Flooring Calculator
Tiling one room but installing hardwood, laminate, or vinyl in the room next door? Estimate how much flooring you'll need there too.
Calculate Flooring NeededTile Calculator
Work out exactly how many tiles you need for a bathroom, kitchen, floor, or wall. Enter your area size, tile size, and waste percentage — the calculator instantly figures out the total tiles, boxes to buy, and the actual area they'll cover.
Total Tiles Required
— tiles
Boxes Required
—
Coverage Area
—
Tile use—
Total surface area—
Tile area (each)—
Tiles required (before waste)—
Waste allowance—
How this calculator works
The tile calculator figures out how many individual tiles it takes to cover your total area, then adds a waste allowance for cuts, breakage, and future repairs — and converts that into full boxes if you tell it how many tiles come in a box.
1. Total surface area — the area you're covering, across however many rooms or areas you're tiling:
Total Surface Area = Area Length × Area Width × Number of Areas
2. Tile area — the surface covered by a single tile:
Tile Area = Tile Length × Tile Width
3. Number of tiles required — how many whole tiles it takes to cover the total area, before adding any waste:
Tiles Required = Total Surface Area ÷ Tile Area
4. Waste allowance — extra tiles to cover cuts, breakage, and mismatched dye lots:
Waste Allowance = Tiles Required × (Waste Percentage ÷ 100)
5. Final number of tiles — rounded up to the next whole tile, since you can't buy a partial one:
Total Tiles Required = Tiles Required + Waste Allowance
6. Boxes required — if you enter how many tiles come in a box, we round up to the next full box:
Boxes Required = Total Tiles Required ÷ Tiles per Box (rounded up)
Finally, coverage area shows the actual area covered by the tiles you'll end up buying (a full box's worth), which is usually a little more than your original surface area — that's expected, and it's the extra material you're keeping on hand for repairs.
Example calculation — using this calculator's default values: a 10 ft × 8 ft floor area, 1 area, 12 in × 12 in tiles, 10% waste, and 10 tiles per box:
Total Surface Area = 10 × 8 × 1 = 80 sq ft
Tile Area = (12 ÷ 12) × (12 ÷ 12) = 1 sq ft
Tiles Required = 80 ÷ 1 = 80 tiles
Waste Allowance = 80 × (10 ÷ 100) = 8 tiles
Total Tiles Required = 80 + 8 = 88 tiles
Boxes Required = 88 ÷ 10 = 8.8 → rounded up to 9 boxes
With these inputs, the calculator recommends 88 tiles, or 9 full boxes — which works out to about 90 sq ft of coverage, a little more than the 80 sq ft you're actually tiling thanks to the waste allowance built into those extra boxes.
Factors That Affect Your Tile Estimate
Floor vs. wall waste percentage
Floor tile is usually laid in a simple grid, so a 10% waste allowance is often enough. Wall tile involves more cuts around fixtures, corners, and edges, so it typically needs a higher allowance — 15% or more — which is why the "Tile use" dropdown suggests a different default for each.
Tile size
Larger tiles cover more area per piece, so fewer of them are needed — but each cut or break wastes a bigger chunk of material. Smaller tiles need more pieces overall but individual mistakes cost you less area.
Layout pattern
This calculator assumes a straightforward grid layout. Diagonal layouts, herringbone, brick-joint, and other decorative patterns all require more cuts along the edges of the room, so they typically need a higher waste percentage than a standard straight lay.
Grout line width
This calculator uses the tile's own dimensions and doesn't subtract any space for grout lines. Wider grout joints slightly reduce how much actual tile surface covers a given floor or wall area, which isn't reflected in this estimate.
Tiles per box
How many tiles come in a box varies by manufacturer, tile size, and product line — always check the box or product listing for the actual count rather than assuming a round number, since this directly changes how many boxes you're told to buy.
Tips for a More Accurate Estimate
Buy from the same dye lot
Tile color and shading can vary slightly between production batches (dye lots). Buying all your tile — including the extra for waste and future repairs — from the same lot number helps avoid a visible mismatch across the finished job.
Always round up to full boxes
Tile is sold by the box, not the individual piece, so the calculator rounds your final tile count up to the next full box. It's always better to have a few extra tiles on hand than to be one short partway through installation.
Keep spare tiles for future repairs
Set aside a handful of leftover tiles after the project is done, stored somewhere safe. If a tile ever cracks or gets damaged, you'll have an exact match on hand instead of trying to find the same product years later.
Measure carefully around fixtures
If you're not tiling underneath a bathtub, vanity, or built-in cabinet, exclude that footprint from your area measurement rather than measuring the room's full length and width — otherwise you'll overestimate how much tile you actually need.
Limitations of This Estimate
This calculator estimates tile quantity based on raw surface area and tile size — it doesn't account for the width of your grout lines, which slightly reduce the effective coverage of each tile once installed. It also doesn't include the adhesive, thinset, grout, or spacers needed for installation, only the tiles themselves.
It assumes every tile is a uniform size with no irregularities, and that each area you're tiling is a simple rectangle — it can't account for L-shaped rooms, angled walls, or complex layouts like herringbone without a manually increased waste percentage. Actual coverage per box can also vary by manufacturer, so always confirm the tiles-per-box count printed on your specific product before finalizing an order.
Frequently Asked Questions
10% is a common starting point for simple, straight-laid floor tile. Wall tile, diagonal layouts, herringbone patterns, and rooms with lots of corners or fixtures typically need more — 15% or higher is common for wall tiling.
Tiles break during cutting and installation, and having a few spares on hand means you can repair a cracked tile years later using material from the same dye lot — new purchases may not match exactly.
Yes. Switch the "Tile use" dropdown between floor and wall tiles — this adjusts the suggested waste percentage to match typical practice for each, though the underlying area math is the same.
Leave "tiles per box" at 0 and the calculator will simply show the total number of individual tiles you need, without a box count.
Split the room into rectangular sections, measure each one separately, and run the calculator once per section using "Number of areas" set to 1 for each — then add the "Total Tiles Required" results together. Alternatively, treat each section as a separate "area" if they're all the same size.
This calculator doesn't subtract grout line width from the tile area, since the effect is usually small for typical joint widths. Wider grout lines (3/8 inch or more) reduce effective coverage slightly, so add a bit more to your waste percentage if you're using extra-wide joints.
Enter how many tiles come in one box in the "Tiles per box" field, and the calculator automatically divides your total tile count by that number, rounding up to the next full box in the "Boxes Required" result.
Most installers skip tiling floor area that's permanently covered by a bathtub, built-in vanity, or cabinet, since it will never be seen. If you're doing the same, measure and enter only the visible floor area rather than the room's full footprint to avoid overestimating.
This calculator handles one tile size at a time. If your design uses two sizes (for example, a floor tile and a smaller accent or border tile), run the calculator separately for the area covered by each size and add the box counts together.
Breakage during cutting is one of the main reasons this calculator includes a waste percentage. If you expect a lot of cuts — around edges, doorways, or fixtures — increase the waste percentage above the suggested default to build in more of a buffer.
Boxes are always rounded up to the next whole box, since you can't buy a partial one. If your total tile count is just above a box boundary (for example, 88 tiles at 10 tiles per box), you'll need a full 9th box even though it's mostly extra — that surplus doubles as spare material for repairs.
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