Size your meeting room
Seats and table type give the room. Clearance decides whether it works.
Meeting rooms sized around the people, not the table
How this calculator works
- Boardroom table: length = ceiling(seats ÷ 2) × 30 in, minimum 72 in. Width is 48 in up to eight seats and 54 in beyond, so the table is wide enough to place documents between facing laptops.
- Round table: diameter = seats × 30 ÷ π, rounded up to the nearest 6 in, minimum 42 in.
- U-shape: 96 in deep with a length of ceiling(seats ÷ 2) × 30 in — the open side faces the display.
- Classroom: rows of three, each row 60 in of length, 84 in of depth for the row spacing.
- Room = table + (2 × clearance) in both directions, plus the credenza depth on the length.
- Display: image height ≥ furthest viewer distance ÷ 6, converted to a 16:9 diagonal and rounded up to the nearest commercial panel size.
| Seats | Boardroom table | Room at 36 in clearance | Area | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 72 × 48 in | 12 × 10 ft | 120 sq ft | 30 sq ft |
| 6 | 90 × 48 in | 14.5 × 10 ft | 145 sq ft | 24 sq ft |
| 8 | 120 × 48 in | 16 × 10 ft | 160 sq ft | 20 sq ft |
| 10 | 150 × 54 in | 18.5 × 10.5 ft | 194 sq ft | 19 sq ft |
| 12 | 180 × 54 in | 21 × 10.5 ft | 221 sq ft | 18 sq ft |
| 16 | 240 × 54 in | 26 × 10.5 ft | 273 sq ft | 17 sq ft |
Area per person falls as the room grows, because the clearance band around the table is a fixed cost that is shared by more people. This is why four-seat rooms are the most expensive meeting space per head and also the most used.
Worked example — the default eight-seat room
| Step | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Table length | ceiling(8 ÷ 2) × 30 in | 120 in |
| Table width | eight seats or fewer | 48 in |
| Room length | 120 + (2 × 36) + 24 credenza | 216 in / 18 ft |
| Room width | 48 + (2 × 36) | 120 in / 10 ft |
| Floor area | 18 × 10 | 180 sq ft |
| Per person | 180 ÷ 8 | 22.5 sq ft |
| Furthest viewer | (216 − 36) ÷ 12 | 15 ft |
| Minimum image height | 15 × 12 ÷ 6 | 30 in |
| Display | 30 ÷ 0.49 → 61 in diagonal | 65 in panel |
The meeting room mix, not the meeting room
Most offices we fit out arrive with a brief for two large meeting rooms and no small ones, and within three months of occupation the two large rooms are permanently booked by pairs of people on video calls. The mix that actually matches how organisations work is roughly one small room for every ten staff, one medium for every twenty-five, one large for every sixty, and one phone booth for every eleven — which is the ratio our office space per employee calculator applies.
The reason is hybrid working. A meeting that used to be six people around a table is now three in the room and three on a screen, and the room has to support a camera and a microphone rather than just chairs. That changes the specification more than it changes the size: the wall behind the far end of the table becomes the background everyone remote looks at for an hour, and it should be treated as such rather than left as a glass partition looking into the open plan.
On glass: a fully glazed meeting room looks excellent in a photograph and performs badly in use. It has no acoustic absorption at all, it gives the occupants no privacy, and it makes the room unusable for anything sensitive. Where the brief demands transparency, keep one solid wall behind the display, put a manifestation band at eye level, and budget for an acoustic ceiling tile.
Every constant on this page comes from Greenbox site records — measured drawings, signed BOQs and completion certificates from projects delivered between 2023 and 2026 — rounded to the figures an estimator would actually write down. We publish them so the arithmetic can be audited rather than trusted. Treat the output as a planning figure: accurate enough to brief a landlord, a bank or a family, and not accurate enough to sign a contract against.
What this tool does not cover
- Furniture and AV cost. This tool sizes the room; the office interior cost calculator prices the fit-out.
- Structural columns inside the room footprint, which in a Grade-A Mumbai floor plate on a 9 m grid are a real constraint.
- HVAC diffuser positions and the noise criteria for a meeting room, which should be NC 30–35.
- Cable management, floor boxes and the power provision at the table, which must be coordinated with the raised floor or the conduiting.
- Doors and their swing, which should open outward from a meeting room wherever the corridor allows.
- For the whole floor plate rather than one room, see the office seating capacity calculator.
Meeting and boardroom fit-outs delivered by Greenbox Design Studio.
Frequently asked questions
How big should a meeting room for 8 people be?+
About 18 × 10 ft, or 180 sq ft, with a 120 × 48 in table, 36 inches of clearance all round and a credenza on one end. That works out at roughly 22 sq ft per person.
How much space per person in a conference room?+
Eighteen to twenty-two square feet for a boardroom layout. Smaller rooms cost more per head — a four-seat room is about 30 sq ft per person — because the clearance band around the table is a fixed overhead shared by fewer people.
What size screen for a meeting room?+
The image height should be at least one sixth of the distance to the furthest viewer. In a room where the back seat is 15 ft from the screen that means a 30-inch image height, which is a 65-inch panel. Undersized displays are the most common complaint in newly fitted meeting rooms.
How much clearance is needed behind meeting room chairs?+
Thirty-six inches as a working minimum — enough to push a chair back and stand. Forty-two inches where someone has to walk behind seated colleagues to reach the far end of the table, which is almost always the case in a boardroom of eight or more.
How many meeting rooms does an office need?+
Roughly one small room per ten staff, one medium per twenty-five, one large per sixty and one phone booth per eleven. Hybrid working has shifted demand sharply toward the small end — two-person video calls now occupy rooms that were built for eight.