Commercial Rent Calculator
Run the numbers on any commercial lease in 10 seconds. Tap a property type below to load typical 2026 U.S. rates, then adjust for your specific deal.
In a NNN lease, the tenant pays the base rent plus their pro-rata share of taxes, insurance, and common-area maintenance.
This calculator gives you a starting point. We’ve got more free tools (cap rate, cash-on-cash, NOI, and more) over in the commercial calculators hub.
If you're looking at your first commercial lease quote, the numbers can feel like they're written in a different language. $32.00/SF/yr NNN. $14 CAM. Modified gross. Here's the thing: this is the same math we run every day at The Cauble Group, and once you understand it, you'll never get caught off guard by a commercial rent quote again.
In this article, I'm going to walk you through exactly how to calculate commercial rent per square foot, give you typical 2026 U.S. rates by property type, and the interactive calculator above is yours to run the numbers on any space you're considering. Whether you're a tenant trying to figure out if a quote is fair or an investor underwriting a deal, this is the foundation.
If you're brand new to commercial real estate, our complete guide to commercial real estate investing covers the broader context — then come back here for the rent math.
In This Article
The Basic Math: Rent Per Square Foot
NNN, FSG, and MG: Why Your Lease Type Changes Everything
How Much Rent to Charge as a Landlord
The 1% Rule (and Why Commercial Ignores It)
2026 U.S. Rate Ranges by Property Type
The Basic Math: Rent Per Square Foot
Commercial rent is almost always quoted as a dollar amount per square foot, per year. So when a landlord tells you a space is "$32 a foot," they mean $32 per square foot, per year. Here's the formula:
Square Footage × Rate per SF = Annual Base Rent
Then divide by 12 to get your monthly rent. Let's run a real one. Say you're looking at a 2,500 SF retail space quoted at $32/SF/yr.
The Example Math, At a Glance
2,500
Square Feet
$32
Per SF / Year
$80K
Annual Base Rent
$6,667
Monthly Base
Simple, right? Well, here's where most tenants get tripped up. That $6,667 is your base rent. It's not what you're actually going to pay every month. To get to your real, all-in number, you have to add in the operating expenses, which depend entirely on your lease type.
A quick note on quote formats. Some landlords (especially in older buildings or short-term retail pop-ups) will quote rent monthly instead of annually. So "$2.00 SF/mo" is actually $24/SF/yr in disguise. Always confirm whether a number is annual or monthly before you do anything else.
NNN, FSG, and MG: Why Your Lease Type Changes Everything
The single biggest mistake I see new tenants make is comparing two spaces by base rent alone. A space quoted at $28/SF NNN can easily end up costing you more than a space quoted at $36/SF FSG once you add in the pass-throughs. I wrote a full breakdown of this in my post on NNN, FSG, and MG leases, but here's the short version.
Triple Net (NNN): Tenant pays base rent plus their pro-rata share of taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance. NNN charges typically run $3 to $16 per square foot, depending on building class, age, and market. A newer Class A office building will be on the higher end. An older flex or industrial property will be on the lower end.
Modified Gross (MG): A hybrid. The landlord covers some operating expenses (often the base year of taxes and insurance), and the tenant covers the rest. Any increase over the base year becomes a pass-through to the tenant.
Full Service Gross (FSG): The landlord covers everything inside the base rent. Taxes, insurance, CAM, utilities, sometimes even janitorial. Most common for Class A office in major central business districts. Your monthly rent is your monthly rent, full stop.
Absolute NNN: The tenant pays for absolutely everything. Roof, structure, parking lot, the whole building. This is the structure you'll see on single-tenant freestanding properties, often used in net-lease investment deals.
Use the calculator at the top of this page to flip between NNN, FSG, MG, and Absolute NNN at the same headline rate. The difference between an NNN and an FSG quote can be tens of thousands of dollars a year.
How Much Commercial Rent Should You Charge as a Landlord?
This question comes up constantly from new commercial property owners who just acquired their first building. If you haven't acquired yet, our walkthrough on how to buy your first commercial property covers everything before you start setting rents. There are three ways I price rent when I'm representing a landlord, and you should run all three before you settle on a number.
Method 1: Comparable rents. Pull rents at every similar property within a half-mile of yours (or a similar trade area). Same asset class (office, retail, industrial), same finish level, same accessibility. If five spaces just leased for $28 to $32 per foot, you have your range. Then position your space inside that range based on its strengths.
Method 2: Cap rate target. If you know what cap rate you need to hit to make your deal work, you can back into the rent. Read my full breakdown on commercial real estate cap rates for the math. The formula: target NOI divided by purchase price gives you your cap rate. Reverse-engineer the rent that produces that NOI.
Method 3: Replacement cost. What would it cost to build this exact space today? If construction costs are $250/SF and your debt service plus expenses require a 12% return on cost, you'd need around $30/SF to justify the build. Existing buildings shouldn't price too far below that, or you create a market where new construction can't pencil out.
The right answer is usually the highest of the three numbers you can defend with a comparable. Don't leave money on the table by anchoring on what the previous tenant paid five years ago.
