High quality services
Routine vs Deep vs Move-Out Cleaning: What Expats in Vietnam Actually Need
Three Cleans, Three Different Jobs
Most people in Ho Chi Minh City book the wrong cleaning service — not because they chose a bad company, but because they asked for the wrong type of clean. A weekly housekeeper will never remove the black line growing along your bathroom silicone. A deep clean every six months will not stop the layer of grey dust that lands on your shelves between Tuesday and Friday. And neither of them, on their own, will get your rental deposit back.
This guide is written for expatriate residents in Ho Chi Minh City — the apartments of Thảo Điền and An Phú in District 2, District 1, Phú Mỹ Hưng in District 7 and the newer towers in Thủ Thiêm — where leases are short, moves are frequent, and the standard expected at handover is set by a landlord you would like to see your deposit again.
Routine cleaning, deep cleaning and moving cleaning are three separate products with three separate purposes. This guide explains what each one actually covers, how often you need it, how many hours it takes for your size of home, and — most importantly for anyone living in Vietnam — how to combine them so dust and humidity stop winning.
1. Routine Cleaning (Basic Cleaning)
The job: hold the line. Weekly home cleaning keeps a home that is already clean at a consistent standard. It is surface-level by design, repeated often, and time-boxed.
What it covers:
– Sweeping, vacuuming and mopping all floors
– Dusting visible surfaces, tables, shelves, TV units and electronics
– Kitchen: countertops, sink, stovetop surface, outside of appliances
– Bathrooms: toilet, basin, mirror, shower area, floor
– Making beds, changing linens, tidying rooms
– Emptying bins, washing up, laundry and ironing if agreed
What it does not cover: anything that requires moving heavy furniture, dismantling, climbing, soaking or scrubbing with chemicals and dwell time — inside the oven, behind the fridge, air-conditioner filters, ceiling corners, grout lines, window tracks, wardrobe interiors.
Frequency: weekly for most households; twice a week or daily for families with young children, pets, or homes where a full Vietnamese meal is cooked every evening.
Best for: maintaining a home between deep cleans. It is the cheapest hour you will buy, and the one that keeps the other two cheap.
If your building already includes cleaning: many serviced apartments provide a weekly or twice-weekly clean in the rent. That covers this category and nothing beyond it — building housekeeping works to a fixed short window and is not scoped for appliance interiors, grout, air-conditioner filters or anything behind furniture. It replaces your routine clean, not your deep clean.
2. Deep Cleaning
The job: reset the baseline. A deep clean goes after everything routine cleaning is not allowed the time to touch — accumulated grease, mineral scale, soap scum, dust bonded to surfaces by humidity, and early mould.
What it covers — everything in a routine clean, plus:
– Cleaning behind and underneath furniture, beds, sofas and appliances
– Kitchen degreasing: range hood filters, inside the oven and microwave, cabinet fronts and interiors, the tile splashback, the top of high cabinets
– Inside the refrigerator, including seals and drip channels
– Bathroom descaling: grout lines, silicone seals, shower glass, taps and shower heads, drains, the underside of the toilet
– Air-conditioner filters and accessible vents, ceiling fans, light fittings, exhaust fans
– Skirting boards, door frames, switch plates, handles, wall spot-cleaning
– Windows, window tracks, mosquito screens, balcony floors and railings
– Wardrobe interiors, wardrobe backs and high corners where mould starts
Frequency: in Europe or North America, twice a year is the standard advice. In Vietnam that is not enough — see the climate section below.
Best for: homes that have never had one, homes after a long humid spell, and as a scheduled reset every two months alongside routine cleaning.
3. Moving Cleaning (Move-Out, Move-In and Handover)
The job: hand a property over to someone else — or take it over — with nothing of the previous occupant left behind. It is the only one of the three performed on an empty home, and that changes the entire scope.
There are three versions of it, and they are not interchangeable:
Move-out cleaning
Performed after your furniture has left. The audience is your landlord or the building’s handover inspector, and the goal is your deposit. For most expat leases in Ho Chi Minh City this is the single highest-stakes clean you will book, because the inspection that follows it decides whether one to three months of deposit comes back. It includes everything in a deep clean plus the areas that were physically inaccessible while you lived there: inside every cabinet and drawer, behind every appliance, wall marks and scuffs, ceiling corners, all window tracks, balcony drains, and the interior of built-in appliances.
Move-in cleaning
Performed before your furniture arrives. The audience is your own family, and the goal is sanitation — removing what a previous tenant left in cabinets, on handles, in bathrooms and inside the air-conditioners, before you unpack a single box. Booking it before delivery day is what makes it cheap; booking it after costs 30–50% more because everything must be worked around.
Post-handover / post-renovation cleaning
The heaviest version. New apartments and freshly renovated units come with cement haze on tiles, silicone and adhesive smears on glass, paint spots, protective film, and fine plaster dust packed into every window track, socket, drain and air-conditioner. This is not a deep clean with extra time — it needs different tools and chemicals, and it typically takes 1.5 to 2 times the hours of a standard deep clean of the same home.
