Tile Calculator for Floors — Square Feet and m²

A tile calculator for floor work has one job: turn the size of your floor and the size of one tile into a count you can order with confidence. Floors come with a wrinkle that walls do not. Floor tile is sold by the square foot in the United States, but by the square metre in the United Kingdom and Australia, so the same room can be measured, priced and packed in two different unit systems. This guide works the same method in both systems, with waste included, so you can follow whichever one your supplier uses and convert between them without guessing.

Square feet: a 200 sq ft floor with 12×24 tiles

The method never changes: floor area divided by one tile’s area, then add waste. A 12×24 inch tile covers 2 square feet, because 12 inches is 1 foot and 24 inches is 2 feet, and 1 × 2 = 2. For a floor of 200 square feet, the net count is 200 ÷ 2 = 100 tiles. A straight grid layout wastes about a tenth on cuts and breakages, so add 10%: 100 × 1.10 = 110 tiles to order.

Buying is by the box, so convert at the end. With waste included, the floor needs 220 square feet of tile. Read the coverage printed on the box — if it covers 16 square feet, 220 ÷ 16 = 13.75, so you buy 14 boxes. Box coverage varies by maker, so never work from a standard figure. If you would rather not do this by hand, the tile calculator runs the same steps, including the grout gap, which slightly increases the area each tile effectively covers.

Square metres: a 20 m² floor with 600×600 tiles

Now the same method in metric. A 600×600 mm tile is 0.6 m by 0.6 m, so it covers 0.36 m². For a floor of 20 m², the net count is 20 ÷ 0.36 = 55.6, which rounds up to 56 tiles. Add 10% for waste on a straight layout: 56 × 1.10 = 61.6, so order 62 tiles. Nothing about the method changed — only the units did.

The metric equivalent of a tiles-per-area table is tiles per square metre. Multiply your floor area by the figure for your tile size, round up, then add waste:

Tile size (mm)	Tiles per m² (before waste)
600×600	2.78
300×300	11.1
600×300	5.56
200×200	25

Check the first row against the worked example: 20 m² × 2.78 = 55.6 tiles, the same 56 we found by dividing. Small tiles climb fast — a 200×200 tile needs 25 pieces for every square metre — which is why mosaic and small-format floors are usually ordered by coverage, not counted one by one for long.

Converting between square feet and square metres

To convert an area, multiply square metres by 10.764 to get square feet, or multiply square feet by 0.0929 to get square metres. The 20 m² floor above is about 215 square feet, and the 200 sq ft floor is about 18.6 m². Convert the area once, at the start, and then stay in one system for the whole calculation; mixing systems halfway through is how counts go wrong.

Tile names convert too, roughly. A tile sold as 12×24 inches in the US is the same nominal tile sold as 300×600 mm in metric markets, and a 24×24 inch tile is a 600×600. Nominal means the name, not the exact measurement: the real tile is usually a few millimetres smaller to leave room for the grout joint. That is another reason to run your final figures through the tile calculator and to order by the coverage printed on the box rather than by the name on the shelf edge.

Ceiling tiles use the same maths

Suspended ceilings — the grid-and-tile ceilings in offices, shops and basements — are counted exactly like floors: ceiling area divided by one tile’s area. A ceiling 5 m by 4 m is 20 m², and with 600×600 mm tiles at 0.36 m² each, that is 20 ÷ 0.36 = 56 tiles. In the US, standard 2×2 ft tiles on a 200 sq ft ceiling give 200 ÷ 4 = 50 tiles. Add 5–10% for the cut tiles around the edges, where partial tiles are trimmed to fit the walls.

The metal grid is counted differently. Main runners and cross tees are worked out from the ceiling’s perimeter and the tile layout, not from the area, and the count changes with the grid pattern. Beyond the tile estimate above, use the grid maker’s layout plan or calculator for the components — guessing grid quantities from area alone usually leaves you short of cross tees.

Floor-specific notes before you order

Floor tiles are made thicker than wall tiles and are rated for foot traffic, so check two ratings before you buy. The PEI wear rating tells you how hard the glaze is: PEI 3 suits most home floors, and heavier traffic wants PEI 4 or 5. For bathrooms, kitchens and entrances, check the slip rating as well — a polished tile that is fine in a living room can be treacherous when wet.

Large formats need a flatter subfloor than small tiles. A 600×600 or 24×24 tile bridges nothing: any dip or ridge underneath shows up as lippage, where one edge sits higher than its neighbour, and it can crack the tile under load. Budget time to level the floor first, or choose the smaller format. Our companion guide, How Many Tiles Do I Need?, covers walls, splashbacks and the dye-lot rule — buy the whole job, plus a spare box, in one order from the same production batch.

Whichever system you start in, the order of operations is the same: measure the floor, divide by one tile, add waste for the layout, then convert tiles into boxes using the coverage on the box itself. Do that, finish with a quick check in the tile calculator, and the count you order is the count that finishes the floor.

Frequently asked questions