Choose a cleaning contractor by whether they can come on the days checkouts pile up and by how they report a finished job, not by the price of one clean. Across our own three buildings and six rooms in Tokyo and Sapporo, 185 of 490 checkouts over twelve months (37.8%) fell on a weekend or a Japanese national holiday.
The figures cover October 2025 to September 2026 and were counted on 28 October 2026 from accepted bookings in our own property management system, the same bookings behind the occupancy on our operating data page. The weekday split is not published there as a table.
What should you check first when outsourcing cleaning?
Tell the cleaner how many hours sit between checkout and the next check-in, and ask whether they can work inside them. Ours is five hours, 11:00 to 16:00, and roughly two checkouts in three are followed by a new guest arriving in the same room that day (the same-day overlap, counted).
A clean that can wait until tomorrow and a clean that must be finished by four o'clock are two different jobs, priced and staffed differently. Hand over both numbers before asking for a quote.
Does the cleaner need to work weekends and holidays?
Yes. Checkouts cluster on weekends and holidays rather than spreading evenly. Weekends and national holidays made up 121 of the 365 days (33.2%) but took 37.8% of checkouts: 1.53 a day against 1.25 on weekdays.
Sunday was the busiest single day with 81 checkouts, then Saturday with 78; the weekdays ran from 64 to 71. Of the 51 days when three or more of our rooms checked out together, 21 were weekends or holidays. A weekday-only contract leaves out exactly the days that need the most hands.
| Days | Count | Checkouts | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekdays | 244 | 305 | 1.25 |
| Weekends and holidays | 121 | 185 (37.8%) | 1.53 |
How do you check cover for New Year and the long holidays?
Ask, before signing, who is assigned to those days. In Japan the New Year break, roughly 29 December to 3 January, and Golden Week at the turn of April and May are when many small businesses close. Over the New Year break we had six checkouts, three of them with a guest arriving the same day. Over Golden Week, 29 April to 6 May, there were twelve, seven of them same-day.
The counts are small, but they are cleans that cannot be missed, at the time of year cleaners are most likely to be away. Linen deliveries tend to pause in the same weeks, so check this alongside how the linen is handled.
How much does the workload swing between busy and quiet months?
Close to double, for the same three rooms. From January to September 2026, our three Tokyo rooms had between 13 and 25 checkouts a month, and our three Sapporo rooms between 16 and 31 (seasonality in our numbers).
For a contractor that means less work in the quiet months. Ask whether they can absorb the busy month, and also whether the same person keeps coming in the quiet one. Every change of cleaner means teaching the room's routine again: where the spare linen lives, how the heating is left, which drawer the guest guide goes in.
How do you know the cleaning was done?
Write into the contract that photographs come back after every clean. Photographs are the only thing that later lets you say when damage appeared.
- Photographs: bed, bathroom, kitchen, anything left behind, with the shots fixed per room
- Damage: reported when found, with a photograph, not at the end of the month
- Consumables: who counts the stock and who buys more. For us this line is 4.4% of revenue
- Keys: how the cleaner gets in, and how far key access extends
How should quotes be compared?
By the year's number of cleans and the conditions attached to them, not by the unit price. Market estimates for one clean run from a few thousand yen to well into five figures and swing with layout and whether linen is included, so a unit price alone compares very little.
Cleaning is our largest operating cost, 17.0% of revenue (measured 1 October 2026, operating data). The full breakdown is in operating costs, and what one changeover contains is in cleaning, on site.
| Ask | Why |
|---|---|
| How many hours from checkout to check-in can you work to? | Most changeovers are same-day |
| Do you work weekends and holidays? | Nearly four checkouts in ten fall there |
| Who covers New Year and Golden Week? | When most small businesses close |
| Does the same person come in quiet months? | A new cleaner means teaching the room again |
| What are the photo and damage rules? | Dating any damage |
How do we run cleaning?
We keep cleaning teams in Tokyo and in Sapporo, and run properties we manage for owners on the same routine and photograph rules as our own rooms. At the viewing we check checkout and check-in times, the linen method and the key handover. Our fee is 20% of revenue plus actual costs for cleaning and supplies, which vary with the layout and size of the property.
Every figure here is from our own six rooms. None of it is a level we promise for another property.
Ask about cleaning for your property