Frequency: once, at the moment of the move. There is no schedule.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Routine Cleaning | Deep Cleaning | Moving Cleaning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Maintain a clean home | Reset the baseline | Hand over or take over a property |
| Home is | Occupied and furnished | Occupied and furnished | Empty |
| Frequency | Weekly or 2× weekly | Every 2 months (Vietnam) | Once per move |
| Typical duration (2-bedroom) | 3–4 hours | 8–12 man-hours | 10–14 man-hours |
| Team size | 1 housekeeper | 2–3 technicians | 3–4 technicians |
| Furniture moved | No | Yes | Already removed |
| Inside appliances | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cabinet interiors | No | Selected | All |
| Walls, ceilings, tracks | No | Spot-cleaned | Fully |
| Measured in | Hours per visit | Man-hours per job | Man-hours per job |
Why Vietnam Changes the Maths
International cleaning guides recommend deep cleaning “twice a year, or seasonally.” That advice is written for homes with sealed double-glazed windows, central heating, 40–50% indoor humidity and low outdoor particulate levels. Almost none of that describes an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City. Four local conditions push the interval down hard.
Fine dust never stops arriving
Ho Chi Minh City’s average PM2.5 concentration has been measured at roughly two and a half times the World Health Organization’s older annual guideline, and Vietnam’s national average in 2025 sat at nearly six times the WHO’s current guideline. Add the density of motorbike traffic at street level and the near-permanent construction in developing districts, and dust is not a seasonal event here — it is a continuous delivery. Cement and construction dust is worse than household dust: it is abrasive, alkaline, and bonds to glass and stainless steel rather than sitting on top of them.
Humidity turns dust into something else
Relative humidity in Ho Chi Minh City runs from about 68% in February and March to 85% in September, and rarely drops below 65% at any point in the year. At those levels dust does not stay loose and vacuumable. It absorbs moisture and forms a thin film that grips surfaces — and on grout, silicone, wardrobe backs, leather and ceiling corners, it becomes the food source for mould. This is the single biggest reason a routine clean starts to feel ineffective after six or eight weeks: the dirt is no longer sitting on the surface, it is stuck to it.
Homes here breathe
Open windows, open balcony doors, drying laundry outdoors, and shoes-in-the-hallway habits all mean outside air, and everything in it, moves through the home continuously. Buildings on main roads and units on lower floors receive noticeably more of it.
Air-conditioners run almost year-round
Split units pull dust through a damp coil for ten or eleven months a year. Filters and blower wheels accumulate a dust-and-moisture paste that no routine clean is scoped to touch, and a neglected indoor unit quietly redistributes that back into every room. Air-conditioner filters belong in the deep-clean checklist, not the annual one.
Two seasons, two different problems:
– Dry season (December–April): high dust load, low rainfall to wash the air, and agricultural burning on the city’s edges from October through February. The enemy is particulate.
– Rainy season (May–October): humidity peaks, and September is both the wettest and most humid month. The enemy is mould and mildew.
A home in Vietnam therefore needs both kinds of attention every year, which is a second reason a twice-yearly deep clean misses the target.
The Recommended Solution: Anchor and Maintain
The combination that works in this climate is simple, and it is the model we recommend to every residential client:
A deep clean every 2 months to reset the baseline, plus a weekly routine clean to hold it.
The logic is that routine cleaning is cheap per hour but cannot remove bonded dirt, while deep cleaning removes bonded dirt but is too expensive to run weekly. Used together, the deep clean does the heavy work six times a year and the weekly visits stop the home from ever returning to its previous state — which in turn keeps each deep clean shorter and cheaper than the last. Households that only deep clean once or twice a year end up paying for longer, harder jobs each time.
Time the anchors to the seasons. Two of your six annual deep cleans matter more than the others:
– April or early May — strip out the dry-season dust load before the humidity arrives and locks it onto surfaces.
– September or October — attack mould at the humidity peak, when grout, silicone and wardrobe interiors are most vulnerable.
Concrete Plans by Home Size
The numbers below are man-hours, not clock hours — a 2-person team working 4 hours logs 8 man-hours.
| Home | Typical area | Routine clean | Deep clean | Deep-clean interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio / 1 bedroom | 30–50 m² | 2–3 hours, weekly | 6–8 man-hours (2 staff × 3–4h) | Every 2 months |
| 2 bedrooms | 60–80 m² | 3–4 hours, weekly | 8–12 man-hours (3 staff × 3–4h) | Every 2 months |
| 3 bedrooms | 90–120 m² | 4–5 hours, weekly | 12–16 man-hours (3–4 staff × 4h) | Every 2 months |
| Townhouse / villa | 150–250 m², 3–4 floors | 5–6 hours, 2× weekly | 20–30 man-hours (4–5 staff × 5–6h) | Every 6–8 weeks |
The 2-bedroom apartment, in detail
This is the most common home we service in Ho Chi Minh City, so it is worth spelling out. A 70 m² two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a couple or a small family:
– Weekly: one housekeeper, 3.5 hours — floors, both bathrooms, kitchen surfaces, dusting, beds, bins.
