What is the Average Size for a Home Office?

Do you work from home and plan to create a private workspace? And are you unaware of the ideal size for your home office?

Do not worry! We are here to guide you.

Generally, the average size for a home office is 100 to 150 square feet. Thus, a home office space of 10 X 15 feet in length and breadth would be optimal for an individual to a couple of workers.

Though the measurements mentioned earlier are the average for home offices, there are situations where they might differ.

If you need to know if the office desk or your file cabinet might not fit the above-mentioned office space, you might need to adjust the measurements.

How to Decide the Best Size for Your Home Office?

When a business has been operating for quite a while, the owner might have a good idea of his space requirement.

However, you might need clarification when starting a new business startup. If so, here are some factors to consider while choosing the best-sized room for you.

• How big of a home office would accommodate all your current work needs?
• Would you see yourself working with multiple partners shortly?
• How much can your business grow in terms of storage requirements?
• Would your clients regularly visit your home office?
• How often would you physically be present in the home office?
• Would your space requirement decrease after a particular time?

Afterward, you can move to the following process if you have a clear vision of your business and answer the questions above. Now, you can decide the most suitable office size for your business.

What is the Average Size for a Home Office?

As mentioned earlier, the size of the office indeed depends upon the business you’re conducting.

After looking into your business prospect, you can determine the essential size requirement.

Furthermore, you can determine the size of the home office space by seeing the work you intend to perform daily.

The size would differ depending on the employees in your home office.

And, if you’re unsure about a good size for your home office in such a case, you can take assistance from the table below:

1. Small-Sized Home Office

YouTube video production, sole website monitoring, or countless other projects are often a one-person job. Naturally, therefore, such work would require a small setup.

Thus, with slim chances of requiring ample office space in the future, having a small home office would be ideal in such a case.

A small home office should be within 20 to 50 square feet. A small room with around 9 X 5 feet of office space would be ideal for such small home offices.

In addition, an office with the area above would be spacious enough to store equipment and perform desk work for an individual.

Furthermore, this room can accommodate a mid-size work desk and a work chair, and there would still be remaining space.

There, you can choose to store any item of your choice.

If you’re unsure about the right-sized desk for your small home office, you can read our article on Right Sized Desk for Home Office.

Again, since a small home office does not require much space, you can quickly figure out enough space.

You can use other alternatives if your House or apartment does not have a room with the measurements mentioned earlier.

In such a case, you can partition your bedroom or an extra room into two parts—one as an office and another as a standard room.

2. Medium-Sized Home Office

Medium-sized work operations such as small-scale law offices and online distributors offices would require medium-sized offices. In addition, such processes might need 2 to 3 workers.

 In general, having a 50 to 100-square-foot office would be enough for such medium-sized home offices. Furthermore, an 8 X 10 feet room would be a good length and width for said office.

But, the room with the dimension mentioned above for an office might not be available in your House. So, you can consider making some tweaks as per your requirement.

And,  you can part a large room into an office and a regular room if the specific room is unavailable.

A medium-sized home office should be large enough to fit a large desk or a few smaller desks.

Similarly, it should include enough space for multiple chairs, a medium-sized file cabinet, and additional space to perform other regular official tasks.

3. Large-Sized Home Office

You require innovative ideas when you have a business idea that intends to bring massive change to your surroundings.

Alternatively, if you started your Company in a small room in your House and now need a larger space, you can easily upgrade to a large home office.

Generally, a 100 to 200 square feet room would be ideal for a large-sized home office. For this, having the room 8 to 12 feet long and 15 to 18 feet wide would be the preferable dimension.

In the United States, the average size of a bedroom or any average room is 200 square feet.

Similarly, the average room area in United Kingdom households is 16.3 square meters, translating to 175 square feet.

So, with the measurements mentioned above, using any spare room available in your House would be suitable as a home office.

However, if you’re unsure about the specifications of your room, using the enormous available space can be equally fitting.

