5 Best Vacuum Cleaners for Laminate Floors

Our top pick for a vacuum for laminate floors is the Miele Complete C3 Pure Red. It’s a worthy successor to the Miele Complete C3, with a stylish new colour scheme and the same excellent performance.

The strong suction power picks up dirt and hair from laminate with ease, while the lack of a brush roll on the primary floorhead protects your floors. Despite the simple floorhead design, it’s also a stand-out performer on carpet, mainly due to the powerful suction.

Aside from its cleaning performance, the Miele canister vacuum does a good job at keeping allergens trapped within the bag. The vacuum comes with several integrated accessories, such as a dusting brush. It’s also easy to manoeuvre – although you’ll probably need to turn down the suction power when using it on carpet.

In summary, this is one of the best vacuum cleaners and a great choice for cleaning laminate flooring. We also think this Miele vacuum provides a lot of value for the price.

If you’re looking for the best cordless vacuum for laminate floors, then the Dyson V11 Absolute is our top pick. It’s a powerful stick vacuum with a dedicated hard floor floorhead, making it an excellent choice for all types of hard floors.

The Absolute version of the Dyson V11 comes with three main tools. The first is the High Torque floorhead, which has a strong rotating brush bar for agitating carpet fibres. This does a decent job on hard floors too, but can sometimes scatter larger items on hard floors.

Fortunately, the V11 also comes with Dyson’s Soft Roller floorhead. This has a soft brush bar that’s great for picking up fine dust and larger debris from laminate floors. The Soft Roller turns the V11 from a decent laminate vacuum into one of the best around.

Additionally, the V11 Absolute also comes with a miniature turbo tool for pet hair, handheld mode, adaptive suction that automatically changes the vacuum’s power depending on the type of floor, and an LCD screen showing the remaining battery life. In short, it’s one of the most advanced vacuums available at the moment.

There aren’t many drawbacks to the Dyson V11 Absolute. The biggest issue is the price, as it’s a very expensive vacuum. Be prepared to empty it often too, as the strong suction quickly fills up the 0.76 litres dustbin.

Even so, it’s hard to beat the versatility and raw suction power of the Dyson V11 Absolute if you want a cordless stick vacuum for laminate flooring.

Tip: Not sure which version of the V11 to buy? We recommend the Absolute for laminate floors, as it comes with the Soft Roller. But if you’d like to learn more, read our Dyson V11 Absolute Vs Animal Vs Torque Drive comparison.

The Shark NZ801UKT is one of our favourite upright vacuum cleaners – and we also think it’s one of the best for cleaning laminate floors.

It’s a powerful bagless vacuum with Shark’s DuoClean floorhead, which has two different brush rolls. The first is similar to a standard brush bar, while the second is larger to pick up more debris on hard floors.

This makes it great for cleaning both carpet and laminate without changing the floorhead. There’s also a switch to go into “hard floor” mode, which reduces the speed of the brush bar to prevent scattering.

Another useful feature of the Shark NZ801UKT is its lift-away design. You can detach the main canister, making the vacuum easier to use on stairs and other awkward areas of the home. As the NZ801UKT is a “Powered” lift-away model, the brush bars remain motorised when in this mode.

Other features include a pet tool, anti-hair wrap technology to stop hair becoming tangled around the brush bar, and headlights on the primary floorhead. The Shark also comes with a 2-in-1 crevice tool and upholstery brush.

While we think the NZ801UKT is an excellent vacuum cleaner, we did have a few complaints in our review. The 0.8 litre dust capacity is small for an upright vacuum, so it needs to be emptied regularly. It also has a short 8 metre power cord and isn’t as effective on carpets as hard floors (although it’s not terrible on carpets either.)

Despite these drawbacks, the Shark NZ801UKT True Pet is an excellent vacuum cleaner and one of the best for laminate floors.

The Tineco Pure One S12 Plus is a direct competitor to the Dyson V11 Absolute. While we think the Dyson just about edges it in terms of cleaning performance, the Tineco is still an excellent vacuum for all types of floors.

Like the Dyson V11 Absolute, the Pure One S12 Plus comes with a dedicated soft roller brush for hard floors. This is great for cleaning laminate, tiles, and floorboards without scattering. It also generates enough suction power to pull dust and dirt from between floorboards, making the S12 Plus an excellent vacuum for hard floors.

Aside from its hard floor tool, there’s a regular floorhead with a powered brush bar that’s equally effective at cleaning carpets. You’ll probably need to increase the power mode for carpets, although the minimum power setting does a decent job on hard floors.

Other features of the Tineco Pure One S12 include two batteries (for up to 100 minutes run-time), a mini power brush for sofas, excellent suction power, and a handheld mode. There’s also the “Smart Suction” technology, which changes the suction power depending on how much debris is detected.

A drawback to this cordless vacuum is that there’s no dust ejecting system. It’s common for fluff to get caught in the dustbin, which needs to be pulled out manually. As you would expect from a vacuum with such advanced features, it’s also quite a pricey model.

There’s no doubt that the Tineco is brilliant for cleaning almost any type of floor though. So, if you’re looking for an alternative cordless vacuum cleaner for laminate, then the Tineco Pure One S12 is a great option.

Note: This is the “Plus” version of the Tineco Pure One S12. The standard version doesn’t come with the soft brush floorhead, making it less effective at cleaning laminate floors.

If you only need a vacuum for spot cleaning laminate floors, then the Shark WV200UK could be a great alternative to a full-size model. It’s a sleek and stylish handheld vacuum cleaner that our testing showed was effective at cleaning hard floors and upholstery, although it’s too small for anything other than quick jobs.

The WV200UK is an ultra-lightweight vacuum, weighing just 0.6kg. It also feels comfortable to hold, although the trade-off is that it has a tiny 0.25 litre dust capacity. Be prepared to empty this after every cleaning session!

Despite being lightweight, we found that the Shark can generate decent suction power for a handheld vacuum. It also comes with a HEPA filter and docking station for recharging.

As we mentioned earlier, the Shark WV200UK excels at cleaning hard floors, including laminate. We didn’t think it’s quite as effective on carpets though, as it doesn’t have a motorised brush bar attachment. The 10 minute maximum run-time will also be an issue for anything more than spot cleaning.

In summary, we think the Shark is a great handheld vacuum for cleaning dry spills and patches of hair from laminate floors. Having HEPA filtration is also a bonus, especially for allergy sufferers. The short battery run-time and tiny dust capacity make it unsuitable for larger jobs though.