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Vacancy and occupancy rate calculator (physical + economic)

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Vacancy rate three ways from the same counts: physical vacancy on one date, time-based vacancy in unit-days across a period, and economic vacancy in rent. Each comes with its occupancy rate and its formula. It runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

The three answer different questions. The snapshot is what a lender's form asks for, the unit-day rate is what your leasing process controls, and the economic rate is what the owner feels. The prefilled figures are an illustrative 150-unit portfolio over a 92-day quarter, not a benchmark.

Your counts

Enter money in one currency, US or Canadian dollars.

Your number. Units offline for a major renovation are not rentable: list them separately rather than quietly dropping them.

Your number. Physically empty and available to rent. A unit leased but not yet moved into is not vacant for this count.

30 or 31 for a month, 90 to 92 for a quarter, 365 for a year.

From your turn records. For every turn, count the days it was vacant inside the period, and add them up.

$

Your number. The prefilled figure is the article's illustrative example.

$

Your number. Free months, move-in credits, discounts.

$

Your number. Rent billed and written off. Include it or not, but say which.

Models, offices, staff units. Occupied for the physical count, but they pay no rent, so economic vacancy counts their full rent as lost for the period.

Used only for the average vacant days per turn, which the link to the vacancy cost calculator carries over.

Your vacancy and occupancy rates

Physical vacancy — occupancy —, on the count date

Time-based vacancy — occupancy —, across the period

Economic vacancy — economic occupancy —

Available unit-days (units × days) —
Potential rent for the period (unit-days × rent ÷ 30) —
Rent lost to vacant days (vacant unit-days × rent ÷ 30) —
Concessions and bad debt—
Non-revenue units (units × days × rent ÷ 30) —
Total rent lost—
Rent the period produced—

Economic vacancy runs — above time-based vacancy. That gap is rent given away or not collected on units that were occupied: concessions, bad debt and units that pay nothing.

Average vacant days per turn: —. Price those days in the vacancy cost calculator

Source: releaser.io/tools/vacancy-rate-calculator/

How this is calculated

  • Physical vacancy = vacant units ÷ total rentable units, on the count date. Physical occupancy = 100% minus that, with non-revenue units counted as occupied.
  • Time-based vacancy = vacant unit-days ÷ (units × days in the period). It cannot be flattered by timing a lease start to the last day of the quarter, which is why it is the one to track month to month.
  • Economic vacancy = (rent lost to vacant days + concessions + bad debt + non-revenue units) ÷ potential rent for the period. Daily rent is monthly rent ÷ 30, the same convention as the vacancy cost calculator.
  • Economic occupancy = 100% minus economic vacancy: the share of potential rent the period actually produced.

Why the three do not agree

A snapshot misses every turn that opened and closed between counts, so the unit-day rate is usually higher. Economic vacancy adds the units that were full but did not pay full rent, so it is never lower than the unit-day rate. Occupancy and vacancy reconcile only if units on notice, leased but not moved in, and down units are listed on their own lines.

This calculator does not compare you with a market rate. The US and Canadian national rates measure different housing over different periods; your own unit-day rate, tracked by property type for a year, is the better benchmark.

Sources

Releaser is available to property management firms in the United States and Canada. Each property becomes one shareable link: applicants answer your questions, you review who matches your criteria, and the ones you approve book a showing on your calendar.

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