Most of the cleaning sector by headcount, and one of the most common first jobs for people newly arrived in Germany. There is no qualification, so there is no recognition and no equivalence step — which means this file is about something else: employment status, what you are legally owed, and how to tell whether you are getting it.
| Official title | Reinigungskraft — also Raumpfleger/in, Reinigungshelfer/in |
| Protected title | No. There is no qualification at all |
| Category | services |
| Typical qualification | None required |
| Regulated | No |
| Last reviewed | 2026-09 |
Who employs you decides almost everything
| Employer | Pay floor | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A cleaning contractor (Gebäudereinigungsfirma) | The AEntG Gebäudereiniger minimum, above the statutory Mindestlohn | The normal case. The sector minimum binds the employer whatever the contract says |
| The building owner directly | Statutory Mindestlohn | Less common; sometimes better hours |
| A public employer — school, municipality, hospital | TVöD, lowest groups | Rare and good: tariff pay, 30 days’ leave, a pension arrangement |
| A temp agency (Zeitarbeit) | Agency tariff, then equal pay after nine months | Check when equal pay starts |
| “Self-employed”, invoicing the contractor | — | Refuse this. It is the Scheinselbstständigkeit pattern; you lose every right below |
The first row is the one that matters most. The cleaning sector’s minimum wage is declared generally binding under the AEntG, which means it applies to every employer operating in Germany — including a foreign company posting workers here — and it is above the general minimum wage. It has a higher group for glass and facade work.
It is a perishable figure, so it is not quoted here. Look it up before you accept a job: the Zoll publishes the current rates, and the Zoll is also who enforces them.
What you are owed, and what is routinely withheld
All of these apply to unqualified cleaning work, including part-time and Minijob contracts:
| Entitlement | Frequently denied by |
|---|---|
| The sector minimum wage, for every hour worked | Under-recorded hours |
| Paid holiday, pro rata to days worked | Being told Minijobs have none — they do |
| Continued pay when sick, after four weeks’ service | The same claim |
| Pay for travel between sites during a shift | Treating it as your own time — it is working time |
| Written recording of all hours | Simply not doing it |
| A written contract with the essential terms | Verbal arrangements |
Leistungsvorgaben are where this goes wrong in practice. Contracts are won on price, so cleaners are given square-metre-per-hour targets that cannot be met in the hours paid. The hours then get worked and not recorded. That is not a grey area: it is unpaid work, and the hour records are the evidence. Keep your own.
Working-time records in cleaning are a legal obligation under the MiLoG and are the first thing a Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit inspection asks for. The sector is one of the FKS’s declared priorities — which is useful to know, because it means the enforcement machinery exists and is used.
The shape of the work
Early mornings and evenings, around the occupants of the building; split shifts; multiple sites in one day; part-time by default. Offices, schools, clinics, stations, factories, stairwells.
Physically it is repetitive strain more than heavy lifting — shoulders, wrists, knees, back — and the chemical exposure is real enough that hazard information and protective equipment are employer obligations, not extras.
Pay
Market estimate, anchored to the sector minimum.
| Gross/month, full-time equivalent | |
|---|---|
| Interior cleaning, sector minimum | €2,100 – €2,400 |
| Glass and facade group | €2,500 – €3,000 |
| Experienced, with responsibility for a site | €2,600 – €3,100 |
| Public employer (TVöD, lowest groups) | €2,700 – €3,100 |
Almost nobody in this occupation works full time. Part-time and Minijob contracts dominate, so the realistic monthly figure is a fraction of the above. That is the single most important number in this file, and it is why cleaning is so often a second job.
The way out is the qualification
This is the most useful thing in this file. The unqualified tier has no ladder; the qualified trade does.
- Gebäudereiniger/in — the three-year Ausbildung, or an Umschulung for adults, typically compressed to two years
- Teilqualifizierung (TQ) — modular partial qualifications, each a few months, that stack toward the full qualification and can end in an Externenprüfung for people with enough documented work experience
- Both are commonly funded by a Bildungsgutschein, and cleaning is a sector where the Agentur funds this readily
- The qualification roughly doubles the ceiling and opens Objektleitung and, with the Meister, running a business — which in this Anlage B1 trade requires no licence at all
For people who have just arrived
- This work is legal, available everywhere, and it will not get you a visa. Unqualified cleaning supports no skilled-worker permit. If immigration status is your concern, treat this as income while you qualify for something else, not as a route.
- Check what your residence permit allows before taking a job or a second one. Many permits restrict or condition employment, and a Minijob alongside another job is not automatically permitted.
- Language: A2 is workable, B1 makes you employable on better sites. Hazard labels, chemical instructions and hygiene protocols are German, and the step to supervision requires more.
- You are owed the sector minimum wage whatever your nationality, and whoever your employer is. Posting from abroad does not lower it.
- Do not accept being registered as self-employed to do cleaning work someone else directs. It removes the minimum wage, the holiday, the sick pay and the accident cover.
Pitfalls
- Unrecorded hours are the sector’s defining problem. Keep a private log with dates, sites and times. It is worth money later.
- Ask which minimum applies — the general one or the higher cleaning one. If the employer cannot say, that is informative.
- Travel time between objects during a shift is working time.
- The Minijob pension opt-out costs you more than it gives you; see the Minijob reference.
- A public-sector cleaning job is a genuinely different job at the same work. They are advertised, and they are worth applying for.
Sources
- AEntG and the Gebäudereiniger minimum wage — gesetze-im-internet.de/aentg_2009, accessed 2026-09
- MiLoG, recording of working time — gesetze-im-internet.de/milog, accessed 2026-09
- Zoll, Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit — zoll.de, accessed 2026-09
- IG BAU, Gebäudereinigung — igbau.de, accessed 2026-09