Carpet Area

Carpet area is the floor you can actually use inside your home: the rooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms and the internal walls between them. RERA defines it in Section 2(k) as the net usable floor area of an apartment, excluding the external walls, the service shafts, any exclusive balcony or verandah and any exclusive open terrace, but including the internal partition walls.

Before RERA, flats were often priced on super built-up area, which adds a share of lobbies, lifts and stairs. Two flats with the same super built-up figure could have very different usable space. RERA’s rules on agreements require the price to be stated on carpet area, so you can compare homes like for like. Balconies are still listed, but separately.

A quick illustrative example: two 2 BHK homes are both advertised at 1,200 sq ft super built-up. One has 880 sq ft carpet, the other 960 sq ft. The second gives you 80 sq ft more to live in, about the size of a small study. That difference is invisible if you only compare the bigger number.

• The carpet area is written in your agreement for sale, in square metres or square feet.
• Balcony and terrace areas are shown separately, not folded into carpet.
• The figure matches what the builder declared on the K-RERA portal.
• Bring a tape at handover. Measuring a couple of rooms tells you a lot.

Our EMI calculator helps once you know the price; carpet area helps you know what that price buys.