According to Passflat tenant reports (August 2026), only 77% of tenants who moved out in Warsaw got their deposit back in full — with a median deposit of about 5 000 zł. And the most common reason for deductions in those reports isn't holes in the walls or broken appliances — it's cleaning disputes: a greasy oven, limescale in the bathroom, a fridge nobody wiped. It stings twice, because this is the cheapest deposit problem to prevent: a day of scrubbing, or 300–600 zł for professional cleaners, against losing a chunk of 5 000 zł. Here's what landlords actually inspect at move-out, what you're obliged to clean, what you're not — and what end-of-tenancy cleaning costs in Warsaw.
What landlords actually check
The move-out inspection almost always follows the same route — the spots where dirt builds up invisibly while you live there but jumps out at a fresh pair of eyes. Walk the list in advance, not on the morning you hand over the keys:
- Oven and hob. Baked-on grease is complaint number one at inspections. Racks, trays and the hob itself all count.
- Fridge. Defrosted, cleaned inside and out — and left switched on by default, unless the landlord asks otherwise. Turned off with the door shut, it develops a smell within a week — and that smell gets billed to you.
- Cooker hood filter. The metal cassettes need washing or replacing. Almost every tenant forgets them; almost every landlord remembers.
- Bathroom. Limescale on taps, the shower head and the glass screen; tile grout and the silicone around the tub — darkening and mold are visible from the doorway.
- Windows. Washed windows at move-out are a standard expectation, especially after the heating season.
- Inside wardrobes and drawers. Empty, wiped, nothing left behind — the landlord will look inside, guaranteed.
- Walls. Furniture scuffs, hand marks, holes from pictures and shelves — small holes are expected to be filled.
- Floors. Mopped everywhere, including under the bed and behind the wardrobes that get revealed when your things move out.
- Balcony. Swept, free of cigarette butts, boxes and dead plant pots.
- Trash. All of it gone — including the basement storage (piwnica), if you had one.
The benchmark for every item is the same: the condition recorded in the move-in protocol, not some abstract standard of perfect cleanliness.
Normal wear vs dirt: what you're actually responsible for
Polish rental practice distinguishes normal wear and tear (zużycie naturalne) from dirt and damage. You owe the apartment back clean — in the condition you received it — but you don't owe it back better than it was.
- Not your problem: paint faded over the years, floor scuffing in walkways, worn seals, grout darkened by time. That's the inevitable result of someone living there, and a deposit can't be withheld for it.
- Your problem: the layer of grease on the hood and oven, limescale nobody removed for a year, mold on the silicone, stains that appeared on your watch.
The line between the two is arguable exactly until someone opens the move-in protocol with its photos: they settle the "it was already like that" vs "no, that was you" argument. If the oven wasn't spotless when you moved in and it's documented, you don't owe it back sterile.
DIY or hire cleaners
Doing it yourself means a day to a day and a half of work plus 50–100 zł on supplies: oven cleaner, descaler, grout cleaner. Realistic for a studio, brutal for a three-room apartment after a few years of living.
Hiring cleaners. Rough ranges from published price lists of Warsaw services for deep / end-of-tenancy cleaning (2026):
- studio (kawalerka) — roughly 300–400 zł;
- 2 rooms (~50 m²) — roughly 400–550 zł;
- 3 rooms (60–80 m²) — roughly 550–750 zł.
Hourly rates for individual cleaners start around 40–70 zł/hour. Important: windows and the oven are often billed as extras — windows around 20–40 zł each, the oven 50–100 zł. So when booking, say explicitly that you need end-of-tenancy cleaning (sprzątanie po wyprowadzce) and list the oven, fridge and windows — otherwise you'll get a "standard" clean that won't survive a handover inspection.
Services operating in Warsaw include CleanWhale, HOJO Clean and Zamów Mariana — all with online booking and public pricing (we're not affiliated with any of them). Keep the booking confirmation or invoice: if the landlord still claims the cleaning was "insufficient", a document from a professional firm is a strong argument.
The math is simple: even 500 zł for cleaners is 10% of the median deposit. One in four departing tenants loses more than that.
The handover itself
The handover matters as much as the cleaning:
- Do the walkthrough in daylight — under evening bulbs nobody can see streaks on the glass, or that the place is spotless.
- Compare the condition against the move-in protocol, item by item, not against the landlord's memory.
- Take readings of all the meters and photograph the displays — that's how the utility accounts get closed.
- Photograph the apartment after cleaning: wide shots of every room plus close-ups of the oven, bathroom and windows.
- Return every key, remote and fob — against the list in the move-in protocol, mailbox key included.
- Sign the move-out protocol recording the condition and the meter readings — one copy for each side.
From the moment you hand the place over, the deposit clock starts ticking — by default the landlord has 30 days to return it. What they can legitimately deduct, what they can't, and what to do if the money doesn't come back — in our guide to the deposit (kaucja).
Cleaning is the last line in your rental budget
300–600 zł for a final clean is the last payment of your entire tenancy — and a more honest one than most: you pay it to get your own 5 000 zł back. For the rest of the lines — the median 800 zł per month on top of rent, deposits, utility settlements — see the full report on real rental costs in Warsaw.
And once you've moved out, tell us how it went: your costs and whether the deposit came back in full. It takes two minutes, no account needed — reports like yours are exactly where the statistic at the top of this article comes from. And if you're choosing your next apartment, check the building first: its tenants may have already shared how deposit returns went there.