Housekeeper Job Description: Template, Duties, Requirements & Pay (2026)
A housekeeper cleans and services rooms and common areas — making beds, changing linen, vacuuming, sanitizing bathrooms, restocking supplies — in hotels, hospitals, senior living, offices and private homes. Below is a copy-paste housekeeper job description template, the requirements that actually matter, and the one number that should change how you write the posting.
What a housekeeper does
O*NET lists the work plainly: clean rooms, hallways, lobbies, lounges, restrooms, corridors, elevators and stairways; sweep, scrub, wax or polish floors using brooms, mops or powered scrubbing and waxing machines; clean rugs, carpets, upholstered furniture and draperies using vacuum cleaners and shampooers; carry linens, towels, toilet items and cleaning supplies on wheeled carts; empty wastebaskets and transport trash and waste; sort, wash, iron and fold laundry; and move furniture to arrange rooms.
The setting changes the job more than the title suggests. A hotel housekeeper works to a room quota against checkout times. A hospital or senior living housekeeper works to infection-control protocols and around residents who are in the room. An office cleaner works after hours, alone, to a building route. A private-household housekeeper often works unsupervised and takes on cooking, errands or childcare. Write the posting for one of those, not for all four.
Worth knowing before you write anything: the federal statistics for housekeepers are not the ones most articles quote. Maids and housekeeping cleaners are SOC 37-2012. Janitors and building cleaners are 37-2011, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics titles that occupation “janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping cleaners.” They are separate occupations with separate wages — $35,510 against $36,840 at the median — and the outlooks differ too.
Housekeeper job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and cut anything that does not apply. It leads with pay, shift and location because those are what an applicant screens on before reading a duty list.
Job title
Housekeeper — [Hotel / Senior Living / Hospital / Office], [Full-time / Part-time], [Day / Evening] Shift
Summary
[Property name] is hiring housekeepers for our [property type] in [city, state]. Pay starts at $[XX.XX] an hour with [weekend differential / quarterly attendance bonus]. You will service [N] rooms a shift on a [set floor / rotating route], working [days] from [start] to [end]. No experience needed — we train, and most of our team started here.
Responsibilities
- Clean and service [N] assigned rooms or [N] square feet per shift to our standard
- Make beds and change bed and bath linen
- Vacuum, sweep, mop and spot-clean floors and carpets
- Clean and sanitize bathrooms, fixtures and high-touch surfaces
- Dust and wipe furniture, sills, vents and surfaces
- Empty trash and recycling and transport it to the [dock / chute]
- Restock linen, towels, toiletries and supplies from the cart
- Report maintenance issues, damage and lost property to [supervisor / front desk]
- Follow [OSHA chemical handling / infection control] procedures and use PPE provided
Requirements
- Able to stand, walk, bend, kneel and reach for a full shift
- Able to push a loaded housekeeping cart and lift up to [25–40] lbs
- Available [weekends / holidays] as scheduled
- Reliable transportation to [location]
- Able to pass a background check [where the property requires one]
Preferred
- Any prior cleaning experience — hotel, hospital, office, janitorial or residential
- Experience with [floor machines / commercial laundry]
- [Second language relevant to your team]
Schedule and pay
- $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX] an hour based on experience; [+$X.XX] weekend differential
- [Eight-hour shifts, five days] with [two consecutive days off]
- [Guaranteed hours / room quota and what happens when occupancy drops]
Benefits
- Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60]
- Paid time off and [6] paid holidays
- [401(k) with X% match]
- Free [meals / parking / uniforms and laundering]
- [Hotel discounts / room-rate program]
- Daily pay option
Requirements: what's required, what's preferred, and what kills applications
Housekeeping postings tend to fail by asking for things the job does not need, in a market where nearly every opening is a backfill. Here is what each line costs you.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Education | Ask for none. BLS records no formal educational credential as the typical entry requirement for this occupation. A high school diploma line filters people out and filters nothing useful in. |
| Prior experience | Optional, and expensive to demand. BLS records no work experience in a related occupation as typical for entry, and short-term on-the-job training as the norm. “2 years hotel housekeeping” on an entry wage is the single most common self-inflicted wound in this category. |
| Physical requirements | Include them, specifically. Per O*NET work context, 84% of people in this job report standing continually or almost continually, 82% repetitive motions, 72% walking, and 70% bending or twisting. Stating that is honest and does not deter anyone who already does this work. |
| Lifting and cart-pushing | Give a number. “Able to lift up to 30 lbs and push a loaded cart” is a real requirement candidates can self-assess. “Must be physically fit” is not. |
| Room quota | Not a requirement, but the omission that costs most. Experienced housekeepers choose jobs on rooms-per-shift. If your quota is competitive, it is your strongest recruiting asset and most postings leave it out. |
| English fluency | Ask only if the job needs it. Requiring fluency where the work is solo room-cleaning narrows a pool that is often multilingual, for no operational gain, and invites a discrimination problem you do not want. |
| Background check | State it plainly where the property requires it, especially in senior living, healthcare and private homes. Surprises at offer stage lose candidates you already paid to find. |
How to customize it for your setting
Hotels
Lead with the quota and what happens to hours when occupancy drops — that second question is the one experienced hotel housekeepers actually worry about. Name the room-rate or travel benefit if you have one; it is genuinely differentiating and costs you little.
Senior living and healthcare
Say that residents and patients are present while you work, because that is a different job from cleaning empty rooms and some applicants specifically want it. Name the infection-control training you provide, and mention any path into a CNA or dietary role — our CNA job description covers the next rung if you run that ladder.
