Porto has two prices for cleaning a house and they appear to contradict each other. Local companies advertise from €5.50 or €6 an hour. The average actually paid across the district is €11. Both figures are true, and the gap between them is where most of the confusion in this market lives.
Demand is not helping. Domestic cleaning in Porto accounts for 18% of all national demand and grew 27% on 2025, according to idealista/servicos. Ten options below, with what each publishes, how you arrive at the number, and what the number leaves out.
The Short Version
- The advertised rate is a search-results number. What you pay depends on how many hours your house needs, whether products are included, and what the quote actually covers.
- VAT is always 23%. Cleaning is specifically excluded from the reduced rate, so €10 before VAT is €12.30 on the invoice. Quotes that omit this are not cheaper, only less clear.
- Two quotes at the same hourly rate can differ by two hours of work. The rate tells you very little on its own. The hours and their scope tell you most of it.
- Short-let turnover is a Porto-specific pressure. Guaranteed dates matter more here than in most markets, and not every company can promise one.
- Hiring directly makes you an employer. That means 18.9% in contributions, accident insurance and holiday pay, on top of the hourly rate you agreed.
The Two Prices, Explained
An advertised entry rate exists to win a click. It usually assumes a high hour commitment, excludes products, sometimes excludes travel and occasionally excludes VAT. None of that is dishonest, exactly, but none of it is the price either.
Superlimpa is the clearest illustration: its own site shows cleaning from €5.50 an hour in one place and €9.50 for domestic cleaning in another. Both appear on the same company’s pages. Until someone has looked at your house, neither is binding.
| Porto scenario | Per hour | When you learn the price |
|---|---|---|
| FIXO, domestic cleaning | From €10.99, VAT included | On screen, before booking |
| District average actually paid | €11 | After the quote |
| Entry-level local companies | From €5.50–6 | After the quote |
| Published range for Porto | €9–12 | After the quote |
Read down the right-hand column rather than the middle one. The timing of the number is the real difference between these companies.
Who Is Actually Hiring
Five situations account for most cleaning bookings in the district, and they want different things.
- Households with full schedules across Porto, Matosinhos, Gaia and Maia, wanting a fixed weekly or fortnightly slot and the same person each time.
- Landlords and short-let managers, for whom a guaranteed date is the whole requirement. A cleaning that slips by a day costs a booking.
- Anyone who has just finished building work. Cement dust gets into window frames, skirting and ventilation, and needs industrial extraction rather than a mop. Here a price per square metre is usually more honest than a price per hour, because the work depends on area, not the clock.
- People handing back or taking on a rental. End-of-tenancy cleaning has one concrete objective, which is recovering the deposit: oven, fridge, inside the cupboards, windows.
- Offices, shops and condominiums, which need out-of-hours slots, monthly contracts and invoices with VAT itemised. The decisive question is whether the company has enough staff to cover absences without a gap in service.
The Ten, at a Glance
| Company | Model | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| FIXO | Fixed price, book online | From €10.99/h incl. VAT, 3-hour minimum | A guaranteed date and a known cost |
| Wegho | Plans, quote by form | Not published | Recurring work with employed teams |
| House Shine | Franchise, quote | Set by each unit | Deep and specialist cleaning |
| Zaask | Quote marketplace | Per professional | Comparing offers |
| Fixando | Quote marketplace | Per professional | Unusual jobs |
| Habitissimo | Quote marketplace | €9–12/h published for Porto | Cleaning tied to building work |
| Superlimpa | Traditional, quote | From €5.50/h advertised | Awkward hours, post-building |
| Hiperlimpa | Hour packages, quote | From €6/h advertised | One-off cleans on a budget |
| Easy2Clean | Local, quote | Not published | Condominiums, cleaning plus ironing |
| PT Clean | Via marketplace, quote | About €16/h estimated | Long track record |
The Ten, in Detail
1. FIXO
The Fidelidade group’s home-services platform, launched in 2019, running 84 services across nine categories. Cleaning is the most requested of them.
