The method used to clean your carpet plays a huge role when it comes to walking on your carpet after cleaning. If your carpet has been dry cleaned, it should be walk-on dry virtually straight away and totally dry within 1-2 hours. However, if your carpet underwent steam cleaning, it will take much longer to dry, usually 6-8 hours. Further to this, there are several other factors that affect how long it will take for your carpet to dry. This includes the type of carpet, for example, wool or nylon, how dirty or soiled the carpet is and the temperature or humidity of the climate.