Room Clearances: How Much Space to Leave Around Everything

The working minimums: 0.90 m for a route people walk along, 0.75 m in front of anything you stand at or open, 0.60 m to squeeze past sideways, and 1.20 m between two kitchen runs facing each other. Below 0.60 m a gap stops being a route. These are not regulations — they are the dimensions of a person doing a thing, and they are why a room with enough floor area can still not work.

Furniture dimensions tell you what fits. Clearances tell you whether it is usable once it is in.

Where these numbers come from

Almost every clearance traces back to one of four human measurements:

This is why the numbers barely vary between countries or decades. They are not conventions in the way a sofa's width is a convention — they are the size of the person using the room.

One caveat, stated plainly: these are widely used rules of thumb from practice, not figures from an authoritative study. Where a real standard exists — accessibility requirements in particular — it takes precedence and the numbers are larger. Section 7 covers that.

Circulation

Below 0.60 m, stop calling it a route. People will turn sideways once, resent it, and then rearrange the furniture — which is the room telling you the plan was wrong.

Bedroom

The one people get wrong: the gap between the foot of the bed and a wardrobe. You need to open the door and stand in front of it, which is why it is 0.90 m and not 0.75 m. Miss it and you get a wardrobe you open by standing on the bed.

A double bed is 1.60 × 2.00 m. With 0.60 m one side and 0.60 m at the foot, the minimum workable double bedroom is about 2.70 × 2.90 m — before any wardrobe.

Kitchen

The kitchen is where clearances matter most, because it is the room where you move constantly while holding things.

1.20 m between opposite runs is the number to remember. Below it, two people cannot be in the kitchen at once and an open dishwasher blocks the room entirely. Above about 1.60 m the kitchen stops being efficient — you start walking between things rather than turning.

Corner clearance: where two runs meet, allow 0.90 m from the corner before an appliance door, or the door will foul the adjacent run. This is the most common fault in fitted kitchens.

Bathroom

A bath is 1.70 × 0.70 m. With 0.70 m in front, a bathroom needs about 1.70 × 1.70 m for a bath alone — add a basin and a WC and the practical minimum is around 1.70 × 2.20 m.

Living and dining

The dining table one catches people out. A 1.80 m table needs 0.75 m of clear floor on all four sides just for chairs — so it wants a room at least 3.30 × 2.40 m before anything else goes in it. Add a route past one side and it is 3.60 m.

When a real standard applies

Everything above is rule of thumb. Accessibility requirements are not, and where they apply they are legally binding and considerably more generous.

Indicative figures, which vary by country — check your local regulation rather than this page:

If you are designing for someone with a mobility need, or building to a standard, stop using this page and use the regulation. The rules of thumb above describe an average adult with no impairment, which is a narrower case than it sounds.

When you cannot make the numbers work

Small homes force compromise. In rough order of what to give up first:

1. Take the comfortable figure down to the minimum — usually recovers 0.10–0.20 m per gap and costs little.
2. Change the door swing, or fit a sliding door. Recovers a whole quarter-circle.
3. Choose smaller furniture — a 1.50 m sofa instead of 2.00 m, a 1.40 m bed instead of 1.60 m.
4. Drop a piece entirely. A room with three things you can use beats one with five you edge around.
5. Never compromise the route to a fire escape, or the clearance in front of an appliance whose door has to open.

In short: cut the furniture before you cut the clearances. A room reads as generous because of the space between things, not the number of things.

Frequently asked questions

How much space do you need around a bed? 0.60 m minimum on at least one long side, to get in and make it, and 0.60 m at the foot. If a wardrobe faces the foot of the bed, make that 0.90 m so the doors open with room to stand. Both sides at 0.75 m is comfortable for a shared bed.

What is the minimum gap between kitchen units? 1.20 m between opposite runs. Below that two people cannot pass, and an open dishwasher or oven door blocks the kitchen completely. Between a run and an island, 1.00 m is the minimum and 1.20 m is comfortable.

How much space is needed around a dining table? 0.75 m from the table edge to the nearest wall or furniture, so a chair can be pulled out and someone can sit. Where people walk behind seated guests, 1.00 m. Per person at the table, allow 0.60 m of table edge.

Is there a minimum walkway width in a house? For general use, 0.90 m is the practical minimum for a main route and 0.70 m for a secondary one. Where accessibility standards apply, corridors are typically 1.20 m and door openings 0.80–0.85 m clear — and those are requirements, not guidance.

How far should a sofa be from the TV? Roughly 1.5 to 2 times the screen's width. For a 1.20 m wide television that is 1.80–2.40 m. Closer is fine for smaller screens and increasingly common with higher resolutions; the old rule scaled with resolution and has loosened.

Do these clearances apply to small apartments too? The minimums do — a person is the same size in a studio. What changes is how many pieces of furniture the room can hold, not how much space each needs around it. That is the trade small spaces actually force.

See also

• Standard furniture dimensions — what the clearances go around
• What makes a good floor plan

Written by Mickael Romaniello, who makes Arti, a floor plan editor for macOS.