What separates it from the rest of this list is when you learn the price. You answer questions about the house, see the final figure on screen, pick a slot and pay. Domestic cleaning starts at €10.99 an hour with VAT included, with a three-hour minimum, and the rate is identical in Porto, Lisbon, Setúbal and Braga. Hours bought are technician-hours: if FIXO sends two people to finish faster, that is its arrangement, not an extra charge.
More than 400 vetted technicians cover the network, with validated documentation and customer ratings. Oven, fridge, window and balcony extras carry known times and costs upfront, which is what makes end-of-tenancy work schedulable rather than speculative. Rescheduling is possible up to two hours before.
Where it stops: coverage is the Lisbon, Porto, Setúbal and Braga districts only. The three-hour minimum rules it out if you genuinely want a quick two-hour clean. Products and materials are not included by default and add €2.50 an hour.
2. Wegho
Headquartered in Maia, which makes it one of the few national operators actually born in the district. It covers domestic and commercial cleaning and disinfection, organised around recurring plans: pick a frequency, complete a form about the house, receive a proposal.
Its stated position is that every cleaning professional is an employee on a contract, an explicit stance against informality in a sector where that is rare. Direct employment brings training and continuity of team. The Porto metropolitan operation is among the company’s oldest.
Where it stops: no published hourly rate, so you learn the price only after completing the form. The plan structure is inflexible for one-off work, and there is less beyond cleaning than a generalist platform offers.
3. House Shine
A cleaning franchise whose master franchise is based in Porto, on Rua Cidade de Bristol, operating through independent units.
One of the oldest and best-known domestic cleaning networks in the country, with uniform working protocols and its own team training. The range extends past regular cleaning into specialist work that most local firms do not attempt, including post-fire decontamination.
Where it stops: each unit is legally and financially independent, as the brand states when responding to public complaints. You contract with the local franchisee rather than the national brand, which means price, availability and recourse all depend on which unit covers you.
4. Zaask
A Portuguese marketplace that passes your request to professionals and charges them for the introduction. It does not clean.
Useful when you want to compare several offers, or need something the fixed catalogues do not list. Profiles carry ratings and experience, and the volume of providers across the Porto area is substantial.
Where it stops: no fixed price, uneven quality, limited vetting, and a process built on calls and waiting. If the work goes wrong, your contract is with the professional.
5. Fixando
The same mechanism as Zaask, and valuable for the same narrow reason: speed of first contact, and reach into municipalities where structured companies are thin.
Where it stops: several sales calls, no guaranteed final figure before a visit, and no support covering how the work is actually done.
6. Habitissimo
A quote site oriented to renovation, with cleaning attached. It is the only marketplace here that publishes a Porto range, putting cleaning at €9 to €12 an hour, which is a useful sanity check against any quote you receive.
Its providers come mostly from construction, so for post-building work the listings are relevant and the equipment is right.
Where it stops: poorly suited to regular domestic cleaning, no immediate booking, and many providers treat cleaning as a sideline.
7. Superlimpa
More than twenty years in the local market, advertising the lowest entry rate in the district and 24/7 availability, covering post-building, post-fire and commercial work.
Where it stops: the site shows several different entry figures for the same service, from €5.50 an hour in one place to €9.50 in another, which makes the price impossible to pin down before contact. No online booking. An hourly rate well below the market usually excludes products, travel or VAT, so confirm what is in it.
8. Hiperlimpa
Another local company competing on price, advertising from €6 an hour with free online quotes, and selling work as pre-defined blocks of hours, either one-off or monthly. Knowing the hours upfront is worth something in a market where that is usually vague. Coverage extends across the whole district, including municipalities the national platforms reach less well.
Where it stops: no online booking, the advertised entry rate will not necessarily be what your house costs, and there is little public information about how teams are vetted or insured.
9. Easy2Clean
Focused on Porto and its metropolitan area, covering domestic work, offices, condominiums, post-building, windows and, unusually, ironing.
