Hotel Construction Budget Calculator
Estimate what it costs to build a hotel in your market: land, construction, FF&E, soft costs, and financing, line by line, with cost per key and per square foot.
Step 1 · Your project
Your hotel
Pick the city and the room count. Everything else is optional: leave a field blank and the estimate uses the market default.
Unit costs are regional benchmarks for a new-build select-service hotel, by metro area: hard costs per square foot, FF&E per key, and design, soft, and financing costs as a share of the lines they depend on. Every line in the budget below shows how it was priced.
Step 2 · Review the budget
Line-item budget
Ready to finance the build?
Construction lenders size the loan on this budget. Share the project with Bridge and see which lenders fit your deal.
Submit a Loan RequestIllustrative only. Figures apply regional unit-cost benchmarks for a new-build select-service hotel to your inputs. Actual costs depend on the brand prototype, site conditions, labor market, and contract terms. Validate the budget with a general contractor and your lender before relying on it.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to build a hotel?
A new select-service hotel in most U.S. metro areas costs roughly $175,000 to $260,000 per key all in, counting land, construction, FF&E, soft costs, and financing. Gateway markets such as Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Honolulu run $300,000 to $425,000 per key, driven by land and labor. The calculator prices your room count and building size line by line for the city you pick.
What goes into a hotel construction budget?
Six groups of cost: land and its closing costs; hard construction costs for the building and site, plus a contingency; design and engineering fees; furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) for the rooms and back of house; soft costs such as permits, builder's risk insurance, pre-opening, and working capital; and financing costs, mainly the interest reserve and lender fees.
How big is a hotel per room?
Select-service and extended-stay prototypes usually run 550 to 750 gross square feet per key once corridors, lobby, breakfast area, and back of house are included. The calculator assumes 650 square feet per room if you leave building size blank; enter your prototype's actual size for a tighter number.
How much contingency should a hotel construction budget carry?
Lenders typically expect a hard-cost contingency of 5% to 10% on ground-up construction, with 10% common before a guaranteed maximum price contract is signed. The calculator applies the market's contingency rate to the hard costs and shows it as its own line.
How is the interest reserve estimated?
The calculator sizes the loan as your loan-to-cost percentage of the project cost before financing, then carries interest at 9.25% for a 14-month build on an average drawn balance of 55% of the loan, the way construction loans fund in draws. Lender fees and loan closing costs are a percentage of the loan. A lender will size the actual reserve from its draw schedule and rate.
Where do the cost figures come from?
Unit costs are regional benchmarks for new-build select-service hotels in 100 U.S. metro areas, covering hard costs per square foot, FF&E per key, and typical percentage-based fees. Your city is matched to its metro area using Census places and the federal metro area definitions; a city outside those 100 markets is priced on the nearest one, and the calculator says which. They are planning numbers for feasibility and a first lender conversation, not a contractor bid. Confirm pricing with a general contractor and your brand's prototype before committing capital.