Budget a total of about £40 to £60 per square metre to have laminate flooring supplied and fitted in the UK, with the boards themselves making up £8 to £25 of that for most homes. A 20 m² living room therefore lands between £800 and £1,200 all in, and under £400 if you lay it yourself. The boards in our laminate flooring range sit at the lower end of that band, and the calculator below the table works out packs and price for your own room.

The board prices match what the big UK flooring retailers list on their category pages; the fitting and total figures come from the Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Fantastic Services cost guides. Rates move with your postcode, the state of the subfloor and how many cuts the room needs, so every number on this page is a guide. Get three written quotes before you commit.

Laminate flooring price per m²: what you get at each level

The price per square metre tracks three things on the box: the AC wear rating, the thickness, and how long the board holds out water. Colour and pattern move the price far less than people expect.

AC rating. Every laminate sold in the UK carries a wear class under BS EN 13329. AC3 is light domestic use, AC4 general domestic, AC5 intensive use. The jump from AC3 to AC4 is the one worth paying for; AC5 matters in a hallway or a home with dogs.

Thickness. A 12 mm board costs a few pounds more per square metre than 8 mm. You feel the difference underfoot and hear it in the lower click of footsteps, and it forgives a subfloor with small dips. Same wear rating, though: thickness and AC rating are separate numbers.

Water resistance. Laminate is not waterproof. The better boards seal the surface and joints for a stated time. The AGT ranges we stock give 24 or 72 hours, long enough to find a spill and dry it. Boards that claim longer sit in the premium band.

The AGT boards in our wood effect laminate range fall in the mid-range band, with the 12 mm boards rated AC5. Each product page shows the live price per pack and per square metre, so the figure you see there is the one you pay.

Laminate flooring fitting cost: per m² or per day

A fitter will quote you one of two ways. Per square metre for a straight lay on a sound floor, or per day. The table gives the ranges Checkatrade and MyBuilder publish; MyBuilder puts a typical room at around two days and five at the most. Where you live moves the rate more than anything else. Fantastic Services puts London and the South East 20 to 30% above the rest of the UK. Fitters on the r/DIYUK thread in the sources quote £12 to £18 per m² in the North of England.

Three things push a quote to the top of the range: a hallway with lots of doorways and cuts, a herringbone or diagonal pattern, and an uneven subfloor that needs levelling first. If a quote comes in well above the top of the table, ask what the extra covers. The usual answers are underlay fitting, skirting removal, door trimming or taking up the old floor, each priced on its own in the extras section below.

Some national chains bundle supply and fitting. The bundle is convenient, but check the per-m² fitting rate inside it against the figures above before you sign. A low board price can hide a high fitting rate.

How much laminate flooring do I need?

Measure the room’s length and width in metres, multiply them, then add 10% for cuts. For an L-shaped room, split it into two rectangles and add them. Laminate is sold by the pack, so round the result up to whole packs and buy one spare for repairs.

A 4 m by 5 m room is 20 m². With 10% added for cuts you need 22 m². If a pack covers 1.83 m², that is 12.02 packs, so you buy 13.

Packs needed = (length × width × 1.10) ÷ coverage per pack, rounded up

For your own room and product, use the pack calculator at the top of this page. It reads the current pack price and coverage from the product page, so the figure it gives is the one at checkout.

Herringbone, diagonal laying and rooms with alcoves or bay windows waste more. Allow 15% for those. The fitting instructions in the pack also ask for an expansion gap of 8 to 10 mm around every wall, which the skirting or beading covers.

Underlay, skirting, door trimming and the other extras

The boards and the fitter are two thirds of the bill. The rest is a handful of extras that every quote should list and many do not.

The figures come from the MyBuilder laminate cost guide, with underlay prices from Homebuilding & Renovating. Threshold strips between rooms and a damp-proof membrane over a concrete floor are the two items that most often turn up as surprises; ask your fitter whether either applies to your house.

How much does it cost to laminate a room?

The table works four sizes, from a box room to most of a three-bed semi, on one set of assumptions. Mid-range boards at £15 per m², underlay at £5 per m², 10% added to both for cuts, and a fitter at £20 per m² of floor. Change any of those and the total moves; the calculator above does the board line for your own room and product.

None of the rows includes levelling, carpet removal, door trimming or beading. Priced from the extras table, a 25 m² living room with old carpet to lift and two doors to trim adds about £235, so the £1,050 job becomes closer to £1,300. Paying a fitter comes close to doubling the DIY figure.

Does herringbone or a marble effect change the price?

The pattern changes the fitting bill more than the board bill. Plain plank in a wood effect is the cheapest to buy and the cheapest to lay. Marble and stone effects cost about the same per square metre as a wood effect at the same thickness and wear rating, because the surface print is the only difference. Herringbone is the one that moves both numbers.