The promise of a quote response within 24 hours is concrete, and the service mix matches what condominiums need: stairs, glass, common areas, regular maintenance. Bundling ironing with cleaning removes a second contract most households otherwise carry.
Where it stops: no published prices and no online booking, which slows anything urgent, and little public detail on team size or cover for absences.
10. PT Clean
Seventeen years in the local market and one of the stronger average ratings among Porto profiles on Zaask. In a sector where many operators last two or three years, longevity and a consistent rating are objective signals.
Where it stops: an estimated €16 an hour on the platforms where it is listed, well above the district average of €11, which reflects positioning rather than volume. Contact and booking depend on the marketplace, with no fixed price and no online scheduling.
What Hiring Someone Directly Actually Costs
Paying a cleaner cash in hand is cheaper per hour than any company on this list. It also makes you an employer, with the obligations that follow.
Regular domestic work brings social security contributions of 18.9%, accident insurance and holiday entitlements. Portugal has roughly 220,000 domestic workers, and a substantial share of that work happens informally, which is precisely why several companies in this comparison make employment status a selling point.
The practical consequence is narrow but real: without a contract or insurance, damage to a worktop or an appliance is yours, and so is an injury in your kitchen. For a few hours a fortnight the gap between the two options is small. For someone in your home several days a week, the direct arrangement is cheaper only if nothing ever goes wrong.
Five Questions Before You Book
- When do I learn the price? Before booking, or after describing the house and waiting for offers? This single question separates the list into two halves.
- How many hours are contracted, and what do they cover? Two quotes at the same rate can differ by two hours of work. Ask what the hours include, not just what they cost.
- Who vetted the person coming to my house? Documentation, references, employment status. On marketplaces the answer varies by provider, because the platform is not the employer.
- What happens if they do not turn up? Companies with their own teams substitute. Individual providers cancel. If you are turning round a short let, that difference is the entire decision.
- Is VAT in the number I am looking at? It is 23% and it is never reduced for cleaning. A quote of €10 is €12.30.
Where FIXO Fits
In a market whose central problem is deciding without knowing the price, FIXO’s answer is to put the number on screen first: from €10.99 an hour with VAT included, a three-hour minimum, the same rate across the district, and a vetted technician rather than a profile you picked from a list. For landlords and short-let managers, the guaranteed date and the known cost of oven and fridge extras matter more than the hourly rate.
It is the wrong choice if you only want two hours, if you live outside the four covered districts, or if your job is a large post-building clean that genuinely needs scoping by square metre. Current rates and availability are on FIXO’s Porto domestic cleaning page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the average higher than everything advertised?
Because advertised rates assume the best case and averages record the real one. Entry figures of €5.50 or €6 usually depend on a large hour commitment and exclude products, sometimes travel, sometimes VAT. The €11 district average is what households actually end up paying once the house has been seen.
Is VAT really 23% on cleaning?
Yes. The VAT code specifically excludes these services from the reduced rate, so there is no version of this where cleaning is taxed at 6% or 13%. When you compare quotes, check whether each one has VAT in it, because a €10 quote excluding VAT is more expensive than a €12 quote including it.
Which companies can guarantee a specific date?
Those with their own teams and online scheduling. Platforms that book a slot and assign a vetted professional can commit to a date and substitute if someone is unavailable. Marketplaces cannot, because the booking is with an individual. For short-let turnover between guests, this is the only question that matters.
Does anyone cover Gaia, Matosinhos and Maia properly?
Most of this list does, and the metropolitan area is better served than the Lisbon equivalent. Local operators such as Hiperlimpa and Easy2Clean cover the district including municipalities where national platforms are thinner, and FIXO runs city-specific pages for Gaia and Matosinhos as well as Porto.
Should post-building cleaning be priced by the hour?
Usually not. The work depends on floor area and the kind of building work, not on the clock, so a price per square metre tends to be the more honest basis. It also needs industrial extraction and several passes, which is why a company that only does maintenance will not produce a good result however many hours you buy.
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