Free Move Out Cleaning Checklist (Printable, 1 Page)
One sheet per move-out, from first cabinet to final walk-through. This free checklist puts 28 tick-box items on one printable page, split by room: kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living areas, and utility. Below the sheet you get a 10-item move-in inspection mini checklist, four photo-documentation tips, an 8-row deposit tracking table, and three wall-patch opinions. Print it twice: once when you sign the lease, once when you start packing boxes.
How to use this page: print one copy per move. Tick items as you finish them, not from the hallway at the end. Take photos as you go and log anything damaged in the deposit table below, with your best cost estimate next to it. Adjust the list to what your place actually contains; skip lines that do not apply.
Generic sheet, your lease. Tenancy rules vary. What a landlord can charge for, how much notice they owe you, and what counts as normal wear all depend on your location and your contract, so check your local tenancy laws and read your lease before you agree to any deduction. This page is a cleaning and record-keeping aid, not legal advice, and no checklist guarantees a deposit comes back.
The move-out cleaning checklist
28 items in five blocks. Kitchens and bathrooms carry the most steps because that is where inspection deductions concentrate. Clean top to bottom in every room and leave floors for last. Most people can work one sheet across a weekend alongside packing; a one-bedroom goes faster than you expect once the boxes are out.
Kitchen (6)
☐ Oven, stovetop, and range hood degreased; drip trays and knobs washed
☐ Fridge and freezer emptied, wiped, and left propped open to air out
☐ Counters, backsplash, and cabinet exteriors wiped; cabinet interiors cleared and wiped
☐ Sink scrubbed and descaled; faucet polished; no dishes anywhere
☐ Trash and recycling emptied; bin washed and dried
☐ Floor swept and mopped, including corners and behind where the fridge stood
Bathroom (6)
☐ Toilet cleaned: bowl, seat, tank, base, and behind
☐ Shower, tub, and glass scrubbed; soap scum and hard water spots off the tiles
☐ Sink and vanity wiped; mirror polished; drawers emptied
☐ Drains cleared of hair; water runs without pooling
☐ Exhaust fan cover and light fixtures dusted
☐ Floor swept and mopped, behind the toilet included
Bedrooms (5)
☐ Closets, wardrobes, and drawers emptied and wiped inside
☐ Nails, screws, hooks, and adhesive strips removed from walls and doors
☐ Walls and doors checked for scuffs and marks; spots cleaned where a cloth can fix them
☐ Windows cleaned inside; sills and tracks wiped
☐ Floor vacuumed or mopped, edges and under where the bed stood
Living areas (5)
☐ Furniture moved out; areas under and behind it cleaned
☐ Shelves, ledges, and baseboards dusted; cobwebs at the ceiling line gone
☐ Switch plates, door handles, and light switches wiped
☐ Windows and mirrors cleaned; window tracks brushed out
☐ Floor vacuumed or mopped as a final pass, after everything else
Utility and exit (6)
☐ Washer and dryer wiped out; lint trap and drum cleared
☐ Water heater and furnace closet swept; nothing stored or left behind
☐ Vents and air filters dusted or replaced if your lease asks for it
☐ Every light bulb working; dead ones swapped before the walk-through
☐ All trash, recycling, and unwanted furniture out of the property, not left by the bins
☐ Final walk-through with this sheet, room by room, photos taken, keys ready
Photo-documentation: four tips from doing it
These are opinions from moves done the hard way, not survey data. The common thread: your photos should answer the question a deposit dispute actually asks, which is what the place looked like and when.
Turn timestamps on before you shoot a single room. Most phones embed the date anyway, but the on-screen stamp removes any argument about when a photo was taken. Do your full first pass the day you get keys, before furniture arrives, and shoot every room including the ones you think look fine.
Shoot move-out from the same angles as move-in. Stand in the same doorways and aim at the same corners. Matching pairs let anyone compare the two moments side by side without guessing. A phone pass per room takes two minutes; redoing it from memory after a dispute is not possible.
Get close-ups of the spots deductions attach to. Oven interior, tub and tile grout, floors, walls, and window glass are the usual suspects. One wide shot per room plus three or four detail shots of wear is enough. If something is genuinely damaged, photograph it from two distances and jot your best repair cost estimate in the deposit table below.
Store one folder per move and keep it past move-out. Cloud backup or an exported archive, named by room, nothing clever. Keep the folder until your deposit lands plus a couple of months, because questions can arrive after you have stopped expecting them. The folder costs you nothing to keep and answers everything when a charge shows up on your statement months later.
Deposit tracking table
Eight rows. One line per item a landlord might itemize, filled in at both ends of the tenancy: what you saw moving in, what it looked like moving out, and your rough repair or replacement cost if something changed. Row 1 is a worked example; overwrite it. Costs are your own estimates for planning, not quotes.
Item
Condition in
Condition out
Cost est
Example: Carpet, living room
Old stain near doorway
Same stain, no new marks
0 USD
Move-in inspection mini checklist
Run this during the first 48 hours in a new place, ideally the day you get keys. Ten items, fifteen minutes, and it makes the move-out sheet above actually work, because you cannot compare against a baseline you never wrote down.
☐ Every light tested; dead bulbs noted
☐ Taps run: water pressure, hot water arrives, drains keep pace
☐ Toilets flushed; no running or leaking after
☐ Outlets tested with a phone charger; breaker box located and labeled if unlabeled
☐ Under every sink checked for moisture, drips, or smell
☐ Windows opened, locked, and screens checked for tears
☐ Every exterior door locked; spare keys and mail access sorted
☐ Appliances run once: burner, oven, fridge getting cold
☐ Walls, floors, and ceilings photographed room by room
☐ Existing damage written on your own copy of this sheet, dated, and reported to the landlord in writing the same week
Wall-patch and fixture tips
Three opinions. None of them are rules, and what your landlord charges for depends on your lease and your local tenancy laws, so treat these as ways to hand a place back tidy rather than as advice about deductions.
Match the patch to the hole. Small nail holes close with a fingertip of spackle on a putty knife, one pass, dry, light sand. Anchor-sized holes want a self-adhesive mesh pad under the filler or they sink in as they dry. Either way, touch up with matching paint afterwards, because an unfilled hole reads from across the room and a mismatched sheen reads just as loud.
Keep the original fixtures and swap them back. If you replaced a showerhead, cabinet knobs, or light fixtures during the tenancy, bag the originals and label the bag by room. Screwing the old ones back in on move-out day is ten minutes of work; paying a replacement charge for hardware that is sitting in your closet is the same part twice.
Do not eyeball paint color. If the landlord left leftover paint, use it. If not, cut a loose flake from a hidden spot behind a door frame and take it to a paint counter for a match instead of guessing against a fan deck. Getting the base color right matters less than people think, but getting the finish wrong, flat versus eggshell, shows on the whole wall.