A landlord, a cleaning bid, or an office manager who used to work in a school tells you to “hold the building to Level 2,” and you nod like you know what that means. Most people don’t.
APPA cleaning levels are a plain scale, 1 to 5, for how clean a space looks: Level 1 is spotless, Level 5 is neglected, and everything else sits in between. They came out of the world that runs schools and college campuses, but any office can use them.
The reason they’re worth knowing is simple. They let you, your cleaning company, and anyone doing an inspection agree on what “clean” means by pointing at a level, instead of arguing over whether a particular desk got wiped.
A shared word for clean is the entire point. And there’s one move that turns the scale from trivia into something you can use on your next contract, the one almost every office gets wrong the first time.
What APPA Cleaning Levels Actually Are
APPA stands for the Association of Physical Plant Administrators, now called APPA: Leadership in Educational Facilities. It’s the body that, back in 1992, published the custodial guidelines that gave us these five levels. Schools and universities needed a way to talk about cleanliness that didn’t depend on one person’s opinion, so they wrote plain descriptions of what each level looks like.
The key word is looks. APPA levels are based on appearance, judged by eye, not by swab tests or particle counts. You walk a space, compare what you see to the descriptions, and give it a number. A hospital operating room needs lab testing to prove it’s sanitary, but a normal office just needs to look clean to the people working in it, and appearance is exactly what this scale measures.
One thing to clear up, because it trips people up. APPA actually publishes three separate rating systems: one for custodial cleaning, one for building maintenance, and one for grounds. Only the custodial one is about cleanliness.
If someone mentions APPA levels in a maintenance context, they might mean the upkeep scale (which runs from “showpiece facility” down to crisis repairs), not the cleaning scale. For how clean your office is, the custodial cleaning levels are the ones you want.
The Five APPA Cleaning Levels for an Office
Here’s the scale in plain English, with what each level looks like in a normal office. Remember the direction: Level 1 is the cleanest, Level 5 is the worst.
- Level 1, Orderly Spotlessness. Floors shine, surfaces are free of dust and fingerprints, corners are clean, and the restrooms gleam and smell fresh. Everything looks like it was just cleaned, all the time. Think of a law firm’s reception or an executive suite where clients walk in.
- Level 2, Ordinary Tidiness. Almost as clean as Level 1, but with up to a couple of days of light dust or a few smudges on glass and surfaces. It reads as clean and cared for to anyone using the space. This is what a well run office looks like, and it’s the level most buildings should aim for.
- Level 3, Casual Inattention. Floors are swept or vacuumed, but look closely and you’ll find stains, dull spots in the walking lanes, dust on ledges, fingerprints on the glass, and bins fuller than they should be. It isn’t dirty enough to be a health problem, but people notice.
- Level 4, Moderate Dinginess. Now it’s obvious. Floors are dingy and stained, dirt builds up in corners, walls show marks, light fixtures are dirty, and trash cans start to smell. People complain at this level, and it usually means the cleaning is under-resourced.
- Level 5, Unkempt Neglect. Grime everywhere, scuffed and matted floors, overflowing bins, odors, buildup that’s hard to remove. No occupied office should ever reach this. It’s a health and reputation problem as much as a cleaning one.
Most offices live at Level 2 in the areas that matter and drift toward Level 3 in the ones nobody sees. That’s normal. The point of the scale is that you can name where you are and where you want to be.
What Level Should Your Office Aim For
The mistake almost everyone makes the first time is picking one level for the whole building. That’s not how the scale is meant to work, and it either overspends on your storage room or undercleans your restrooms.
Set a target level by area instead. A restroom and a supply closet are judged differently, so they get different targets.
For most offices, the sensible split looks like this:
- Level 1 for the spaces that shape first impressions or carry health risk. The main reception, a client facing conference room, executive offices, and any medical or dental space. These are where spotless actually earns its cost.
- Level 2 as the default for the working office. Open desk areas, hallways, break rooms, and general restrooms. Clean, cared for, and realistic to sustain week after week. When a contract or bid names a target without explaining it, Level 2 is almost always what it means.
- Level 3, only where it’s truly low stakes and only on purpose. A back storage room or a rarely used file room can sit here to save money, as long as it’s a deliberate choice and not the whole building slipping.
Levels 4 and 5 are never targets. They’re what you’re trying to stay out of.
