What is INSTA 800? The Nordic cleaning quality standard explained
Most cleaning contracts describe how often a room is cleaned. Twice a week. Every day. Once a month. The problem is that frequency says nothing about the result. A room can be cleaned every day and still be dirty, and a room can be cleaned once a week and be perfectly fine.
INSTA 800 turns this around. The standard describes how clean the room must be when the cleaning is done. Frequency becomes the supplier's problem to solve. The customer buys a result.
INSTA 800 in short
INSTA 800 is a shared Nordic standard for agreeing and assessing cleaning quality. It is used in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. In Norway it is published as NS-INSTA 800, and the current edition is from 2018.
The standard has two parts:
- INSTA 800-1 describes visual inspection. A person looks at the room and counts soiling according to fixed rules.
- INSTA 800-2 describes instrument measurements, for example of dust on surfaces. This part is used less often.
When people say "INSTA 800", they almost always mean part 1, the visual inspection. That is what this article is about.
What the standard actually measures
INSTA 800 divides a room into four object groups:
- Furniture and fixtures (desks, chairs, shelves, doors)
- Walls
- Floors
- Ceilings
Each object group is split again into easily accessible and hard-to-reach surfaces. A desktop is easily accessible. The top of a tall cabinet is hard to reach.
Soiling is then divided into four types:
- Waste and loose dirt
- Dust
- Stains
- Surface soiling
The first three are counted as the number of "accumulations" of dirt. Surface soiling is assessed as a share of the surface.
The point is that the inspector should not have an opinion. The inspector should count. The number of accumulations is compared with a limit, and the limit depends on the quality level the room is supposed to have.
The five quality levels
INSTA 800 has five quality levels. Level 1 is the lowest. Level 5 is the highest. The higher the level, the fewer accumulations of dirt are allowed.
A rough rule of thumb:
- Levels 1–2: storage, technical rooms and areas with low requirements
- Levels 3–4: offices, classrooms, corridors and common areas
- Level 5: areas with special cleanliness requirements
The level is set per room or per room type, and it can differ between object groups in the same room. An office can have level 4 on furniture and floors but level 3 on walls and ceilings. We go deeper in INSTA 800 quality levels 1–5.
How an INSTA 800 inspection works
The inspection is done after the cleaning has been carried out and before the room is used again. In practice it looks like this:
- All rooms with the same quality profile are gathered into one "lot".
- A statistical sample of the rooms is drawn. The number follows the tables in ISO 2859-1, with an acceptable quality level (AQL) agreed in advance, often 4 percent.
- The inspector walks through each room in the sample and counts accumulations per object group.
- Each room passes or fails against the limit for its level.
- The whole lot passes if the number of failed rooms is within the acceptance number.
With 62 rooms in the lot and an AQL of 4 percent, for example, 13 rooms are drawn, and the lot passes if at most one room fails. The inspector does not need to see all 62 rooms. The statistical sample is what makes INSTA 800 practical in large buildings.
We have written a separate guide: How to carry out an INSTA 800 inspection, step by step.
Who uses INSTA 800?
Three groups use the standard:
- Buyers who want an objective requirement in tenders and contracts. Municipalities, counties, hospital trusts and large property companies often write "quality level 3 according to NS-INSTA 800" straight into the specification.
- Cleaning contractors who want to document that they deliver what they promised, and who want to avoid discussions based on opinion.
- In-house cleaning departments in hospitals, schools and office buildings that want a fixed way of following up quality.
What INSTA 800 does not do
The standard measures visible cleanliness. It does not measure hygiene. A room can look clean and still have bacteria on touch points. In healthcare, INSTA 800 is therefore often combined with ATP measurements and with NS 6600, which sets requirements for the management system around cleaning.
Nor does the standard say how you should clean. Methods, equipment and chemicals are up to the contractor, as long as the result stays within the level.
INSTA 800 in CleanFlow
In CleanFlow the quality level is set per room type directly on the floor plan. The level follows the room from offer to operations. When you start an inspection, CleanFlow draws the sample according to ISO 2859-1, guides the inspector through the object groups on mobile, calculates pass or fail, and produces a report you can share with the customer.
Read more on the NS-INSTA 800 and NS 6600 page.
Frequently asked questions
Is INSTA 800 required by law? No. It is a voluntary standard. But once it is written into a contract, it is binding for both parties.
Does the inspector need to be certified? The standard describes knowledge levels for the people who use it, and many buy courses from national standards bodies or industry associations. There is no public certification requirement.
What is the difference between INSTA 800 and NS 6600? INSTA 800 measures cleaning quality in all types of buildings. NS 6600 is a Norwegian standard for management systems for cleaning in health and care services, and builds on INSTA 800-1.
Want to see what an INSTA 800 inspection looks like digitally? Try CleanFlow free for 14 days, or read more about the INSTA 800 support.