The 1% Rule and Why Most Commercial Investors Ignore It
The "1% rule" is a residential investor concept that says monthly rent should equal at least 1% of the purchase price. So a $200,000 single-family home should rent for at least $2,000/month to be worth buying.
In commercial real estate, we don't really use this. Here's why. Commercial returns are driven by cap rates, NOI growth, and value-add opportunities, not by a rent-to-price ratio. A trophy office building in a gateway market might trade at a 6 cap with rents at $80/SF, while a value-add industrial property in a tertiary market trades at a 9 cap with rents at $8/SF. Both can be excellent deals. Neither would pass the 1% rule.
What we look at instead:
Cap rate vs. market. Are you buying in line with comparable deals, above market, or at a discount?
Rent vs. market. Is the current rent below, at, or above the market rate? Below-market rents are a value-add opportunity. Above-market rents are a risk.
NOI per SF. What's the net operating income per square foot, and how does it compare to similar buildings?
Cost basis vs. replacement cost. Are you buying below replacement cost? That's where the margin of safety lives.
If you're trying to underwrite your first commercial deal, my step-by-step underwriting guide walks through the math in detail.
2026 U.S. Commercial Rent Rates by Property Type
Here's where commercial rents are landing in 2026 across the country, based on the deals we're seeing at The Cauble Group and the conversations I have weekly with brokers and investors nationwide. Treat these as ranges. Actual rates depend on building class, condition, market, submarket, and how badly the landlord needs a tenant.
2026 U.S. Rate Spread, At a Glance
INLAND INDUSTRIAL
$5–9/SF
Big-box distribution
CLASS A SUBURBAN
$26–38/SF
Office, NNN
TROPHY OFFICE CBD
$65–95/SF
Gateway markets, FSG
URBAN HIGH STREET
$90–300/SF
Tier 1 retail
Office: Class A CBD in gateway markets like NYC, SF, LA, DC runs $65 to $95/SF, often FSG. Class A CBD in tier-2 markets like Austin, Charlotte, Nashville, Denver is $34 to $55/SF NNN. Class A Suburban: $26 to $38/SF NNN. Class B Office: $18 to $28/SF NNN. Class C / Older Office: $12 to $20/SF MG or FSG.
Retail: Urban High Street in Tier 1 cities runs $90 to $300/SF NNN. Tier 2 cities: $40 to $90/SF NNN. Anchor / Power Center inline: $22 to $32/SF NNN. Strip Center / Neighborhood inline: $18 to $28/SF NNN. Pad / Outparcel: $30 to $60/SF NNN. Mall inline Class A: $35 to $80/SF NNN, often with percentage rent.
Industrial: Last-mile / Infill in coastal markets: $14 to $24/SF NNN. Big-box distribution coastal: $10 to $16/SF NNN. Big-box distribution inland: $5 to $9/SF NNN. Flex industrial: $11 to $18/SF NNN. Industrial outdoor storage (IOS): $0.15 to $0.45/SF/mo, land-only.
Medical Office: $24 to $38/SF NNN, often with longer leases and stronger credit.
I cover lease trends and deal walkthroughs regularly on The Commercial Real Estate Investor Podcast and on my YouTube channel if you want to go deeper on a specific asset class.
Common Tenant Mistakes to Avoid
After running a brokerage and watching hundreds of leases get signed, the same handful of mistakes come up again and again when tenants try to calculate their own rent.
Forgetting to add NNN to the base rent. A 5,000 SF space at $32 base + $11 NNN is $43/SF all-in, or $17,917/month. A lot of new tenants budget for $13,333/month (the base alone) and get blindsided when the invoices show up.
Not accounting for tenant improvement allowance trade-offs. Landlords will sometimes offer higher TI in exchange for higher rent. That's not free money. It's amortized into your rate over the lease term. Make sure you're comparing total occupancy cost, not just headline rent.
Missing the annual escalations. Most commercial leases have a 2 to 4% annual rent bump baked in. So year-five rent on a $32/SF starting lease at 3% escalations is actually $36.05/SF. Run the full lease term, not just year one.
Mixing up usable vs. rentable square feet. In multi-tenant office, your "rentable" SF includes a load factor (a share of common areas like lobbies and corridors). Your actual usable space might be 12 to 18% smaller. Make sure you're comparing the right number when shopping spaces.
Key Takeaways
Commercial rent is quoted per square foot per year. Multiply by your SF, divide by 12 for monthly base rent.
Your lease type changes the all-in number more than the base rent does. Always compare NNN, MG, FSG, and Absolute NNN quotes apples-to-apples.
Use three pricing methods when setting rent as a landlord: comparable rents, cap rate target, and replacement cost. Pick the highest defensible number.
The 1% rule is a residential concept. Commercial returns are driven by cap rate, NOI growth, and basis, not rent-to-price ratios.
2026 U.S. rates vary widely by property type and market tier. $5/SF in an inland big-box warehouse and $300/SF on Madison Avenue retail are both market.
Always run your full all-in cost including NNN, escalations, and TI amortization, before signing anything.
For more on commercial real estate underwriting, leasing, and investing, check out the Tyler Cauble YouTube channel.
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