The safety, waste and key rules that apply on every cleaning site

Written for owners of UK cleaning businesses: contract cleaners for offices, schools, healthcare and soft FM subcontracts, domestic cleaning firms, agencies and apps, and specialists in after-builders, end-of-tenancy, window, carpet and biohazard cleaning.

The short version

1. Assess every chemical before anyone uses it.Write a COSHH assessment for each product and task, keep the safety data sheet, and never mix chlorine bleach with acid descalers or ammonia.
2. Use poles before ladders, and report injuries.Work at height rules have no minimum. If an injury keeps someone off over 7 days, report it within 15 days (As of Oct 2026).
3. Register to carry waste and log keys.A client's waste in your van needs upper-tier waste carrier registration. Log every key. Lose one? Tell the client and insurer that day.

There is no general licence for a cleaning business. You register for the activities you actually carry out, such as payroll, VAT and CIS for builders' cleans, and check whether you owe the ICO fee. The rest is about the work itself: the chemicals you use, how you reach high places, what is in the bins, and whose keys and waste you carry.

Chemicals

Never mix chlorine bleach with acid descalers or ammonia: it releases toxic gas. Wet work and detergents cause dermatitis, so provide gloves and moisturiser and check skin.

Work at height

There is no 2 metre threshold. A 1.5 metre fall that keeps a cleaner off work for 3 weeks is reportable under RIDDOR within 15 days, and your employers' liability insurer needs to hear about it.

Needles, asbestos and working alone

Needles in washroom bins and bags are the commonest serious hazard. Have a needlestick procedure, sharps bins, same-day occupational health referral, and hepatitis B vaccination where your risk assessment calls for it. On healthcare premises the Health and Safety (Sharp Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013 bind you as the cleaners' employer; elsewhere COSHH covers biological agents.

1. First aid.Encourage bleeding, wash and cover.
2. The same day.Occupational health or A&E for a blood-borne virus assessment.
3. Record and review.Record it, then review the COSHH assessment and the sharps procedure.
4. Report if needed.Report under RIDDOR if the cleaner is off for more than 7 days or a reportable disease follows.

In non-domestic premises built before 2000, the client manages asbestos as dutyholder. Ask for the asbestos register before drilling, scraping old floor tiles, stripping floor finishes or entering ceiling voids, and stop and report any damage.

Night and lone cleaners need a lone working risk assessment and a check-in system, with emergency contacts for each site (Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 reg 3).

Waste, keys and insurance

Carrying a client's waste in your van, or any construction or demolition waste, needs upper-tier waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency in England, Natural Resources Wales, SEPA in Scotland or NIEA in Northern Ireland. Upper-tier registrations in England are currently renewed every 3 years, subject to the forthcoming regime; diarise the renewal date your own regulator gives. As of Oct 2026.

Holding keys so you can clean needs no licence; selling keyholding or alarm response as a service does, under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. Keep a key register, coded tags with no address, and signed issue and return. If a key is lost, tell the client and your insurer the same day: the keys extension on your policy is the first source of payment for a re-key.

Check your public liability too: damage caused by the cleaning itself, such as a bleached carpet, etched marble or a stripped floor finish, is often excluded. Buy the treatment risk extension, check its sub-limit, and set your keys cover limit to the worst master key system you hold.

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