How to calculate the surface area of a holiday rental

August 2024

When you advertise your holiday home online, you may need to include its surface area. In some jurisdictions, this is a legal requirement, while in other cases, it may be a policy of the holiday rental platform. When measuring your property, it’s essential to do it correctly. Inaccurate measurements could get you into some serious hot water. Follow these tips to make sure you get everything right.

This can be particularly tricky if you’re in the UK, where property value is traditionally associated with the number of bedrooms, not the surface area. You may find that guests from other countries will frequently ask about the size of your holiday rental, as their property markets tend to focus far more on surface area rather than the number of rooms. As such, it’s important to have the information at your fingertips for your international visitors.

Different types of measurements for your holiday home

Measuring a house may be a little more complicated than you imagine. First of all, it’s important to know that there are several different ways to measure a property:

• Gross external area (GEA). This is the area of the home, measured externally at each floor level. It’s useful if you are renovating or need to contact tradesmen for some reason. However, as it includes the thickness of the walls, it will not be helpful for your holiday rental guests.
• Gross internal area (GIA). This measurement includes internal walls and partitions, fireplaces, and the space under stairs, but not areas such as terraces, balconies and fire escapes. Again, we don’t recommend it for measuring holiday rentals, as it can be seen as misleading.
• Usable floor area. This measurement is defined as being the usable space inside a property without counting the perimeter or party walls. Partition walls are included in the calculation, and so are any in-built cupboards and wardrobes. The measurement excludes stairwells, chimney breasts and any areas with a headroom of less than 1.5 metres. Unless your loft is a habitable room with permanent stairs to access it, loft space is not included. The floor area is the measurement that will be most useful for your holiday rental guests.

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How to measure the square metres of your holiday rental

Now, it’s time to get down to the business of actually measuring. You’ll need a few tools to help you here:

• A tape measure. You probably have the old-fashioned kind lying around already, but if you want more precision and an easier experience, try using a laser measuring tape. This also has the advantage of letting you measure your holiday rental alone, whereas you’ll need a friend to help you if you’re using a traditional tape measure.
• Some paper and a pen or pencil to jot down your notes.
• A calculator. Some laser tape measures will work out the basics for you, but there are extra calculations you’ll need to do along the way.

There are several apps that claim to measure property for you, but they’re often inaccurate and riddled with annoying ads. Because of this, we don’t recommend them if you want precise results.

It’s a good idea to start by making a quick sketch of your property. Sketch out the outline of each room, including cupboards and wardrobes. You don’t need to be a great artist since this is simply a rough guide to get you started.

After that, begin by measuring the exterior of the building. This will give you your GEA. Once you have that figure, you can go room by room, measuring each space and adding the results to your sketch.

How to measure irregular rooms

Most rooms tend to follow simple geometric shapes. If you can work out the area of a rectangle, then getting the square metres of a room is simple: you calculate the length by the width. However, that’s not always the case.

In an irregularly shaped room, your sketch will really come in handy. Take a look at it and see if you can break the room down into smaller, regular shapes. For example, if a room has an L-shape, you should be able to visualise it as two rectangles. This will allow you to calculate its surface area by calculating each rectangle in turn.

Bear in mind that not all rooms can be broken into rectangular shapes. Think of the four most basic geometric shapes: rectangle, square, triangle and circle. Keep referring to your original sketch, as that will help you see how your irregular room can be turned into a square and a semicircle, for example.

Some rooms may have internal projections, such as a chimney breast above a fireplace. These should not be included in your final calculations. In order to get an accurate measurement of a room with an internal projection, follow these steps:

• First, measure the entire room as you normally would. We’ll call this figure A.
• Next, measure the dimensions of the projection. For example, in the case of a rectangular-shaped chimney breast, measure its length and width, then multiply them to calculate the area. This is figure B.
• For the usable area of the room, subtract B from A.

Extra measurements for your holiday home

If your holiday rental includes outdoor space, you may want to measure that, too. You can do this by measuring the entire outdoor space and then breaking it down into sections: the garden, the patio, the driveway, and so on.

It’s also a good idea to measure any outbuildings, particularly if they provide usable space. Remember, though, that you’re not aiming to trick your guests. A locked shed at the bottom of the garden that contains your gardening equipment is not usable, so it does not need to be added to your listings.

Finishing your measuring process

After all those measurements, you should be left with three figures:

• The GEA of your property. Remember, this includes external walls.
• The area of each individual room.
• The area of all the rooms combined.

All of these figures will be useful, both for your personal records and your listings. Thanks to your sketch, you may also now want to make a clear floor plan of the property, showing the dimensions of each room. This will be convenient to have if any potential guests ask for more details about the area; it’s also a handy feature to add to the guest book in your property. If you’re trying to attract digital nomads or guests who’ll stay for slightly longer periods, a floor plan with dimensions makes a great addition to your listings on holiday rental websites.

Property area: why it’s important

Now that you know how to find out the surface area of your property, it remains to be seen why this is so important. If you have a holiday home to rent listed on an online portal such as Holidu, this information could be relevant for two things: informing guests about the useful space of the house and complying with the legal regulations inherent in occupancy and paying taxes.

Measurement accuracy and guests

Many guests appreciate having the property’s surface area described in the presentation, as this gives them some idea of the space they will have available, considering the size of their group.

This information can add value to your home in the eyes of your target audience, but it also serves to justify the maximum number of people you can accommodate in your home, and this issue is duly regulated, as we’ll see below.

To summarise

Now that you know how to calculate the surface area of your property, taking into account the gross private area and the useful area, you can guarantee even more complete information for your potential guests when you present your accommodation online at Holidu. This will add value to your holiday rental and will also provide you with valuable information for some legal and financial contexts related to national regulations for local accommodation.

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