time work - and Dubai Police have publicly urged residents to deal with licensed agencies rather than informal arrangements, including a warning that hiring domestic help on a trial basis is illegal.

The exposure is not theoretical. If someone working outside that structure is injured on your villa stairs, cracks a marble worktop, or something goes missing, there is no company insurance, no contract and no complaint route. The only person who signed nothing is you.

Check three things before anyone with a bucket walks in: a valid trade licence in the company's own name, a written scope that says what happens when something breaks, and confirmation that the cleaner is that company's employee rather than a subcontracted individual.

And run the maths before you consider sponsoring your own live-in help. Bringing a full-time live-in maid into Dubai carries a visa and permit cost of roughly AED 8,000 to AED 15,000 up front, on top of salary, mandatory health insurance, an annual flight home, food and accommodation - published estimates put year one at AED 35,000 to AED 65,000. A weekly licensed cleaner at AED 400 a month is AED 4,800 a year. For most Dubai households the honest conclusion is that a licensed hourly cleaner is not the compromise option. It is the correct one.

Dubai moves house constantly, and check-out is where cleaning quietly turns expensive.

Move-out cleaning is priced separately from a normal clean. Published Dubai rates run AED 169 for a studio up to AED 799 for a four-bedroom apartment, and AED 599 to AED 1,199 for villas from two to five bedrooms. Move-in cleaning - an empty property prepared before your furniture lands - costs more, from AED 299 for a studio apartment to AED 2,199 for a five-bedroom villa, because empty means every cupboard, wardrobe and skirting board is reachable and therefore in scope.

Your tenancy contract, not the law, decides what a landlord can hold back. Most Dubai contracts require the property returned in the condition it was handed over, and the agent's check-out inspection is where that gets judged: kitchen cupboard interiors, oven, extractor, bathroom grout, balcony glass, AC filters and wall marks. In Deira, Business Bay and Downtown, where turnover is fastest, agents inspect against the photos taken at hand-over.

Two timing rules save real money. Book the move-out clean after the last box leaves, never around furniture, or you pay twice for a job that has to be redone. And book it 5 to 7 days before handover, because end of month in Dubai is when every mover and every cleaning crew is fully committed and late slots carry a premium.

Whether it is a weekly clean for an apartment in JVC or a full villa handover in Dubai Hills, the first price you are quoted is rarely the price the Dubai market will give you. Compare free quotes from verified Dubai home cleaning companies - no obligation, no cost, and you decide who walks through your door.