Check In at Work in cleaning

The obligation has applied since 1 September 2024. A tolerance period ran until 30 April 2025 inclusive; since 1 May 2025 it has been fully in force. The legal basis is the Programme Law of 26 December 2022.

It concerns cleaning a building or other immovable property on behalf of a client, for which a declaration of works is required. It is not the joint committee that counts but the activity: a company outside the joint committee for cleaning (JC 121) must also register if it does this kind of cleaning.

According to the NSSO, this includes:

• Regular cleaning of offices, business premises and common areas
• Cleaning before or after a renovation
• Window cleaning
• Cleaning for private individuals, except with service vouchers
• Specialised cleaning: roofs and façades, solar panels, ventilation, medical environments, streets and parks
• Emergency cleaning, unblocking and descaling, sewers and septic tanks

Not covered:

• –Work paid with service vouchers
• –Cleaning your own buildings with your own staff
• –Movable property, such as buses, cars, aircraft or furniture
• –Snow clearing and gritting

There is no separate threshold like the €500,000 in construction. Check In at Work applies as soon as the contract requires a declaration of works. The value of the main contract decides:

In cleaning you don't register once a day, but at every arrival and every departure. Breaks count too: at the start of a break you register your departure, at the end your arrival again.

Every cleaner registers themselves, at the moment it happens. The employer may not do it in advance or on behalf of the staff. Each registration records who is working, for which employer, at which place and at what time.

Everyone who cleans at the client, whatever their role:

• Your own cleaners, including team leaders and people teaching cleaning techniques
• Temporary agency workers, students and trainees
• Posted workers and self-employed people from abroad
• Self-employed people and subcontractors who take part in the cleaning
• The employer or contractor themselves, if they come on site

Responsibility lies both with whoever puts someone to work and with whoever carries out the work. The contractor provides a registration system and also makes it available to their subcontractors. The employer makes sure their people have a means to register. For agency workers, that duty lies with the company where they work.

And the client? The client must allow a means of registration. A contractor who agrees to work without registration remains in breach.

Through the declaration of works for the contract with the client. For each declaration, the NSSO creates its own QR code and link for Check In and Out at Work; without a QR code you enter the declaration number. You no longer need to declare every workplace separately.

Note: the Checkinatwork QR code for construction does not work here. For cleaning, use the Check In and Out at Work code.

A missing registration is an offence under the Social Penal Code. Since 1 September 2026 these amounts apply:

The NSSO announces an extension on 1 April 2027 to construction work from €500,000 and the delivery of ready-mixed concrete. Cleaning activities are explicitly excluded. For cleaning, check-in and check-out registration has applied since 2024. To read what changes in construction, see Check In and Out at Work 2027.