– Every 2 months: a three-person team, 3.5 hours on site (about 10 man-hours) — kitchen degreasing and appliance interiors, both bathrooms descaled, air-conditioner filters, behind all furniture, skirting boards, windows, tracks and balcony.
– Twice a year, inside that schedule: add the seasonal anchors in April/May and September/October, and extend the deep clean by 2 hours to include wardrobe interiors and full mould treatment on grout and silicone.
At Calibee’s published rates that works out to roughly 1,200,000đ per deep clean and about 300,000đ per weekly visit — in the region of 1,800,000đ a month all in, before 8% VAT. Two things to budget for: deep cleaning carries a four-hour minimum, and weekend or evening slots are charged at a premium, so a household that books every visit for a Saturday should expect a figure closer to 2,200,000đ. The full price list has the current rates and surcharges.
The 3-bedroom apartment, in detail
– Weekly: one housekeeper, 4.5 hours — or two housekeepers at 2.5 hours each if you prefer a shorter window.
– Every 2 months: a four-person team, 3.5–4 hours on site (about 14 man-hours).
– Add 2–4 man-hours if the unit has a third bathroom, a large balcony, or floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides.
Approximately 1,680,000đ per deep clean and 380,000đ per weekly visit, or around 2,400,000đ a month before VAT — again, more if every visit falls on a weekend. Current rates are on the full price list.
What pushes the interval shorter
Move from a two-month cycle to a six-week cycle if two or more of these apply:
– The unit faces a main road, or sits on the 1st to 5th floor
– There is active construction within 200 metres
– Pets, or children under five
– Frying or grilling more than three times a week
– No routine cleaning between deep cleans
– A history of mould on grout, silicone or wardrobe backs
Conversely, a high-floor sealed apartment with air-conditioning only, no pets, light cooking and a reliable weekly housekeeper can comfortably stretch to a three-month deep-clean cycle.
Sizing a Moving Clean
| Home | Move-out or move-in | Post-handover / post-renovation |
|---|---|---|
| Studio / 1 bedroom | 8–10 man-hours | 12–16 man-hours |
| 2 bedrooms | 10–14 man-hours | 16–22 man-hours |
| 3 bedrooms | 14–20 man-hours | 22–30 man-hours |
| Townhouse / villa | 24–36 man-hours | 36–50 man-hours |
Three rules that save money on a move:
1. Book move-out cleaning after the truck leaves, not before. Cleaning around packed boxes doubles the time and the result still fails inspection.
2. Book move-in cleaning before delivery day. An empty unit is the cheapest it will ever be to clean.
3. Check your lease first. Many Ho Chi Minh City leases specify a professional clean at handover, and some landlords require the invoice. A receipted clean is usually far cheaper than the deduction taken if you skip it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I just book deep cleaning and skip the weekly clean?
You can, but it costs more over a year. Without weekly maintenance, each deep clean starts from a worse baseline and runs longer — and the home spends most of the two-month cycle below the standard you paid for.
Is a deep clean the same as a move-out clean?
No. A deep clean is performed in a furnished, occupied home and prioritises the surfaces you live with. A move-out clean is performed in an empty home and prioritises what an inspector will look for — inside every cabinet, behind every appliance, walls, tracks and ceilings. Expect a move-out clean to run 20–40% longer than a deep clean of the same apartment.
How long does a deep clean take for a 2-bedroom apartment?
Eight to twelve man-hours, which is about three to four hours on site with a three-person team. A first-ever deep clean, or one on a home that has gone more than six months, sits at the top of that range or above it.
Do I need to be home during the clean?
For a routine clean, no — most clients hand over access after the first visit. For a deep clean we recommend being present for the first 15 minutes to point out priorities and anything fragile, and for the final walkthrough.
Why is deep cleaning priced per man-hour instead of a flat rate?
Because two 70 m² apartments can differ by six hours of work depending on how long since the last deep clean, how much furniture must be moved, and how much grease and scale have built up. Hourly pricing means you pay for the condition of your home, not an average. We give a fixed estimate from photos or a short video before we start.
What about the air-conditioners?
Filter cleaning and accessible vents are included in a deep clean. A full air-conditioner service — removing the cover, chemical-washing the coil and blower wheel, and clearing the drain line — is separate technical work and should be scheduled once or twice a year depending on how hard the units run.
Would you rather have it done for you? See our deep cleaning service in Ho Chi Minh City, or weekly home cleaning if you simply need the baseline held between deep cleans.
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