Guide to hiring an institutional cleaning service in Mexico

Define what you need and for which facility

The decision. Before talking to a provider, describe your facility and your operation. A service without a clear scope cannot be quoted, compared or supervised.

What to document.

• Approximate surface by type of area (offices, restrooms, warehouse, docks, cafeterias, exteriors) and types of flooring.
• Site operating hours and the windows in which cleaning can take place.
• Expected frequencies per area (daily, weekly, monthly, per event) and what is "acceptable" in each.
• Access, safety and hygiene restrictions (product zones, restricted areas, PPE, work permits).
• Periodic or special services you already foresee (deep cleaning, windows, work at height, carpets).

What changes by type of facility. Priorities are not the same:

• Distribution centers. The challenge is cleaning without stopping docks, forklifts or picking; shifts and routes matter as much as frequencies. See cleaning a distribution center without stopping operations and the distribution centers page.
• Industry. There are risk zones, spills, permits and coordination with production and with Health & Safety. See cleaning in industrial plants and the industrial page.
• Corporate offices. Schedule (office hours or night), how users are treated and sensitive areas matter. See office-hours vs. night cleaning and the corporate page.
• Residential complexes and buildings. Frequencies must fit a budget funded by fees and the approval of an owners' assembly. See cleaning common areas and the residential page.

Common mistake. Saying "office cleaning" and letting each provider interpret what it includes.

Request quotations that can be compared

The decision. When three quotations arrive with very different prices, it is almost always because each provider interpreted a different scope. The solution is to send all of them the same document (RFQ).

What a comparable request should include.

1. Requester details, dates (questions, site visit, delivery) and proposal validity.
2. Description of the facilities.
3. Scope by area: tasks, frequency and expected standard.
4. Schedules and shifts.
5. A base scenario for staffing and supervision, plus room for the provider to propose a justified alternative.
6. Supplies, consumables, machinery and who provides them.
7. Safety: product safety data sheets and, for risky tasks, which trained staff would perform them.
8. Compliance documentation (registration number and validity, compliance opinions).
9. A single response format, with an itemized price.
10. Evaluation criteria written before receiving offers.

What to verify. That all proposals respond to the same document and that every question is answered in writing to everyone equally.

Common mistakes. Describing the scope differently to each provider; asking for "a price" without a breakdown; skipping the site visit; changing criteria after receiving offers.

Tool. The RFQ template and the comparison table are in the article How to prepare a cleaning RFQ.

Understand what the price is made of

The decision. The price of a cleaning service is not a single number: it is the sum of line items. The largest is usually labor with its statutory charges. Two quotations with different prices may describe different services if one leaves out line items the other includes.

Line items to request itemized: direct labor, social security charges and benefits, supervision, supplies and consumables, equipment and machinery, uniforms and protective equipment, training and safety, overhead and profit, insurance and guarantees, taxes and extraordinary services.

What to always ask.

• On what base and contribution salary were social security charges calculated?
• How do they cover rest days, vacations and absences? A person assigned to a shift does not work every day of the year; the answer determines service continuity.
• Which supplies, equipment and supervision are included and which are not?
• Does the price include VAT? Which withholdings apply?

A low price is a signal to ask questions, not proof of anything. It may reflect a smaller scope, a different cost structure or a calculation error. Compare line by line and convert everything to the same basis (monthly, with or without VAT, with or without supplies).

Important. This guide does not include market rates or percentages. Any figure you use in your analysis must come from your own quotations. The minimum wage and contributions are checked in the current official sources.

Tool. The line-by-line comparison template is in What the price is made of.

Verify the provider's compliance

This is the stage where it pays most to be methodical, because mistakes are paid for later, and not only by the provider.

Why verification is your job. Since the reform published in the Official Gazette (DOF) on April 23, 2021, the Federal Labor Law (LFT) prohibits subcontracting personnel (art. 12) and allows hiring specialized services that are not part of the corporate purpose or the predominant economic activity of the recipient (art. 13), provided the contractor is listed in the STPS public registry (art. 15). Subcontracting must be set out in a written contract stating the purpose of the service and the approximate number of workers (art. 14). The same article 14 establishes that, if the contractor fails to meet its labor obligations to the workers, whoever hired it is jointly liable. On the tax side, article 15-D of the Federal Tax Code makes the deduction and crediting of these payments conditional on the contractor holding the registration under article 15 of the LFT and meeting the requirements of the income tax and VAT laws. How this applies to your company is determined by your legal and tax departments.

Verification in five steps (details and checklist in How to verify REPSE):

1. Check the registry yourself at repse.stps.gob.mx; search by company name, RFC or registration number. The document the provider sends you is the starting point, not the proof.
2. Compare the authorized services with the service you are hiring.
3. Check that the contract is in writing and mentions the purpose of the service and the approximate number of workers; that it speaks of services and not of "staff at your disposal".
4. Ask for evidence of being up to date (SAT, IMSS and Infonavit compliance opinions with a visible issue date; receipts of the four-monthly reports).
5. Document and schedule every expiration.

