How do you calculate a hotel's occupancy rate?

Divide the room nights sold by the room nights available in the same period, and multiply by 100. Rooms available are your rooms multiplied by the nights in the period.

What is the occupancy rate formula?

Rooms sold ÷ rooms available × 100. Count rooms as room nights, so a room sold for three nights counts three times.

What is a good occupancy rate for a hotel?

It depends on your town, your season and your prices. Compare each month with the same month last year, and read it beside your average room rate: a full hotel at low prices can earn less than a hotel with fewer rooms sold at better prices.

Is occupancy the same as rooms sold?

No. Rooms sold is a count. Occupancy is that count as a share of the rooms you had, so a small hotel and a large one can be compared, and so can one month and the next.

Do free rooms count in occupancy?

Hotels differ. Some count rooms given free as sold, some leave them out. Either is fine if you do it the same way every month and say so when you compare with anyone else.

How can a hotel raise its weekday occupancy?

Find the guests who travel midweek: companies, conferences, weddings and travel agents. Give them a reason to book, such as a company price or a meeting room, and check what the hotels around you charge on those nights before you cut your own price.

What is the difference between occupancy and RevPAR?

Occupancy says how full you were. RevPAR, revenue per available room, says what every room brought in, so it takes in your prices as well as how full you were.

Occupancy rate: how to calculate your hotel's occupancy

Occupancy rate is the share of the rooms you had to sell that were sold, over a night, a week or a month. Divide the rooms sold by the rooms available and multiply by 100. It says how full the hotel was, not what the rooms brought in, so hotels read it beside their average room rate.

The formulaRooms sold ÷ rooms available × 100

Also called: occupancy, hotel occupancy, occupancy percentage, room occupancy.

A OneHorizyn page. Updated 19 October 2026.

Occupancy calculator

It opens on made-up figures. Put in your own; nothing you type leaves this page.

Rooms sold (room nights)Rooms available (rooms × nights)

68.3%

820 rooms sold ÷ 1,200 rooms available × 100

How to work it out, step by step

1Choose the period: one night, a week or a month.
2Count the rooms sold in it, as room nights: a room sold for three nights counts three times.
3Count the rooms available: your rooms multiplied by the nights in the period.
4Divide the rooms sold by the rooms available, and multiply by 100.

What to count, and what to leave out

Count room nights sold, not bookings or guests: two guests in one room is one room sold.
Count a no-show you charged for as sold only if you count its revenue too; keep the two figures matched.
Decide how you count rooms given free, to staff or as an apology, and count them the same way every month.
Leave a room out of rooms available only if it truly couldn't be sold, such as during repairs, and note it.
Count rooms sold for a few hours in the day apart from the nights, so they don't make a night look fuller than it was.

A worked example

An example, made up for this page

A 40-room hotel has 1,200 rooms available in September (40 rooms × 30 nights) and sells 820 room nights. Its occupancy for September is 820 ÷ 1,200 × 100 = 68.3%. Of the 820, 296 were on its eight Friday and Saturday nights, which were 92.5% full, and 524 on the other 22 nights, which were 59.5% full. The month's figure hides two different hotels: a full one at the weekend and a half-empty one midweek.

How it relates to average room rate and RevPAR

Occupancy is one half of RevPAR. Multiply your average room rate by your occupancy, written as a share, and you have your revenue per available room.

EHL Hospitality Business School says occupancy is best read beside the average room rate rather than on its own, because high occupancy at a low rate can earn less than lower occupancy at a higher rate. It also lists a market penetration index, which compares your occupancy with that of the hotels you compete with.

What it doesn't tell you

What the rooms brought in. A hotel can fill every room by pricing too low.
Whether a full night was priced right. A night that sells out weeks ahead was probably priced too low for that night.
Where the bookings came from. A full hotel booked through booking sites keeps less than the same hotel booked direct.
What is coming. Last month's occupancy says nothing about next Saturday; the rooms already sold for each coming night do.

What to do about it

Look at occupancy by day of the week. Many leisure towns fill at weekends and not midweek; business towns are often the other way round.
Look at the nights ahead: how many rooms are already sold for each coming night, against the same night last year.
Raise the price of the nights filling early, and give quiet nights a reason to book, before you lower the price of the whole month.
Check what the hotels around you charge on your quiet nights. If they are full and you are not, price may not be the reason: check your photos, reviews and where you appear on the booking sites.
For quiet midweek nights, look for guests who travel then: companies, conferences, weddings, and travel agents with groups.

Sources

EHL Hospitality Business School: What is revenue management? (EHL Insights), read 19 October 2026