Hotel housekeeping inspection checklist
A guest inspects the room before they put their bag down. They look at the bathroom, they look under the sheet, and they run a hand along something. This checklist is written for the person who has to find what the guest would find, an hour earlier.
Housekeeping inspections fail in a predictable way. The supervisor walks a room, sees a made bed and a clean counter, and marks it off. Then a guest opens the closet and finds nine hangers facing four different directions, or lifts the duvet and finds a hair. The difference between those two outcomes is whether the form forces you to look in a fixed order at things you would not choose to look at.
The areas below run in the order an inspection should actually walk: entry and closet, sleeping area, bathroom, the coffee station and balcony, then out into the corridor, the lobby and the public washrooms, and finally back of house. Back of house belongs on the same form. A linen room with bagged linen on the floor and an unlabelled bottle on a cart tells you what the rooms will look like in three weeks.
Guest Room Entry and Closet
- Door, frame, handle, deadbolt and security latch wiped, no marks around the lock plate
- Door back panel with the rate card and evacuation map clean and straight
- Privacy sign present and clean, hanging on the inside handle
- Closet shelf and rail dusted, hangers counted to standard and facing the same way
- Safe wiped inside and out, door open, no items left behind
- Iron plate clean with no scorch residue, board cover unstained, both stowed
- Luggage rack straps and frame wiped, no hair on the webbing
- Entry floor vacuumed to the door sweep, threshold free of grit
Guest Room Sleeping Area
- Linen crisp with no hair, stains or previous-guest marks, mitred corners to standard
- Mattress protector clean and the mattress rotated per the posted schedule
- Headboard face and top edge dusted, wall behind the headboard free of marks
- Under the bed clear, vacuumed, nothing left by the previous guest
- Nightstand tops, drawer interiors and the lamp base and shade dusted
- Light switches, thermostat, phone handset and keypad wiped
- Remote control wiped including between the buttons, batteries working
- Television screen and bezel clean, no dust ledge on the frame
- Desk surface, chair seat, arms and legs wiped, desk chair castors clean
- Mirror and picture glass streak-free when checked at an angle
- Window glass, sill, track and the sheer and blackout curtain hems clean
- Carpet vacuumed with edges detailed, no vacuum track pattern left uneven
- Air vent grille and return dust-free, unit filter checked on schedule
Guest Bathroom
- Toilet bowl, rim underside, seat hinges, tank and the floor seam at the base clean
- Shower walls, glass, door track and grout free of soap film and water spotting
- Shower head, arm and fixture escutcheons descaled, no mineral crust at the outlet
- Tub or shower floor and the drain clear, no hair at the strainer
- Sink bowl, overflow, tap base and stopper clean, counter dry and free of hair
- Mirror clean to the edges, light diffuser dust-free
- Amenities placed to standard, none part-used or missing
- Towels folded to standard, correct count, no fraying or stains
- Hair dryer body, nozzle and inlet grille clean and functioning
- Exhaust fan grille free of lint, fan pulling when tested
- Waste bin emptied, liner fitted, bin body and lid washed
- Floor mopped to the baseboard and behind the door, corners included
Minibar, Coffee Station and Balcony
- Kettle or coffee maker descaled, carafe clean, no stale grounds in the basket
- Cups, glasses and lids replaced clean, no water spots or lip marks
- Tray, coasters and supply basket wiped, stock to standard
- Minibar interior wiped, contents to standard, nothing expired
- Ice bucket and liner clean and dry
- Balcony or patio floor swept, rail wiped, no cigarette debris in corners
- Balcony furniture wiped and set to standard, glass door track clean
Corridors and Elevator Lobbies
- Corridor carpet vacuumed including edges and against the room door frames
- Room door faces, number plates and frames wiped
- Elevator door tracks clear of grit, doors and jambs clean
- Elevator interior walls, rails, buttons and mirror clean, floor damp mopped
- Baseboards and the wall corner guards free of cart scuff marks
- Wall sconces, ceiling vents and exit signs dust-free
- Ice and vending alcove floor mopped, machine fronts and drip tray clean
- Nothing left in the corridor: no linen bags, trays or amenity boxes
Lobby and Public Washrooms
- Entry glass clean on both faces, door push plates and handles wiped
- Entry matting vacuumed and lifted, no grit or water trapped underneath
- Lobby hard floor clean with no traffic lane dulling, soft floor vacuumed to the edges
- Seating upholstery, arms and frames wiped, cushions dressed
- Reception counter, bell desk and luggage cart handles wiped
- Public washroom fixtures, floor seams, mirrors and dispensers clean and stocked
- Planters free of debris, no dropped leaves under the foliage
- Exterior entry approach swept, ashtray or receptacle emptied
Back of House and Housekeeping Areas
- Housekeeping cart clean, organised, no unlabelled spray bottles
- Linen room shelves dust-free, clean and soiled linen kept separate
- Linen chute area clean, no bagged linen left on the floor
- Service corridor floors swept and mopped, walls free of cart marks
- Janitor closet sink clean, mop heads hung to dry, nothing stored on the floor
- Chemicals labelled and stored with the safety data sheets accessible
