Operator Guide · Updated 18 May 2026
The Cleaning Services Award 2020, in plain English
The Cleaning Services Award 2020 (MA000022) is the Modern Award that sets minimum pay and conditions for most employed cleaners in Australia. This plain-language guide covers its classification levels, casual loading, weekend penalties, and allowances, for operators rostering cleaners across residential, commercial, end-of-lease, and recurring contract work.
Step 1, Classify Your Cleaners
The three classification levels
Every cleaner you employ must be classified at Level 1, 2, or 3. Misclassification (paying a Level 2 cleaner at Level 1 rates) is the most common underpayment finding in Fair Work audits of cleaning businesses.
Entry: General Cleaner
Routine cleaning duties under direct supervision. New starters, residential and commercial routine cleans. The base rate of the award.
Typical duties
- Routine vacuuming, mopping, surface wiping
- Bin emptying, common-area cleaning
- Following written cleaning instructions
Experienced: Specialist Cleaner
Specific equipment or technique knowledge. Specialty rooms, hard surfaces, or equipment beyond domestic vacuum cleaners.
Typical duties
- Operating wet/dry vacuum, scrubbing machines
- Floor stripping and polishing
- Specialised surface treatments (stone, timber)
Advanced: Team Leader / Carpet Specialist
Trade-equivalent skill, supervisory work, or specialised commercial qualification. Carpet steam extraction with technical knowledge, leading a small team.
Typical duties
- Carpet hot-water extraction operation + chemistry
- Specialist surface technician (stone restoration, etc.)
- Team leader directing 2 to 5 cleaners on site
Step 2, Apply Loadings
Casual loading, penalties, and shift loadings
Loadings are percentage additions to the base hourly rate. They stack, a casual cleaner working Sunday afternoon attracts the casual loading + Sunday penalty + (potentially) afternoon shift loading.
| Type | Loading | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Casual loading | +25% | Added to base hourly rate for casual employees in lieu of annual leave, personal leave, and notice entitlements. |
| Saturday penalty | +50% | Full-time, part-time, and casual employees working ordinary Saturday hours. |
| Sunday penalty | +100% | Double time for Sunday work, applies to all employee classes. |
| Public holiday | +150% | Double time and a half for public holiday work, in addition to entitlement to the holiday at ordinary rates if rostered. |
| Shift loading, afternoon | +15% | For shifts finishing after 7pm and before midnight, common for office cleaning. |
| Shift loading, night | +30% | For shifts finishing after midnight or starting before 5am, common for shopping-centre cleaning. |
Percentages reflect the structure of MA000022 at the time of review. Always confirm specific clauses against the current instrument on fwc.gov.au.
Step 3, Add Allowances
Allowances paid on top of the hourly rate
Allowances are flat dollar amounts (per day, per shift, or per kilometre) rather than percentages. Several have specific eligibility criteria, pay-tool lookups beat memory every time.
First-aid allowance
For nominated employees holding a current first-aid certificate and required to perform first-aid duties.
Toilet-cleaning allowance
Per-day amount paid when toilets form part of routine cleaning duties (industry-standard inclusion in most quotes).
Leading hand allowance
Weekly amount where an employee leads 3+ other cleaners. Tiered by team size.
Travel between sites
Paid travel time at ordinary rate when an employee is required to move between sites during a shift.
Vehicle allowance
Per-kilometre amount when an employee uses their own vehicle for work-required travel.
Broken-shift allowance
Per-shift amount when the day's work is split into two or more separate periods, common for split-shift commercial cleaning.
Practical tips for operators
Roster within the structure
Split-shift commercial cleaning (a 4am office shift + a 6pm shift) is legitimate under the award, but each broken-shift triggers an allowance plus shift loadings. Quoting commercial contracts that under-cost the loadings is the #1 way operators lose margin without realising.
Casual loading is not a discount
Operators sometimes view +25% casual loading as a cost to avoid. It's actually the legal substitute for leave accrual, if you under-pay casual loading, you can't later claim leave was “rolled in”. Pay it cleanly, separately on every payslip.
Record-keeping is the audit defence
Time-and-wages records must be kept for 7 years. Cleaning businesses are a known Fair Work audit target, clock-in records, rostering, and payslips need to reconcile. Software that timestamps clock-in/out (like the OneBookPlus mobile clock) makes this trivial.
