Engaging a cleaner for your holiday let: employee or contractor?

A cleaner is the most important person in a holiday let. They are also where owners most often get the paperwork wrong. The question is rarely whether someone should clean between guests; it is what you have signed up to by asking them. We checked the Irish official position on 28 September 2026.

The label on the agreement settles nothing

Getting this wrong is not a neutral filing error: misclassification reduces contributions to the Social Insurance Fund and shuts the worker out of full PRSI cover and employment rights.

The five-step framework that came out of Karshan

• Does the contract involve the exchange of wage or other remuneration for work?
• If so, is the worker agreeing to provide their own services, rather than those of a third party?
• If so, does the business exercise sufficient control over the worker to render the agreement one capable of being an employment agreement?

Which way a changeover cleaner tends to point

The Code lists markers for step four. Employment is suggested by direction as to how, when and where the work is done, labour only, a fixed wage, no right to subcontract, no materials or equipment beyond small tools, no financial risk, set hours and one business. Self-employment is suggested by owning the business, bearing the cost of faulty work, controlling whether someone else does it, hiring freely, serving several clients at once, providing materials and machinery, and pricing the job.

The caveats cut against where owners usually start. Considerable freedom does not prevent employee status. Nor does specialist knowledge that leaves someone undirected. Nor does working for other employers. Employees may work part-time, temporary, seasonal or occasional patterns, and holiday lets are seasonal by nature.

If the answer is employee, here is the list

• Core terms in writing within five days: names, employer's address, place of work, start date, job title, expected duration if temporary, pay rate and pay reference period, expected daily and weekly hours, probation terms, and terms on hours including overtime
• Remaining terms within one month: pay intervals, annual leave and public holidays, sick pay, pension, notice, collective agreements, training
• Minimum wage: €14.15 an hour since 1 January 2026 at 20 and over, €12.74 at 19, €11.32 at 18, €9.91 under 18. Board counts at €1.27 an hour, lodging at €33.42 a week
• Annual leave: four working weeks, for part-timers usually 8% of hours worked
• Working time: a 48-hour weekly average ceiling, eleven consecutive hours of daily rest, a fifteen-minute break after four and a half hours and thirty minutes after six

You must sign and date the written statement and keep a copy throughout the employment and for a year after it ends. Dismissal procedures are due in writing within twenty-eight days. Probation cannot exceed six months, extendable to twelve. An upheld WRC complaint about terms can bring up to four weeks' remuneration. Part-time and seasonal workers qualify for public holiday benefit after 40 hours in the previous five weeks.

A divergence, flagged rather than hidden: the WRC lists the employer's policy on tips among the day-five core terms; the Citizens Information version, edited more recently on 10 August 2026, does not. We follow the more recent page, and still suggest including the line, since adding a term cannot breach it.

One duty either way

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 applies to all workers on a premises, regardless of employment status. Calling someone a contractor does not move that duty off your property.

Where we come out

A cleaning firm that invoices you, carries its own cover, sends whoever it chooses and prices the job is a different animal from one person at the door every Saturday at eleven for an agreed hourly rate. Decide which you are doing, write it down, and make the reality match it. We study every request and tell you honestly whether and how we can help.