- Vacuum filters and brush rolls clean, cords undamaged
- Staff washroom and break area fixtures, surfaces and floor clean
General checks (site-wide)
- Room inspected in the same order every time so nothing is skipped under time pressure
- Disinfectant left wet on bathroom fixtures for the contact time printed on its label
- Bathroom cloths never reach a guest room surface, colour coding followed
- No odour on entry: musty, smoke or chemical smells recorded as a failure
- Maintenance faults photographed and reported rather than cleaned around
- Lost and found items bagged, tagged with the room number and handed in the same shift
- Room left at the correct temperature with lights, television and curtains set to standard
How often to inspect
| Daily | Full guest room clean, bathroom, linen change, corridors, lobby, public washrooms |
| Weekly | Under-bed vacuum, balcony detail, cart and closet deep clean, vent grille wipe |
| Monthly | High dusting, light diffusers, curtain hems, wall spot washing, mattress rotation |
| Quarterly | Carpet extraction, hard floor restoration, upholstery cleaning, window interior wash |
What inspectors actually check in a guest room
Odour before anything visual
Pass: the room smells of nothing when you open the door. Fail: musty, smoky or heavily fragranced. A masking spray is a failure, not a fix, because it wears off before the guest arrives and tells them something was covered up.
Under the bed and behind the headboard
Pass: the floor under the bed is vacuumed and empty, and the wall behind the headboard has no marks. Fail: a phone charger and a dust line under the frame. Nobody vacuums under a bed in a fifteen minute turnover unless the inspection looks there sometimes.
The remote and the phone handset
Pass: the remote is wiped between the buttons and the handset and keypad are clean. Fail: a spotless television screen and a tacky remote. These two objects get handled more than any surface in the room and they are the easiest to forget because they are not furniture.
Mineral crust at the shower head
Pass: the shower head outlets, the arm and the fixture escutcheons are free of scale, and the glass has no water spotting. Fail: clean tile with a white crust around the nozzle. In a hard water property this comes back on a schedule, so it belongs on the weekly list rather than being treated as a one-off.
Closet hangers and the safe
Pass: hangers counted to standard and facing one way, safe open and empty, iron plate free of scorch residue. Fail: a clean closet with a previous guest's dry cleaning tag still on the rail. Setup standards are part of the score because a guest reads them as cleanliness.
Scoring attendants without turning it into a witch hunt
Room inspections get resented when they are used only to catch people. The way to avoid that is to make the standard public before it is used to score anyone, sample fairly across the team, and attach a photo to every failed line so nothing depends on memory or tone of voice. An attendant who can see the photo of the seam they missed will fix it. An attendant who hears that their rooms were sloppy will argue.
Two numbers are worth tracking per attendant: score, and repeat failures. Score on its own rewards whoever gets the easiest floor. Repeat failures tell you who needs to be shown something once, and that is usually a five minute conversation at a specific fixture rather than a training session.
For the fixture-level standard in the public washrooms, use the restroom cleaning checklist. The gym cleaning checklist covers a hotel fitness room and pool change area, and the cleaning inspection checklist covers the back of house offices and staff areas.
Common questions
How many rooms should a housekeeping supervisor inspect a day?
Enough that every attendant gets inspected every week and every room gets inspected at least monthly, which in practice means a sample of 8 to 12 rooms a day in a mid-size property. Spread the sample across attendants and across floors rather than inspecting whichever rooms are closest to the office, because the rooms furthest from the linen room are the ones that slip.
What is the difference between a room inspection and a deep clean check?
A room inspection scores the daily clean: linen, bathroom, touchpoints, floors, setup. A deep clean check covers the work on a rotation, such as under the bed, the mattress rotation, curtain hems, vent grilles and upholstery. Score them on the same form but on different frequencies, so a room that passes daily does not hide six months of skipped rotation work.
What should a hotel bathroom inspection cover?
Toilet including the rim underside and seat hinges, the floor seam at the base of every fixture, shower walls and glass and door track, the shower head and fixture escutcheons for mineral crust, the sink overflow and stopper, the mirror checked from an angle, the exhaust grille, the hair dryer inlet, amenity and towel standards, and the floor behind the door. Odour gets tested on entry before anything else is scored.
Should a contract cleaner and an in-house housekeeping team use the same checklist?
Yes, and it settles arguments. When the contractor is scored on the same form the hotel uses internally, a disputed room comes down to a dated line and a photo rather than two opinions. Write the standards once, issue them to the contractor before they are used to score anyone, and keep the same area names on both sides.
Do I need to give an email address to download the PDF?
No. The download is a direct link with no form. Print it, add the property name, and use it on the floor.