Related Article: How to Create a Common Home Office for Three People?

How Can I Make a Home Office if I Don’t Have Enough Space?

While pursuing a business idea, you may not have enough money to invest. So, working from a home office would be much better to make the most out of the finance you have available.

But, in such conditions, you might need enough space for your office.

If you don’t have enough space for a home office, using a balcony, a passageway between the rooms, or even using multiple rooms would be a practical option.

If the rooms available in your House are small, you can adopt other techniques.

For example, you can keep the regularly usable equipment in the primary office and the other ones in the spare space in such a case.

Furthermore, if you have a room next to a flight of stairs, you can use the space between to lead into the office.

Again, it would provide a better impression on a visitor and showcase your management skills. Using the space under the stairs as a storage space would also be equally brilliant.

You can make the most of awkward nooks in your home to create a stunning workspace. But you don’t know how? Don’t worry and read our article on How to Convert an Awkward Corner Into Home Office?

Should I Use a Whole Room for a Small-Sized Home Office?

You might require a room for your home office that’s larger than what you have available in your House.

Similarly, you might have a large room but require a small office. In such a case, there are ways to use the room creatively.

You only need to use a portion of a room for a home office. However, using alternatives to make use of all the space available would be an economical step forward.

You can use curtains to divide the room if you have a large bedroom.

Now, you’ll be able to use one part of the divided room as an office. Similarly, you can use the other one as your regular bed.

Furthermore, you can use an aluminum frame with wallpaper or wooden flanks for similar effects if you prefer curtains.

You can also hire professionals to design or divide your room into multiple parts per your requirement.

How to Calculate Home Office Size for Taxes?

After reading all these, you must be curious about the taxes of the home office. The government deducts the tax if you meet specific criteria.

If you are self-employed and allocate space for your home office, then that is one requirement you should follow.

Another requirement is that you must use that space only for business purposes and that business should meet the government’s requirements.

If you meet those requirements, you can claim the tax for home office deduction. We will describe shortly how to calculate it below:

• First, calculate the total area of the space you’ve allocated for your home office.
• Then calculate the total area of your home.
• Divide the outcome of the total home office area by the total home area, then multiply it by 100. That gives the exact percentage of space that your home office is occupying.
• Calculate your total home expenses (mortgage interest, real estate taxes, insurance, utilities, etc.) and multiply that amount by the above percentage from step 3.

Let’s say that your House is 1300 square feet in size and your designated home office is 160 square feet; in this case, the total percentage of business would be 12.3%.

Additionally, you can also calculate the tax deduction in a simplified method.

Suppose your allocated home office size is 200 square meters, and as per 2024, the prescribed rate per square footage is 5$, the deduction would be (200*5=1000$).

(Please note that your tax deduction can not exceed your income.)

Continue reading to learn more about the home office tax deduction.

How Much Does it Cost to Set up a Home Office?

At last, we arrived at one of the most frequently asked questions. We are all victims of the recent sky-high inflation during recent years thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic and the Ukraine war.

Seeing the price tags of almost everything is unbearable when we go to market. Still, the home office helps to deduct our taxes and reduce our everyday travel expenses.

Therefore, it is worth spending adequate money depending on your budget.

Generally, depending on your work, we need a desk, PC, chair, electronic equipment, internet, and software subscriptions. These costs also vary according to material, quality, and brand.

If you have a low budget but are enthusiastic about setting up the office, you can do it for free or, at most, $500.

If you want to go for a medium-sized budget, you can spend at most $2000-3000. If you want to go for high-end, you can spend more than $6000.

Decide yourself according to your need and budget.

Final Takeaway

Finally, you can decide the best size for your home office after reviewing this article. Then, as per your requirement, you can use the available room.

You can manage and divide the rooms to use as office space. And you can use the measurements mentioned earlier to design the optimal home office for your business.

Are you planning to create a dedicated gaming room? Read more to find out the ideal game room size.