Super, super, super
The Superannuation Guarantee applies on top of award wages (currently 11.5% rising to 12% in July 2025 onward). Many cleaning underpayment claims succeed not on the hourly rate but on missed super contributions, set up SuperStream from day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which award covers cleaning businesses in Australia?
The Cleaning Services Award 2020 (MA000022) covers most commercial and residential cleaning operations in Australia. Sole traders without employees don't strictly fall under the award, but anyone with even one part-time or casual cleaner does.
Where do I find the current MA000022 dollar rates?
Specific dollar amounts change each July when the Fair Work Commission updates minimum award wages. Always check the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay & Conditions Tool (pay.fairwork.gov.au) or the Cleaning Services Award page on fwc.gov.au for current rates. Rates published in third-party guides go stale fast.
Do I need to classify each cleaner at a specific level?
Yes. Classification (Level 1, 2, or 3) determines the base hourly rate. Misclassifying a Level 2 cleaner at Level 1 to save labour cost is an underpayment risk that compounds across pay periods. The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes plain-language classification guidance.
How do casual loading and overtime stack under MA000022?
Casual loading (+25%) is paid on every casual hour worked, in lieu of paid leave entitlements. Overtime is paid when actual hours worked exceed the daily or weekly ordinary-hours threshold, typically +50% for the first 2 hours and +100% thereafter. A casual employee can receive both: casual loading on every hour, plus overtime rates on hours worked beyond the threshold.
Do I need to pay for travel between cleaning sites?
If an employee is required to move between sites during a shift (e.g., a cleaner doing offices A, B, and C on a single afternoon roster), the travel time between them is paid at ordinary rates. Travel from home to the first site and from the last site to home is generally unpaid (commute).
What about cleaners working for a body corporate or strata complex?
Body-corporate / strata cleaning falls under the same Cleaning Services Award as commercial cleaning. Strata complexes are commercial clients in this context, not residential.
Get rostering, time-tracking, and payslips off the spreadsheet
OneBookPlus mobile clock timestamps every shift, calculates elapsed hours, and feeds your existing payroll provider, built for Australian cleaning operators.
Rather look before you sign up? Open a live demo account with real data in it, or compare the AUD plans on the pricing page.
Reviewed by Bishal Shrestha
About the author
Bishal Shrestha
Founder & CEO, OneBookPlus
Bishal spent a decade running digital projects for Australian small businesses before founding OneBookPlus. He writes and maintains these pages, and publishes what OneBookPlus does not do alongside what it does.
Read the founder bioHow this page was researched
The compliance and licensing statements above are taken from the bodies this page links to, including the Fair Work pay calculator, so you can read the rule rather than take our word for it. Plan prices come from the OneBookPlus price registry, so the page and the checkout cannot disagree. Everything said about OneBookPlus describes what the product does today, and the page says so where it does not do something.
From the blog
Related reading for cleaners
Practical guides and explainers from the OneBookPlus blog, grouped by topic.
The 91-Cent Gap
The ATO will pay you 91 cents a business kilometre in 2026-27, capped at 5,000 km. That is $4,550. One car in a typical Australian household costs $11,651 a year to run, and $13,666 in Sydney. A research report on the gap, with per-city data for 15 locations.
19 min readRead articleBest Booking Software in Australia
Two identical six-chair salons, one paying $29 a month for booking software and the other $252. Calendly, Acuity, Square, Setmore, Fresha, Timely and SimplyBook.me compared on what they actually cost an Australian business, with prices read from each vendor in August 2026.
15 min readRead articleWhat to Charge Per Hour
A qualified plumber on the award costs $31.63 an hour. Once leave, super, workers comp and the hours you cannot invoice are counted, one billable hour costs about $67 before a dollar of overhead. The full build-up, with 2026-27 figures.
13 min readRead articleAustralia's Payroll Tax Cliff
Pay $1.5 million in wages and you owe $31,731 in payroll tax in Western Australia and nothing in South Australia, the NT or the ACT. Every threshold, rate and trap across all eight Australian jurisdictions for 2026-27.
13 min readRead article
More in this guide
Related resources
Start a Cleaning Business
8-step founder guide, ABN, GST, insurance, kit, pricing, finding first clients.
Read Start a Cleaning BusinessInteractiveCleaning Price Calculator
Interactive estimator for standard, deep, and bond cleans across AU property types.
Read Cleaning Price CalculatorReferenceBond Clean Checklist by State
Universal inclusions plus state-by-state authority guide for end-of-lease cleans.
Read Bond Clean Checklist by State