BLS OEWS May 2025 · SOC 37-2011
How much do commercial cleaners make?
The largest occupation on this site by a wide margin, with 2.2 million people employed nationally.
- Median pay$36,840a year
- Median hourly$17.71an hour
- Mean pay$38,760a year
- Employed2,209,760nationally
Window cleaners have no occupation code of their own and are counted inside this one. So are floor care technicians and most contract cleaning crews.
What janitors and commercial cleaners earn, from the bottom tenth to the top
A single median hides the range, and in this trade the range is the useful part. These four figures are the published percentiles for occupation code 37-2011, not a calculation done here.
| Measure | Annual | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $28,640 | the bottom tenth earn less than this |
| Median | $36,840 | half earn more, half earn less |
| Mean | $38,760 | the average, pulled up by the top |
| 90th percentile | $50,270 | the top tenth earn more than this |
Hourly equivalents: $17.71 median, $18.64 mean
Where janitors and commercial cleaners are paid most, and where there are most of them
Five highest paying states
| State | Mean annual |
|---|---|
| Washington | $47,410 |
| Massachusetts | $45,250 |
| New York | $44,830 |
| California | $44,210 |
| Connecticut | $42,590 |
Five largest employing states
| State | Employed |
|---|---|
| California | 234,240 |
| New York | 195,250 |
| Texas | 184,840 |
| Florida | 131,900 |
| Illinois | 93,760 |
The two lists rarely overlap, and that is the point of showing both. A high mean wage usually tracks cost of living, while a high headcount tracks population. Neither on its own tells you where the work is.
SOC 37-2011 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about janitors and commercial cleaners
The largest occupation on this site, and the one where the job title covers the most different jobs.
Window cleaners have no occupation code of their own and are counted inside this one. So are floor care technicians and most contract cleaning crews. That breadth is why the figure behaves like a labour market average: a compressed spread, a mean close to the median, and very little movement between the tenth percentile and the ninetieth compared with the construction trades on this site.
The interesting comparison is against the supervisor code. Moving from cleaning to supervising cleaning is worth a substantial step in median pay, and a larger one again at the top of the distribution. In an occupation this size, that step is the career, and it is visible in the federal data rather than being an assertion about it.
What the record cannot show is contract cleaning bought as a business service. The Census side counts the companies rather than the crews, and the employer half of janitorial services turns out to be a small number of large contractors alongside an enormous field of one person businesses. This wage figure describes the crews inside the first group.
Commercial cleaning is sold to a business rather than to a household, and businesses buy on reliability and evidence. A dated before and after of a real site, shot from a fixed position, is the closest thing to a reference that a new contractor has.
Every figure quoted above appears in the tables on this page or is arithmetic on them. Nothing here forecasts, values a business or suggests a price, because none of the three is measurable from a wage survey.
Where these numbers came from
Public domain US federal statistics, fetched by hand and baked into this site rather than called at build time. If you quote a figure from this page, cite the agency rather than this site, and use the wording below.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national cross industry estimates, occupation 37-2011 Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners. Accessed 2026-08-01.
National, cross-industry estimates for wage and salary workers. Self-employed workers, owner-operators and chair or booth renters are not in scope.
bls.gov/oes and the published series files at download.bls.gov
How many of these businesses there are
Marketing the trade
All the numbers
Common questions
- How much do commercial cleaners make?
- The median wage for janitors and commercial cleaners in the United States is $36,840 a year, or $17.71 an hour. The mean is $38,760. The bottom tenth earn under $28,640 and the top tenth earn over $50,270. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation code 37-2011.
- Does this include self-employed workers?
- No, and that matters more in this trade than the number does. OEWS covers wage and salary workers only. Self-employed workers, owner-operators, chair renters and single-van businesses are outside the survey entirely, so this is what an employed person in this job is paid, not what everyone doing this work earns.
- Which state pays the most?
- Washington, at a mean of $47,410 a year, followed by Massachusetts at $45,250. The five highest paying and five largest employing states are listed above, and a high mean usually reflects cost of living as much as opportunity.
- What does this actually tell a janitors and commercial cleaner running their own business?
- The largest occupation on this site, and the one where the job title covers the most different jobs. Commercial cleaning is sold to a business rather than to a household, and businesses buy on reliability and evidence. A dated before and after of a real site, shot from a fixed position, is the closest thing to a reference that a new contractor has.
- How current is this figure?
- It is the May 2025 release, which is the most recent Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data published by BLS. It was fetched and baked into this site on 1 August 2026. This page makes no live API call, so what you see is what was checked on that date.
Numbers persuade nobody. The pair does.
Every trade on this page sells the same way: a photograph of the problem beside a photograph of the result. Take the two, and Before and After Video Maker turns them into a 1080p video, a looping GIF or a still.