Do I have to tell my current company I am looking?

No, and most people do not. What matters is your notice clause, not the conversation. Read it first: it tells you how much runway you need between signing with someone new and ending the current arrangement.

How much notice is normal?

Thirty days is common. Some agreements roll into a fresh annual term unless you give notice inside a window, which is the clause worth finding early rather than late.

Can a new company start immediately?

Rarely, and not because of crews. Your managing agent will usually want a Certificate of Insurance naming the correct entities, a completed vendor registration and a named roster before badges are issued. If the incoming company already holds access to your building, that shortens considerably.

Switching Cleaning Companies Without a Gap in Service

Key Takeaways

Read your notice clause before you speak to anyone. It sets the whole timetable.
Building access, not crew availability, decides how fast a new company can actually start.
Line up the new start date first, then serve notice. Not the other way round.
Get keys, fobs and alarm codes back in writing, item by item, on the last night.
The first two weeks are when a new arrangement is won or lost. Inspect them.

Most people put off changing cleaning company longer than they should, and the reason is almost never loyalty. It is the fear of a gap: a week where the old company has stopped and the new one cannot get in yet, and the office arrives on Monday to a floor nobody touched.

That gap is avoidable. It just has to be planned in the right order.

Start With Your Own Paperwork

Before you talk to anyone new, find your current agreement and read two things.

The notice clause. How much notice, in what form, to what address. Email is usually fine but some agreements still specify writing.

The renewal clause. This is the one that catches people. Plenty of cleaning agreements roll into a fresh twelve-month term automatically unless notice lands inside a specific window. Miss the window by a week and you have just committed to another year.

Those two clauses set your timetable. Everything else fits around them.

Understand What Actually Delays a Start

Ask a new company when they can begin and the honest answer depends far more on your building than on them.

Most managing agents in New York require, before anyone gets a badge: a Certificate of Insurance naming the correct entities in the correct wording, a completed vendor registration, and a named roster of the people who will be in the building. None of that is unreasonable and none of it moves at your pace.

Two consequences. First, ask your agent for the requirements at the start, and hand the same list to everyone you are considering. Second, treat a promise to start tomorrow, offered without any mention of your building's process, as evidence that the company has not read your handbook.

The Order That Avoids a Gap

Get your building's vendor requirements. One email to the managing agent.
Get quotes. Give each company the requirements and your notice period.
Choose, and agree a first shift date in writing. Not "early next month". A date.
Let the new company clear vendor registration and insurance. This is the step with the unknown length. Do not serve notice until it is done.
Serve notice, counting back from the first shift date. If notice is thirty days and the new company is cleared to start on the 1st, notice goes in on the 1st of the prior month.
Confirm the final night with the outgoing company in writing. Date, and what they are returning.

Done in that order there is no gap, because the new arrangement is ready before the old one ends. Done in the reverse order, you are counting on a vendor registration you do not control.

Keys, Fobs and Codes

This is the part that generates awkward phone calls three weeks later. Before the last night, write down every item the outgoing company holds: keys by number, fobs by number, alarm codes, loading dock passes, anything else. Have them return the list signed.

Then change what can be changed. Alarm codes cost nothing to rotate and there is no reason a former vendor should still know yours.

Handover Between Two Companies

You are under no obligation to introduce them, and often it is simpler not to. What is worth passing on to the incoming company is the practical knowledge that lives in the outgoing crew's heads and nowhere else:

Which door actually works after hours, and which one alarms
Where the janitor's closet is, what is in it, and who owns it
Which areas are off limits: server rooms, secure storage, anywhere with its own protocol
Where the refuse goes and at what time
Any floor surface with a history: a finish that reacted badly, a stain that keeps returning

Inspect the First Two Weeks Properly

Every company performs during the period it expects to be watched. That is not cynicism, it is just how attention works, and it means the first two weeks tell you less than people assume.

What they do tell you is whether the basics are in place: the crew arriving when they said, the same faces rather than a rotating cast, restrooms handled properly, someone checking the work who is not the person doing it.

The real test comes in weeks five and six, when the initial attention has worn off. Put a reminder in your calendar for week six and walk the floor properly. If it still looks like week one, you chose well.