Offices and commercial buildings
This is usually evening or overnight, solo, on a route. Say so in the first two lines, and say whether the shift is a fixed four hours or a full eight. Part-time evening work is a feature for some candidates and a dealbreaker for others; being vague loses both.
Private households
The job is broader and the relationship is closer. Be specific about what is included beyond cleaning — laundry, ironing, errands, cooking, pets — and about whether the role is solo and unsupervised. Note that 13.7% of this occupation is self-employed, so you are often competing with independent cleaners setting their own rates.
What it costs to reach housekeepers on social
Our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark does not publish a housekeeping role family, so we have no median to give you for this role and are not going to borrow a neighboring one and relabel it.
What the report does publish across all campaigns is a median cost per applicant of $13.88 and a volume-weighted average of $8.02, with the pattern that cost tracks how narrow the credential is. Housekeeping has no credential gate at all and a wide potential pool — anyone who has cleaned anywhere, plus people who have not — which is the structural reason to expect it at the cheap end rather than the expensive one. That is an expectation from the shape of the data, not a measured housekeeping figure, and we will publish a real one when we have the campaign-months behind it.
What is measured, and matters more here than the cost: every added application field costs completions. Employers in our data who ask only what genuinely disqualifies someone convert at close to double the rate of those who front-load long forms and document uploads. For a role with no credential to verify, almost nothing genuinely disqualifies someone at the application stage. Ask about availability and distance, and stop.
If the problem is filling housekeeping and janitorial roles rather than describing them, the recruiting side is on our how to hire housekeepers and janitorial staff page, and the interview stage is covered in housekeeper interview questions.
Writing the ad version
The job description above is for your ATS and careers page. The ad that runs on social is shorter and answers three things in the first two lines: how much, what shift, where. Something like: “Housekeepers — $17–$19/hr. Day shift, every other weekend, 14 rooms. [Property], [City]. No experience needed, we train. Apply in 60 seconds.” Then two or three knockout questions on the form — availability, distance, ability to lift and stand — and nothing else.
“No experience needed, we train” earns its place in this category more than almost any other phrase, because the replacement math means your realistic pool includes a lot of people who have cleaned somewhere that was not a hotel. The general craft is covered in what makes a good job ad, and there are worked examples in help wanted ad examples.
Housekeeper, room attendant, janitor: which title to post
Hotels often post “room attendant.” Healthcare posts “environmental services technician” or “EVS.” Commercial cleaning posts “custodian” or “janitor.” Candidates search “housekeeping jobs” and “cleaning jobs” far more than any of the internal titles.
Two consequences. First, if your applicant tracking system requires the internal title, put the searched term in the posting text and the ad headline anyway. Second, be aware that janitor and housekeeper are genuinely different BLS occupations, not just different words: 37-2011 excludes maids and housekeeping cleaners by definition, pays a median of $36,840, and covers building-wide cleaning rather than room servicing. If you are hiring for a building route rather than rooms, you are hiring a janitor and should say so.
Frequently asked questions
What does a housekeeper do?
Housekeepers perform light cleaning duties: cleaning rooms, hallways, lobbies, restrooms, corridors, elevators and stairways; sweeping, scrubbing, waxing and polishing floors; cleaning carpets and upholstered furniture with vacuums and shampooers; carrying linens, towels and supplies on wheeled carts; emptying wastebaskets and transporting trash; sorting, washing, ironing and folding laundry; and moving furniture to arrange rooms.
What qualifications does a housekeeper need?
None formally. BLS records no formal educational credential as the typical entry requirement for maids and housekeeping cleaners, no work experience in a related occupation, and short-term on-the-job training. Some settings add a background check, and healthcare or senior living properties add infection-control training after hire.
How much do housekeepers make?
The median annual wage for maids and housekeeping cleaners was $35,510 in 2025, which works out to roughly $17 an hour at 2,080 hours. Janitors and building cleaners, a separate occupation that BLS defines as excluding maids and housekeeping cleaners, had a median of $36,840.
Is housekeeping a physically demanding job?
Yes, and the posting should say so. Per O*NET work context data, 84% of workers in this occupation report standing continually or almost continually, 82% report continual repetitive motions, 72% report continual walking, and 70% report continual bending or twisting. Pushing a loaded cart and lifting linen and supplies are part of a normal shift.
What is the difference between a housekeeper and a janitor?
They are separate occupations in the federal statistics. Maids and housekeeping cleaners are SOC 37-2012 and service rooms and living or guest spaces. Janitors and building cleaners are SOC 37-2011, defined by BLS as janitors and cleaners except maids and housekeeping cleaners, and cover building-wide cleaning and light maintenance. Median wages were $35,510 and $36,840 respectively in 2025.
Is housekeeping a growing field?
Barely, and that is the important part. BLS projects employment of maids and housekeeping cleaners to rise from 1,332,100 in 2025 to 1,339,500 in 2035, an increase of 7,400 over the whole decade. Yet about 175,500 openings are projected each year. Almost all of that hiring is replacing people who leave the occupation rather than filling newly created jobs.
Hiring for commercial cleaning or building services rather than hotel housekeeping? Our janitor interview questions page covers what to ask for that setting.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring housekeepers?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where people who already do this work are scrolling, and report what each applicant cost with the management fee inside — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Employment, openings, wage and entry-requirement figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections, National Employment Matrix, occupational projections and worker characteristics, 2025–35, for maids and housekeeping cleaners (SOC 37-2012) and janitors and cleaners except maids and housekeeping cleaners (SOC 37-2011). Tasks and work context: O*NET OnLine 37-2012.00. Both read at source 8 September 2026. Campaign figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark. Last updated September 2026.