Tile & Flooring Calculator
Work out how many tiles or flooring planks (wood, laminate, vinyl), and optionally how many boxes, you need for a floor or wall, including a wastage allowance for cuts and breakage.
How this is calculated
The same sum works for planks: enter the length and width of one plank in the tile boxes. Room area ÷ tile (or plank) area gives the base number of pieces to cover the floor exactly. A wastage percentage is then added on top to account for cuts around edges, breakage, and future repairs — the result is rounded up to a whole tile.
Worked example
A 6m × 4m room (24 sq m) tiled with 0.6m × 0.6m tiles (0.36 sq m each) needs 24 ÷ 0.36 ≈ 66.7 tiles at minimum. With a 10% wastage allowance, that rounds up to 74 tiles.
A second example with a bigger allowance
A 3.2 m × 2.5 m bathroom has an area of 8.00 sq m. With 30 cm tiles entered as 0.3 × 0.3 (0.09 sq m each), the base count is 8 ÷ 0.09 = 88.9 tiles. A 10% allowance gives 98 tiles. If the layout is diagonal and you raise the allowance to 15%, the count becomes 103. Five extra tiles may seem small, but for a pattern with many angled cuts it is the difference between finishing the job and waiting on a reorder.
Getting the inputs right
- The room and the tile each have their own unit box (meters, centimeters, feet or inches), so a room in meters and a 60 cm tile can be entered as 60 with cm selected. Both default to meters, as before. Changing a unit box does not convert the numbers already typed, so re-enter them.
- Measure the tile together with its joint. For 60 cm tiles laid with 3 mm joints, using 60.3 cm is closer to the real coverage than 60 cm.
- Break an L-shaped or alcoved room into rectangles, calculate each one, and add the totals; the calculator handles a single rectangle only.
- Boxes: enter the number of tiles in a box and the result rounds the tile count up to whole boxes. Many boxes are labelled by coverage area instead, so check the piece count on the pack. Leave the box field blank to skip this line.
A boxes example
A 6 m × 4 m room with 60 cm × 60 cm tiles and 10% wastage needs 74 tiles. If the tiles come 4 to a box, 74 ÷ 4 = 18.5, so you need 19 boxes, which hold 76 tiles. Choosing feet instead: a 12 ft × 10 ft room (120 sq ft, 11.15 m²) with 12 in × 12 in tiles and 10% wastage needs 120 × 1.10 = 132 tiles.
Limits of the estimate
The calculation treats the room as a perfect rectangle with nothing to cut around. It does not subtract fitted baths, kitchen units or door recesses, and it cannot predict how many whole tiles are wasted at the edges of a particular layout. Large-format tiles, strong patterns, herringbone and any design that needs matching across tiles all raise the real wastage above the typical figure.
Frequently asked questions
How much wastage allowance should I use?
10% is a common default for simple rectangular rooms. Rooms with an irregular layout, diagonal tile patterns, or lots of cuts around fixtures often need 15–20% to be safe.
Should I round up or down?
Always round up — buying slightly more ensures you have matching tiles from the same batch if you need extras later, since dye lots can vary between production runs.
Do I include grout lines in the tile size?
For the closest estimate, add the joint width to each tile dimension. On large tiles the effect is small, but on mosaics and small tiles it can change the total by several percent.
Can I mix units, such as a room in meters and tiles in centimeters?
Yes. The room and the tile have separate unit boxes. Pick meters for the room and centimeters for the tile, then enter 60 for a 60 cm tile. Everything is converted to meters internally before the areas are compared.
Can I use this for wood, laminate or vinyl plank flooring?
Yes, for the piece count. Enter the length and width of one plank in the tile boxes, add a wastage allowance, and enter planks per box if you know it. The calculator counts whole pieces only; it does not work from coverage per box in sq m, so convert that to a plank count first.
Can I use this for walls?
Yes. Enter the wall height and length instead of the room dimensions. For a room with several walls, calculate each wall separately and add the results, subtracting any window or door areas yourself.
Why does a slightly higher allowance add so many tiles?
Wastage is applied as a percentage of the base count, so every extra percent adds tiles in proportion. On a large room, moving from 10% to 15% can add dozens of tiles.