Move-out / move-in cleaning in San Francisco

What’s included in a move-out clean

This is the scope every cleaner offering the package on SanCrew works from — the same checklist they see in their own app.

• Dust, wipe & tidy all surfaces — desks, shelves, tables, bins & window sills
• Vac-dust doors, baseboards, blinds & vents
• Vacuum & steam-mop all floors
• Scrub & wipe baseboards, floors, doors & interior windows
• Full Bathroom Cleaning — toilet, tub/shower, sink & mirrors
• Kitchen Deep Touch-Up — microwave, stovetop, counters, sink, appliance exteriors & cabinet doors
• Inside cabinets, closets, oven, fridge, dishwasher & range hood
• Spot cleaning on walls included
• Switch plates & door handles sanitized
• Donation coordination available with cleaner after booking

What’s not included

• Home must be empty for full move-out cleaning
• Heavy buildup may require painting
• Wall & ceiling washing (available as an add-on)
• Carpet washing (available as an add-on)
• No packing or moving boxes
• No furniture moving

What is a move-out clean, and how is it different from a deep clean?

A move-out clean happens in an empty home. A deep clean happens in one you are still living in. That single difference drives everything else. On a deep clean the cleaner works around your belongings — dusting and wiping surfaces, steam-mopping hard floors, scrubbing baseboards, window interiors, cabinet doors, the oven, dishwasher, fridge and range hood filters, and cleaning behind and under movable furniture where it is genuinely accessible. There are limits, and they are deliberate: no deep scrubbing inside cabinets, nothing lifted over 30 pounds, and no vacuuming under furniture with less than five inches of clearance. That is the reasonable-effort standard most people book seasonally.

A move-out clean drops those limits because there is nothing to work around. The standard becomes ready for the next tenant: inside and outside of every cabinet and closet, inside the oven, fridge, dishwasher and range hood, interior windows, and every floor. Nothing gets worked around, so nothing gets skipped.

How much does a move-out clean cost in San Francisco?

Every crew sets their own rate for a move-out clean, so the honest answer is a range — and it is a wide one. Entering a San Francisco address and selecting move-out cleaning returns quotes from 11 crews: roughly $180–$390 for a studio, $220–$470 for a one-bedroom, $250–$560 for a two-bedroom with one bathroom, and $305–$695 for a two-bedroom with two bathrooms (August 2026). The highest cleaner is typically a little over twice the lowest, which reflects differences in experience, insurance, team size and equipment rather than a different job.

Those are the cleaners' own numbers and they change whenever someone updates their rate. For outside context, published market research puts San Francisco move-out cleaning at roughly $300–$500+ (sources: Care.com, Thumbtack) — general market figures. Enter your address to see what the cleaners who serve your street actually charge.

How long does a move-out clean take?

Most San Francisco move-out cleans run between two and a half and four and a half hours, and home size is what moves the number. A studio is typically 2.5–3 hours, a one-bedroom 3–3.5, a two-bedroom with one bathroom 3.5–4, and a two-bedroom with two bathrooms 4–4.5.

Notice that the second bathroom adds about as much time as an extra bedroom. That is because a full bathroom clean is slow work: the toilet inside, outside, around the base and behind it, the shower or tub including doors and tracks, mineral deposits and soap scum, mirrors, and the vanity inside and out. Condition matters as much as size — a home that has been cleaned regularly moves faster than one where the oven has not been touched in three years. And because the home is empty, none of that time goes on shifting furniture or working around belongings.

Do I need to be moved out completely first?

Yes. If you want the home ready for the next tenant, it has to be completely empty first. This is the one requirement in the move-out package that is not flexible, and the reason is practical rather than bureaucratic. The things that make a move-out clean different — inside every cabinet and drawer, closet shelves down to the bare wood, inside the fridge and oven, the floor where the sofa was standing — simply cannot be done with your belongings still in the way.

A move-out clean of a half-packed home is a regular clean with obstacles, and it will not pass a landlord walkthrough. Cleaners do not pack, do not move boxes and do not move furniture, so anything still there stays where it is and the surface underneath it does not get cleaned. Book the clean after the movers have finished, not before.

Will a move-out clean get my security deposit back?

Cleaning is the biggest part of this you control, but no cleaner can guarantee a deposit. Landlords withhold deposits for several reasons and cleanliness is only one of them — walls that need repainting, a broken appliance, damage beyond normal wear, or unpaid rent all come out of the deposit no matter how spotless the place is.

What a move-out clean does is remove the one category that is entirely fixable. If the home is empty and the full checklist is completed — inside cabinets and closets, appliances inside and out, interior windows, bathrooms, floors — the cleaning portion of the inspection should not be where you lose money. What it will not fix is condition. If a wall has more marking than spot cleaning can handle, that wall needs painting, and scrubbing harder will not change the outcome or the deduction.

What are the add-ons, and when do I actually need them?

There are two, and only one is usually worth buying. Carpet washing is the common one. The base move-out clean includes a thorough vacuum of carpets; it does not include washing or steam-extracting them. If your carpet only needs to look vacuumed, you are already covered. If your lease requires professionally washed carpets — plenty of San Francisco leases do — add carpet washing when you book and confirm it with your cleaner up front.

Wall and ceiling washing is the add-on people buy when they should not. Spot cleaning walls is already included in the base clean: scuffs, fingerprints, the odd mark. If the walls have more marking than that, the honest answer is that they need painting, not washing. Paying someone to scrub a wall your landlord is going to repaint anyway is wasted money. Ask your cleaner to look before you add it.

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