Why does the target matter so much for your budget? Because a cleaner standard means one person can cover less floor in the same time. Holding an area to Level 1 takes noticeably more labor than holding it to Level 3, so the level you pick is really a decision about how many cleaning hours you’re buying. That’s the honest link between “how clean” and “how much.”
How to Put a Level in Your Cleaning Contract
This is where the scale stops being trivia and starts saving you arguments.
Instead of writing “keep the office clean” into your agreement, name the target level for each area. “Reception and conference rooms at Level 1, general office and restrooms at Level 2, storage at Level 3” tells a cleaning company exactly what you’re buying, and it tells you exactly what to expect. Both sides are looking at the same descriptions, so “clean” stops being one person’s opinion against another’s.
Put it in the documents you already use. Your scope of work is the natural home for the per area targets. If you use a service level agreement, the level becomes the standard the agreement holds the cleaner to. And if you’re putting the job out to bid, naming the target level in your request for proposal makes the quotes you get back comparable, because everyone is pricing the same standard instead of guessing.
This is exactly why APPA levels keep showing up in cleaning contracts and bids. They turn a vague expectation into a line someone can actually be held to.
The Catch: a Level Is a Target, Not a Certificate
Two honest limits, so you use the scale the right way.
First, there’s no official APPA certification. No inspector shows up, stamps your building “Level 2,” and hands you a plaque. The levels are a self assessment benchmark. You (or your cleaning company, or an outside person you bring in) rate the space yourselves against the descriptions. A level only means something if the person judging it is consistent and honest about what they see.
Second, there’s no official way to turn a level into a percentage score. If you want “we hit Level 2 on 90 percent of the building,” that’s a scale you invent and apply yourself. APPA gives you the words, not a grading formula.
What this really means is that naming a level doesn’t clean anything. Someone still has to walk the building and check it against the target. That check is the other half of the system, and it’s where evaluating your cleaning company’s performance comes in. A target you never inspect is just a wish written into a contract.
What to Do With This
If you take one thing from the scale, make it this: pick Level 2 as your office baseline, name the handful of areas that deserve Level 1, and write those targets into your scope before your next contract or renewal. Then put a short walkthrough on the calendar so the target gets checked instead of assumed.
You don’t need APPA’s full staffing math or an auditing app to benefit. A small office gets almost all the value just by having a shared word for clean and using it on the page and on the walkthrough. Once “clean” means the same thing to you and to the crew, most cleaning disputes never happen in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 5 APPA cleaning levels?
They’re a five point appearance scale, from cleanest to worst: Level 1 Orderly Spotlessness, Level 2 Ordinary Tidiness, Level 3 Casual Inattention, Level 4 Moderate Dinginess, and Level 5 Unkempt Neglect. Level 1 looks freshly cleaned at all times; Level 5 is visibly neglected and unsafe. You rate a space by comparing what you see to each level’s description.
What APPA level should an office aim for?
Level 2 for the general working office, and Level 1 for reception, client facing rooms, and any medical space. Level 3 is acceptable only in low traffic spots like storage, and only as a deliberate choice. Levels 4 and 5 are never targets. Set the target by area rather than picking one level for the whole building.
Are APPA cleaning standards required by law?
No. APPA levels are a voluntary best practice benchmark, not a legal requirement. Nothing obliges your office to meet a particular level. They only become binding when you write a specific level into a cleaning contract or bid, at which point meeting it is a contractual promise, not a legal one.
What’s the difference between APPA and ISSA cleaning standards?
They measure different things and often work together. APPA levels describe how clean a space looks, the outcome. ISSA standards focus on how the cleaning work is organized and how long tasks should take, the method. Many buildings use an APPA level to define the target and ISSA style planning to figure out the hours needed to hit it.
Is there an official APPA cleaning certification?
No. There’s no credential that certifies a facility “meets APPA standards.” The levels are a self assessment tool you apply and document yourself. A building’s level is only as trustworthy as the consistency and evidence behind the person doing the rating, which is why a regular, documented walkthrough matters.
Can a small office use APPA cleaning levels?
Yes. The five level scale is simple enough for a single office, clinic, or shop to use without any of APPA’s heavier staffing methodology. Just set a target level for each area and check against it consistently. That alone keeps standards steady and, if you hire a cleaning company, gives you a clear way to hold them to it.