What the registration alone does not tell you: that the provider is up to date today, that assigned staff are registered with the correct salary, that the contract complies with the law, or that the specific service you need is within what is authorized.

The file is a living record. Some documents are requested once; others are renewed every month; others follow the four-monthly calendar of the provider's reports.

Some useful facts verified in official sources in October 2026:

• According to the STPS platform, the registration lasts three years and is renewed during the three months before expiration.
• Infonavit states that its tax status certificate is valid for 30 calendar days.
• Infonavit (SISUB) and IMSS (ICSOE) set three reporting windows per year; the next one opens on January 1, 2027.
• The validity of the SAT compliance opinion and the procedure for third-party consultation should be confirmed with your tax department on the SAT portal; this guide does not state a term.

Distinguish what the law requires of the provider from what you decide to request as a control. The law imposes registration and reporting on the provider; requesting opinions and receipts is good practice on your side and, if you want it, it should be written into the contract.

Tools. The REPSE checklist and the file review calendar.

Evaluate proposals and choose

The decision. With proposals already received, the risk is not a lack of information but comparing it badly. An orderly method separates three questions:

1. Does it meet the minimum? Compliance filter (yes or no). A provider without a current registration should not compete on price.
2. How does it compare in quality and scope? Scoring with weights defined before opening prices: scope and understanding of the service, operating plan and supervision, reporting and quality control, training and safety, transition and start-up, verifiable references.
3. How much does it cost for an equivalent scope? Normalized price, scored with a simple, known formula: the lowest offer gets the maximum and the others get points in inverse proportion to their price.

The final decision also includes what the matrix does not capture (the interview, the site visit, the references) and must be documented. Weighting organizes the discussion; it does not replace it.

Tool. The evaluation matrix, with the filter, scoring and price sections.

Sign a contract that can be measured

The decision. A good cleaning contract is not the longest one: it is the one that lets you measure the service, verify compliance over time and exit in an orderly way.

What the law requires and what is practice. Of the usual clauses, only two derive directly from the LFT (art. 14): a written contract, with purpose and approximate number of workers. The rest is good contractual practice and should not be presented to the provider as a "legal requirement".

Three blocks of clauses.

• Compliance: purpose and scope (a service, not staff at your disposal); approximate number of workers; compliance documents with a delivery calendar; consequences of not delivering.
• Operation: service levels and supervision; reporting; incidents and damages; insurance; confidentiality and access; subcontracting to third parties.
• Exit: term, renewal and price adjustment; early termination and transition; jurisdiction and addresses.

The exact wording is drafted and validated by a labor and commercial lawyer. Tool: the list of 13 minimum clauses, with a control question for each.

Start (or change providers) without interruptions

The decision. Service gaps rarely come from the incoming provider: they come from a lack of planning. Access not handed over, routines only the previous team knew and contract dates nobody reviewed.

Change or correct? Change when problems are recurring, documented and do not respond to an agreed corrective plan. Correct when they are isolated or when standards were never written down.

Before giving notice. Have Legal read the current contract (term, termination notice, penalties, handover obligations). Do not give informal notice until the route is defined.

Four weeks of transition:

About the outgoing provider's staff: do not assume they "transfer" to the new provider or that they do not; it depends on the facts and the contract, and it is a question for Legal. Personal data: if you share lists with names, define with your legal department what circulates and under which privacy notice, in light of the Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties (new law published in the DOF on March 20, 2025).

Tool. The transition schedule and checklist.

Supervise, handle incidents and improve

The decision. Supervising well does not mean checking everything, but agreeing in advance on what is measured, how, how often and who signs. Micromanagement usually comes from a lack of shared criteria: if nobody defined what "clean" means, every walkthrough produces a different opinion.

A lightweight system has four pieces:

1. An expected cleanliness level per type of area, described in words (and, better, with photographs of your facilities).
2. A program compliance log, kept by the provider's supervisor.
3. Sample audits with a fixed format, weekly or biweekly, rotating the areas reviewed.
4. A monthly meeting with indicators, trend, open actions, owners and dates.

Three layers of indicators (you do not need all of them on day one): program compliance, condition of the areas and response to requests. Each company sets the targets with its provider according to its facility.

Incidents. A spill, damage, an accident, a missing item or a complaint should not be improvised. Before the first incident, define with the provider how it is reported, within what time, who intervenes, how it is documented and how it is closed. For safety aspects and legally required notices, confirm with your Health & Safety department and with Legal.

Tools. The supervision template and the incident protocol.