Flooring Tile Calculator
Find how many tiles you need, including wastage — free, instant.
Tiles Are Sold by the Box, Not by the Piece
Order the exact theoretical number of tiles and you'll almost certainly come up short, because cutting tiles to fit around edges, corners, and doorways wastes whole pieces that can't be reused elsewhere. This calculator works out both the base tile count from your room and tile dimensions, and a realistic purchase quantity once cutting waste is factored in.
Working Out Your Tile Count
- Enter room length and width: In feet, for the total floor area to be tiled.
- Enter tile length and width: In inches, for the specific tile size you're using.
- Set a wastage percentage: 5% for a straightforward grid layout, up to 10% for diagonal patterns.
- Read the result: Room area, tile area, base count, and the final recommended purchase quantity.
How the Numbers Are Derived
Room area (length times width) is divided by individual tile area (also converted from inches to square feet) to get the base tile count — the number needed if every tile could be used whole with zero waste. Since real installations always involve some cutting at the edges, the wastage percentage is applied on top of that base figure, and the whole result is rounded up to a whole tile, since a fraction of a tile can't be purchased.
Worked Example: A 13×11 Foot Room
Take a room 13 feet by 11 feet — 143 square feet total — being tiled with standard 24×24 inch tiles, at a 10% wastage margin for a slightly more complex layout. Each tile covers exactly 4 square feet, so the base count is 143 divided by 4, rounded up to 36 tiles. Adding 10% wastage for cutting and breakage brings the final recommended purchase quantity to 40 tiles — 4 extra tiles that cover the edge cuts around the room's perimeter and give a small buffer for breakage during handling.
Projects Where This Gets Used
Someone retiling a bathroom or kitchen floor runs this before a materials trip to avoid a return visit for extra boxes. A contractor uses it to build an accurate tile line item into a client quote before work starts. A tile supplier occasionally checks a customer's stated requirement against this calculation to confirm it matches before processing an order. Property flippers estimate flooring costs across several rooms of a renovation project, running each room through separately since tile size and layout complexity often differ room to room.
Getting the Wastage Percentage Right
A simple grid layout in a rectangular room with few obstructions can often get away with 5% wastage. A diagonal layout, an L-shaped or irregular room, or a floor with many fixture cutouts (toilets, cabinets, drains) typically needs closer to 10%, since diagonal cuts in particular generate more offcuts than a straight grid. When buying, always round up to the nearest full box rather than the exact tile count from this calculator, since suppliers sell by the box and a partial box still costs a full box's price.
What This Doesn't Cover
The calculator assumes a single, uniform tile size across the whole floor — a room mixing a large-format tile in the main area with smaller tiles in a border or accent strip needs to be calculated as two separate areas. It also doesn't account for tile pattern matching requirements (like a herringbone or basket-weave layout), which can meaningfully increase real-world waste beyond the standard 5-10% range used for a simple grid or diagonal layout.
Ordering Across Multiple Rooms
On a project covering several rooms with the same tile, it's tempting to just sum up each room's square footage and run one big calculation, but running each room through separately and then adding the recommended purchase quantities together is more reliable — different rooms often have different shapes and obstruction counts, so a single blended wastage percentage across the whole project can undercount trickier rooms while overcounting simple ones. It also gives you a clear per-room breakdown to hand to a contractor or use for a room-by-room budget.
Calculated Entirely On-Device
Room and tile dimensions you enter are processed locally in your browser — nothing is transmitted anywhere or stored beyond your current session.
Why is the recommended purchase quantity always higher than the base tile count?
The base count assumes every tile is used whole with zero waste, which never happens in a real installation; the wastage percentage accounts for cutting around edges and breakage.
Should I buy extra tiles beyond the calculator's recommendation for future repairs?
It's a good practice to keep a handful of spare tiles from the same batch for future chip or crack repairs, since matching an exact tile years later can be difficult if the product is discontinued.
How does tile size affect the amount of cutting waste generated?
Larger tiles generally generate less percentage waste per square foot than smaller tiles in the same room, since fewer total pieces mean fewer edge cuts relative to the covered area.
Does grout line spacing affect the tile count calculation?
Grout lines are thin enough that their effect on total tile count is negligible for standard tile sizes; this calculator doesn't separately account for grout spacing.
What's a realistic wastage percentage for a herringbone tile pattern?
Herringbone and other angled patterns typically generate more waste than a standard grid or even a simple diagonal, so budgeting 12-15% is often more realistic than the standard 10%.
Can this calculator be used for wall tiles as well as floor tiles?
Yes, the same area-and-tile-size math applies to wall tiling; just measure the wall area to be tiled instead of the floor area.