If you want the herringbone look on a budget, price it as a hallway or one room rather than the whole floor, and get the quote for that pattern in writing. A fitter who quotes a flat per-m² rate without asking about the pattern has not priced the job.

Laminate vs carpet, LVT and engineered wood: cost per m²

Laminate is the cheapest hard floor to buy and to fit. LVT costs about the same to buy and half as much again to lay. Engineered and solid wood cost more at both ends.

The laminate averages above include premium boards. Buy at the lower end of the range, as with the AGT boards we stock, and the supplied-and-fitted figure drops towards the lower end of the opening table.

Price decides half of it. The room and the people and animals using it decide the rest. A kitchen with a dog left alone all day argues for LVT whatever the saving, and we set out that case in laminate vs LVT for homes with dogs.

How to keep the cost down without buying a worse floor

1. Match the wear rating to the room. AC5 in the hallway and living room, AC4 in the bedrooms. The bedroom boards cost less and see a fraction of the footfall.
2. Buy 10% over, not 20%. Measure twice and use the calculator. Two unopened spare packs is £40 or £50 you will not get back.
3. Clear the room and lift the carpet yourself. That removes the carpet-removal line and often a half day from the fitter’s quote.
4. Ask for the fitting quote per m² and per day, then pick. On a small room the day rate can be dearer; on a large open room it can be cheaper.
5. Lay the straightforward rooms yourself. Click laminate on a flat subfloor is a weekend job for a careful first-timer. Leave hallways, herringbone and uneven floors to a fitter.
6. Price the underlay with the boards. The board’s guarantee names the underlay it needs; a fitter’s own stock may cost more than buying it alongside the flooring.
7. Get three written quotes that list the extras. A quote that only says “supply and fit” leaves you to find out about door trimming on the day.

Frequently asked questions

How much does laminate flooring cost per m² in the UK?

Boards, fitting and underlay each have their own range, and the opening table gives all three with sources. For a quick figure, use the supplied-and-fitted average in that table and check it against three quotes.

How much does it cost to lay laminate flooring?

Fitters quote per square metre or per day, and the fitting table above gives both ranges with sources. The worked-example table shows what the mid rate comes to on a box room, a living room, a kitchen-diner and a whole house, before underlay, levelling or door trimming.

Is laminate cheaper than carpet?

Sometimes. A basic carpet costs less per m² than any laminate, and a mid-range carpet costs about the same as a mid-range laminate. Fitting rates differ too, so price both for the same room before you decide.

Can I lay laminate flooring myself to save money?

Yes. Click laminate on a flat subfloor needs a saw, a tapping block, spacers and a day or two. Fitting is the single largest saving on the bill. Hallways, herringbone and uneven floors are where a fitter earns the money.

Does laminate flooring add value to a house?

A clean, modern floor makes a house easier to sell and photograph. There is no reliable figure for how much it adds to the price, so treat it as a cost you recover in a quicker sale rather than a higher one.

What is the cheapest laminate flooring?

Thin 7 mm boards rated AC3 are the cheapest on the market and sit at the bottom of the budget band in the price table. They suit a spare room or a rental. For a hallway or living room, the step up from AC3 to AC4 is the one most worth paying for.

How much would 100 m² of laminate flooring cost?

On the room table’s assumptions (boards £15 per m², underlay £5, 10% for cuts, fitting £20 per m²): boards £1,650, underlay £550, fitting £2,000. That is about £2,200 to lay yourself or £4,200 supplied and fitted, before door trimming, beading and levelling.

What is the downside of laminate flooring?

Water. Laminate is water-resistant for a stated number of hours, not waterproof, so a leak or a spill left overnight can swell the board. It also cannot be sanded and refinished like real wood; a damaged board is replaced. For a kitchen, a bathroom or a home with a puppy, price LVT alongside it.

Sources

• Checkatrade, What’s the cost of installing laminate flooring: board, fitting and day-rate ranges
• MyBuilder, Laminate flooring cost guide: fitting, underlay fitting, levelling, carpet removal, door trimming, herringbone day rate
• MyBuilder, Laminate floor fitter costs
• Homebuilding & Renovating, Cost to lay laminate flooring: underlay supply range
• Checkatrade, LVT flooring cost and Checkatrade, Wooden flooring cost: comparison table
• BS EN 13329:2023, Laminate floor coverings (BSI Knowledge): AC wear classes
• AGT Flooring, Frequently asked questions: 24-hour and 72-hour water resistance by collection
• Fantastic Services, Flooring cost guides: supplied-and-fitted range and the London and South East premium
• r/DIYUK, What’s a reasonable price for a laminate flooring installation?: fitters’ own per-m² quotes by region
• ZDoors, AGT Pamir Wood Effect Laminate, Technical Information: pack coverage quoted in the text