How Long Do People Spend Cleaning Their Homes? And What Is the Cost?

How long do you spend cleaning your home? And how much is that time worth? 

Returning from work to a messy home is something few of us relish or enjoy, often requiring us to spend valuable personal time cleaning up and doing additional “unpaid work” at home. 

To reveal this cost, we’ve analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Wage and Time Use Survey (TUS) data to show the “time cost” of home cleaning, identify the states with the most home cleaning, and compare how much time men and women spend cleaning. 

Key Findings

• Americans spend an average of 37 minutes per day on housework, totaling 226 hours, or 9 full days, and costing $8,378 in time use costs.
• Laundry tasks require an average of 62 hours per year, or $2,297 in time cost.
• Women do $7,026 more unpaid housework than men in a year, with women doing $11,891 in unpaid housework, compared to an average of just $4,864 among men.
• In a year, women spend 321 hours doing unpaid housework, while men spend just 131 hours on housework.
• Alaskans spend the most time on housework of any state, averaging 50 minutes per day and £11,791 in unpaid time over the course of a year.
• Residents of Washington, D.C., spend the least time on housework, averaging just 23 minutes per day.
• New Mexicans have the greatest equality between men and women doing housework, while Alaskans have the greatest difference in the time spent.How much time do people spend on housework in each state?

How much time do people spend on housework?

Our analysis of the most recent BLS Time Use Survey (TUS) data found that time spent on housework has increased by 8% since 2022. Federal figures show that Americans spend an average of 37 minutes per day on housework.

This average of 37 minutes per day includes 24 minutes for interior cleaning (such as dusting and dishwashing) and 10 minutes for laundry. Over a year, this time adds up to 226 hours of unpaid housework, of which 146 hours are spent on interior cleaning and 62 hours on laundry.

Hours Spent Cleaning Across A Year

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When we multiplied the national average time spent on housework by the average national hourly wage, we found that Americans do $8,412 worth of unpaid housework.

However, as the table above shows, women spend more than twice as many hours on unpaid housework over the year as men. In a typical year, the average woman in the U.S. spends 321 hours doing unpaid domestic housework, compared to 131 hours among men.

Using the national average hourly wage, women do an additional $7,055 in unpaid housework, totaling $11,939 hours of housework per year. In comparison, men do just $4,884 hours of housework.

Value Of Housework Across A Year

Which States Spend The Most Time On Housework?

State-level figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that Alaskans spend the most time cleaning their homes. On average, data show that adults in Alaska spend 50 minutes per day on housework, with an average annual time-use cost of $11,791, when multiplied by the local average hourly earnings.

Rhode Island has the second-highest daily average time spent on housework. Per day, Rhode Islanders spent over three-quarters of an hour (47 minutes) on housework, which over the course of a year adds up to $10,787 in time. 

Idaho was found to spend the third most time on housework. Over a typical year, Idahoans spend just under $9,000 on housework ($8,981), or just under a quarter of an hour per day (42 minutes).

Average Daily And Annual Time Spent Doing Housework By State

 *Note: North Dakota data points were unavailable for this analysis.

As the table above shows, while Alaska and Rhode Island spend the most time cleaning, residents of Washington, D.C., Wyoming, and Vermont spend the least.

Per day, residents of the District of Columbia spend an average of 23 minutes on housework, while those in Wyoming and Vermont spend 25 minutes. However, when multiplied by the average state hourly earnings, D.C. residents spend the 8th most time on unpaid housework. Over the course of a year, D.C. residents spend $8,128 in time cleaning.

States Where Housework Costs The Most In Unpaid Work

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Among the 10 states where housework costs the most in unpaid work, Alaska, Rhode Island, and Idaho rank among the top. However, despite ranking 22nd in the time spent on housework, California ranks 4th when we evaluated the state by the value of the time. 

Similarly, Hawaii and Minnesota rank 6th and 7th in the value of time spent on housework, but just 16th and 18th in hours. 

Where Do Men And Women Do The Most Housework?

As already mentioned, at the national level, the latest BLS data show that women do $7,055 more unpaid housework than men. However, because state-level average earnings and durations vary dramatically, our analysis also examined when the “gender-housework pay gap” is widest.

That said, none of the states had men doing more unpaid housework, and even the closest-to-parity state, New Mexico, still showed women doing nearly $3,000 more unpaid housework than men.

States Where Women Do The Most Unpaid Housework Annually

*Note: Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia were omitted due to no hourly figures being available for men.

As the table shows, Rhode Island has the biggest “gender-housework pay gap”. Women in Rhode Island spend an additional $13,968 in time on housework than men in the state. Meanwhile, Nebraska ($9,458) and Minnesota ($9,353) have the second- and third-largest differences in the value of unpaid housework.

At the other end of the spectrum, and closest to parity, in New Mexico, the annual “gender-housework pay gap” was $2,959, the lowest of any state. 

Of the 42 states where data was available for both men and women, just five were found to have a “gender-housework pay gap” below $5,000 - based on state average hourly wages and state time-use data.

Hours Spent Doing Housework In Each State

As previously mentioned, women typically spend 321 hours on housework each year, compared to men's 131 hours. However, in many states, women spend far more hours per year doing housework.

Rhode Island sees women spend the most hours annually on housework, totaling 482 hours. In comparison, men in Rhode Island spend just 113 hours doing housework, creating a time difference of 369 hours per year - the most of any state.

Nebraska (372 hours) and Pennsylvania (365 hours) have the second- or third-highest housework hours for women, while men in the two states reportedly do just 88 and 99 hours of housework per year.

States Where Women Spend The Most Time Doing Housework

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In addition to being the state where women spend the most time doing housework, Rhode Island is also where women do the most compared to men. Over a year, women in Rhode Island average 369 more hours of housework than men in the state, with Oklahoma (296 hours) reporting the second-highest difference. 

Rounding out the five states where women’s housework is highest relative to men are Nebraska (285 hours), Pennsylvania (266 hours), and Mississippi (259 hours).

States Where Women Do The Most Housework Compared To Men

The Chores People Spend The Most Time Doing

On average, interior cleaning is the most time-consuming chore in housework. Data from the BLS showed that nationally, the average person spends 146 hours per year on housework and an additional 62 hours on laundry.

State data revealed that those in Rhode Island (175 hours), Idaho (164 hours), and Arizona (153 hours) spend the most time on interior cleaning tasks. Those in Hawaii (106 hours), Alaska (88 hours), and Oklahoma (88 hours) spend the most time on laundry.

Methodology

Our analysis examined the most recent national Time Use Survey (TUS) data (from 2024) and the most recent statewide dataset from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). To reveal the national value of the time spent on housework, we multiplied the hours by the average hourly earnings figure for January 2026 ($37.17). Note: This average wage figure was used for both men and women to reflect the additional unpaid work women do. 

To show the latest state-level statistics, we used the most recent State Time Use Survey data from the BLS. This data was then multiplied by the Average Hourly Earnings by State from the BLS. Note: State time-use data are limited to the 2015-2019 period due to delays reported by the BLS in the early 2020s. 

Sources:

• Time Use Survey (TUS) data - Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
• Average Hourly And Weekly Earnings - Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
• Average Hourly And Weekly Earnings By State - Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)