BLS OEWS May 2025 · SOC 37-2012
How much do house cleaners make?
What maids and housekeeping cleaners are paid nationally, and which states pay and employ the most of them.
- Median pay$35,510a year
- Median hourly$17.07an hour
- Mean pay$37,080a year
- Employed860,670nationally
Hotel and hospital housekeeping sits in this same code alongside residential cleaning, and hotels employ a very large share of it. A self-employed residential cleaner running their own book of clients is not counted at all.
What house cleaners and housekeepers 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 37-2012, not a calculation done here.
| Measure | Annual | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $27,640 | the bottom tenth earn less than this |
| Median | $35,510 | half earn more, half earn less |
| Mean | $37,080 | the average, pulled up by the top |
| 90th percentile | $48,570 | the top tenth earn more than this |
Hourly equivalents: $17.07 median, $17.83 mean
Where house cleaners and housekeepers are paid most, and where there are most of them
Five highest paying states
| State | Mean annual |
|---|---|
| Hawaii | $52,370 |
| New York | $49,680 |
| California | $45,930 |
| District of Columbia | $45,400 |
| Nevada | $43,450 |
Five largest employing states
| State | Employed |
|---|---|
| California | 103,430 |
| Florida | 79,550 |
| Texas | 63,110 |
| New York | 41,740 |
| North Carolina | 33,080 |
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 37-2012 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about house cleaners and housekeepers
A very large occupation whose figure is set by hotels rather than by the residential cleaning most readers of this site do.
Hotel and hospital housekeeping sits in the same code as residential cleaning, and hotels employ a very large share of it. That matters because hospitality housekeeping is paid on an hourly rate inside a large employer, which compresses the whole distribution: the gap between the bottom tenth and the top tenth here is one of the narrowest in the dataset, and the mean sits close to the median.
A self employed residential cleaner running their own book of clients is not counted at all. The Census janitorial services page shows over a million nonemployer cleaning businesses nationally, which is the population this wage record cannot see. Anybody comparing what they earn as an independent cleaner against this median is comparing two different jobs.
The state tables show population rather than opportunity. Four of the five largest employing states are simply the four largest states, and the highest paying are high cost of living markets. Neither ranking tells a cleaner anything about where the work is, because the work is everywhere people live.
The residential cleaner competing against this number is competing on trust rather than on rate, because the buyer is letting somebody into their home. A doorway shot with the lights untouched, published under a real name in a real suburb, is worth more here than any pricing claim.
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 37-2012 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 house cleaners make?
- The median wage for house cleaners and housekeepers in the United States is $35,510 a year, or $17.07 an hour. The mean is $37,080. The bottom tenth earn under $27,640 and the top tenth earn over $48,570. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation code 37-2012.
- 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?
- Hawaii, at a mean of $52,370 a year, followed by New York at $49,680. 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 house cleaners and housekeeper running their own business?
- A very large occupation whose figure is set by hotels rather than by the residential cleaning most readers of this site do. The residential cleaner competing against this number is competing on trust rather than on rate, because the buyer is letting somebody into their home. A doorway shot with the lights untouched, published under a real name in a real suburb, is worth more here than any pricing claim.
- 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.