561720: Janitorial Services

What this code covers

561720 covers general interior cleaning of buildings: custodial services, window cleaning and specialised cleaning delivered as a service rather than as part of a wider facilities contract. Cleaning delivered as one line of an integrated facility operation is coded to 561210 instead.

This is one of the most accessible federal markets for a genuinely small firm. The barrier is not capital or clearance, it is the ability to staff reliably at a government site under a wage determination and to document what you did.

What federal buyers typically ask for

The Service Contract Act applies and the wage determination is the price. A janitorial bid is close to a pure labor calculation against a published rate, which means the bidders are competing on productivity assumptions, supervision ratio and overhead rather than on a secret number. Under-bidding the labor is the commonest way a firm wins one of these and then fails it.

Expect a performance work statement with measurable standards, a quality control plan of your own, and a surveillance plan with deductions for missed standards. Sustainable or green cleaning requirements appear on many federal solicitations, specifying certified products and sometimes certified processes, and they are a pass or fail item where they appear.

A very large share of this work is set aside for small business, and much of it is awarded under the AbilityOne program, which is a mandatory source: work on the procurement list has to be bought from the designated nonprofit agency rather than competed. Checking whether a requirement is on that list before pursuing it saves real time.