Move-out disputes in this city are remarkably repetitive. Almost none of them are about the floors, which is where most people spend their last evening scrubbing.
Almost every unhappy handover comes from doing these in the wrong sequence, not from doing them badly.
Cleaning around boxes is cleaning twice. An empty flat also reveals what has been hidden for two years behind the sofa, which is exactly what the inspection will find if you do not.
Not the same morning, which leaves no room for anything to go wrong, and not three days earlier, because a flat with keys still circulating does not stay clean. One day of buffer is the sweet spot.
Timestamped pictures of every room, the oven interior and the bathroom, taken after the clean and before you hand back the keys. This costs ten minutes and settles most disputes without an argument.
What this normally costs: a handover clean is priced as a one-off deep clean rather than as a regular visit. Published Portuguese sources put a single visit of three to four hours at €30–60, but a genuine end-of-tenancy job on an empty flat is longer than that and is usually quoted for the whole property rather than by the hour. Indication from public price pages, not a quote. The hourly figures come from spicandspan.pt, idealista.pt and zaask.pt; the monthly figure from viplimpezas.pt; the after-renovation figure from Zaask, Habitissimo, lipclean and fixhomeservicios. All read in August 2026. The comparison of hourly rates is on the prices page.
It removes the easiest reason to withhold it, which is not the same thing. Deposits are also held over damage, unpaid bills and notice periods, and no amount of cleaning touches those. What a professional clean plus photographs does is turn a vague accusation into a specific one that has to be justified.
The kitchen, and inside the oven within about ninety seconds of arriving. Then the bathroom, then inside the cupboards. Floors and dusting, which is where most people put their effort, are usually glanced at rather than inspected.
After, without exception if it is your furniture. If the flat is furnished by the landlord, then it happens around the furniture and the insides of wardrobes and drawers become part of the job. Say which situation applies when you ask for a price, because the two are not comparable.
Then your inventory photographs from that day are the most valuable thing you own right now. Portuguese tenancy law works on the condition recorded at handover, and you are not obliged to return a property in a better state than you received it. Without pictures, though, it is your word against theirs.
Yes, more than anything else in the flat. It is the one item where the difference between cleaned and not cleaned is instantly visible, it takes a professional the best part of an hour, and it is the single most common line item on a deduction list in this market.
Cleaning businesses work daytime hours and a deep clean on an empty flat runs long, so an afternoon booking can easily finish after dark in winter. If your handover is at a fixed hour, book the clean for the previous day. Evening and Sunday work exists but is scarce and priced accordingly.
The date is the constraint here, not the price. Send it along with the size of the flat and whether it will be empty, and you will get a realistic answer about who can be there.
Give us the date and the flat. We find somebody who can be there before it.