What is occupancy rate?

How it works

Occupancy rate divides the units in use by the units available. A floor with 200 desks where 90 are in use at 11 am is 45% occupied at that moment. Averaged across the hours or days of a week or month, the same count shows how much of the space people turned up to use.

Occupancy asks whether each desk, room or area is in use, not how intensively its capacity is used over time. That second question is utilization: a ten-person room with two people in it counts as occupied, but most of its seats are empty. Teams read occupancy alongside utilization and peak occupancy (the busiest point), because an average alone can hide the days that set the capacity you need.

The word has a second industry meaning. Some benchmarking surveys, including CBRE's, report occupancy as people allocated per seat, a sharing ratio that passes 100% when more people are assigned to a building than it has seats. To tell them apart, check the denominator: occupancy of space divides units in use by units available and cannot exceed 100%; an allocation ratio divides assigned people by seats.

Occupancy is only as good as the signal behind it. Bookings show intent, while check-ins, badge swipes, network presence and sensors show whether people turned up. The gap between the two, booked but empty desks, is where most planning errors start.

Occupancy vs utilization vs peak occupancy

The terms are often mixed up. Check which one a report uses before you compare figures.

Measure	Question it answers	How it is calculated	Use it to
Occupancy rate	Is the space in use?	Units in use ÷ units available, at a point in time or on average	See how much of the space people use
Space utilization	How intensively is capacity used over time?	Seat-hours used ÷ seat-hours available	Judge room sizes and how hard space works
Peak occupancy	How full does it get on the busiest normal day or hour?	Highest units in use in a typical period ÷ units available	Size desks, rooms and neighborhoods
Allocation ratio (sometimes called occupancy)	How many people are assigned per seat?	People assigned ÷ seats	Compare sharing levels; it can exceed the seats available

Formula

Occupancy rate = (Occupied units ÷ Available units) × 100

Occupied units: Desks, rooms or square feet in use during the period, from check-ins or presence data rather than bookings alone.
Available units: The same units that were open and bookable during that period, excluding closed or out-of-service space.

Worked example · illustrative figures

A floor has 240 bookable desks, all open this week.
Check-in data shows an average of 102 desks in use per day.
102 ÷ 240 = 0.425.

Average daily occupancy rate: 42.5%.

How to measure it

Decide the unit (desks, rooms or area) and the period (hourly, daily, weekly) before you compare anything.
Use a presence signal for 'occupied': check-ins, badge data, Wi-Fi presence or sensors. Bookings alone overstate occupancy when people book and do not come.
Count only available units, so closures and out-of-service desks do not drag the rate down.
Report the average and the peak day side by side, by floor and by team, so capacity decisions follow the busiest real day rather than the mean.

Examples

A 60,000 sq ft office averages 38% desk occupancy but reaches 71% on Tuesdays and Wednesdays: the team keeps one floor for anchor days and releases another.
A meeting-room occupancy of 25% with frequent 'no rooms free' complaints usually points to ghost bookings, not too few rooms.

Benchmarks

At the University of Exeter, the average share of meeting rooms in use per day rose from 20% to 38%.
Kadence customer story: University of Exeter
CBRE's benchmarking uses occupancy rate for people allocated per seat and reported a global figure of 111%, meaning more people are allocated than there are seats.
CBRE, The Hybrid Reality (2026 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insights)

Common mistakes

Treating bookings as occupancy. A booked desk that nobody uses still counts as occupied in booking data.
Planning to the average. A 40% average can sit on top of an 80% peak day; size to the peak you choose to support.
Mixing units: desk occupancy, room occupancy and floor-area occupancy are different numbers and should not be averaged together.
Comparing periods with different availability, for example a week with a closed floor against a normal week.
Comparing your share of desks in use with an external occupancy figure that means people allocated per seat.

How Kadence helps

Kadence Workplace Insights reports attendance, occupancy, no-shows and office heatmaps from check-in data, not bookings alone. The Kadence Agent checks people in automatically when it detects them on the office network, Automatic Bookings records people who turn up without a booking, and check-ins can also come from kiosks, room displays, badge data or the API. SpaceOps then uses that occupancy data to plan floors and scenarios.

Workplace analytics · Workplace occupancy · SpaceOps

Frequently asked questions

What is a good office occupancy rate?

There is no single target. The right rate depends on your attendance policy, the peak days you choose to support and how much buffer you want. Many hybrid offices run well below their capacity on average, so the useful question is whether your peak day fits and how much space sits empty on the other days.

What is the difference between occupancy and utilization?

Occupancy says whether space is in use: the share of available desks, rooms or area in use at a point in time or on average. Utilization says how intensively capacity is used over time: how often a space is used multiplied by how full it is when used. A six-person room used all afternoon by one person is occupied all afternoon but poorly utilized.

Why do some reports show occupancy above 100%?

They use occupancy to mean people allocated per seat, not space in use. In shared-desk offices more people can be assigned to a building than it has seats; CBRE reported a global figure of 111% on that basis. An occupancy rate of space in use divides units in use by units available, so it can never exceed the space available.

How do you measure occupancy without sensors?

Use signals you already have: desk and room check-ins, badge swipes, and presence on the office Wi-Fi or network. Combined, they show who was actually in the building and where, without installing hardware on every desk.

Occupancy vs utilization Occupancy is the share of space in use; utilization is the share of capacity-time actually used.
Space utilization How intensively buildings, floors, rooms and desks are used against their full capacity over time.
Peak occupancy The busiest level of use a floor or building reaches in a normal week, which sets the capacity you actually need.
Presence data (sensorless occupancy) The record of who was actually in the building and when, from signals you already have: network, badges and check-ins.
Desk ratio (desk sharing ratio) The number of people assigned to a workplace for each desk, set from peak attendance and policy.
Space per person Office floor area divided by the number of people it serves, in square feet or square meters per person.

Sources

The Hybrid Reality: Why the Office Is More Important Than Ever, CBRE

Kadence editorial team · Last reviewed October 1, 2026