How Much Should a Hotel Spend on Maintenance?

Historically, US hotels have spent roughly 4.5% to 5% of total revenue on property operation and maintenance (POM). PKF Hospitality Research put the long-term average since 1960 at 4.5% and the 2005 figure at 5.0% (PKF via Hospitality Net). That ratio jumped to 8.2% in 2020, when revenue collapsed faster than maintenance could be cut (CBRE via Lodging Magazine). Use the long-run range as a sanity check, not a target. The right 2027 number for your hotel comes from your own work order history, your building's age, and your contracts. Here's how to build it.

What counts as hotel maintenance spend (POM)

In hotel accounting, the maintenance department line is called property operation and maintenance, or POM. CBRE's research team groups POM spending into three buckets (Hospitality Net, Oct 2022):

Labor and related costs: your maintenance and engineering staff, including payroll taxes and benefits.
Contract services: outside vendors such as pest control, elevator maintenance, waste removal, landscaping, and life-safety system inspections.
Maintenance expenses: parts, supplies, and equipment for routine upkeep.

What POM does not include: capital expenditures for major renovations, property improvement plans (PIPs), and equipment large enough to capitalize. Those come out of your capital budget or FF&E reserve. Keeping the two separate is the first thing an owner or lender will check.

The benchmarks, and how old they are

These are the published figures we could verify. All are US data.

Benchmark	Figure	Source and year
POM as % of total revenue, long-term average	4.5%	PKF, average since 1960 (published 2006)
POM as % of total revenue	5.0%	PKF, 2005 data
POM % of revenue, convention vs limited-service	4.7% vs 5.5%	PKF, 2005 data
POM per available room, limited-service	$1,017	PKF, 2005 data
POM per available room, resorts	$4,608	PKF, 2005 data
Labor share of POM	49.7%	PKF, 2005 data
Labor share of POM	~50%	CBRE, 2015–2021 average
POM as % of total revenue in 2020	8.2%	CBRE, 2020 data
POM expense change	+5.9% in 2021, +5.0% through May 2022	CBRE

Two things to notice:

The per-room dollar figures are nearly 20 years old. Use them to compare segments (resorts spend several times more per room than limited-service hotels), not as a 2027 dollar target. Wages and parts have both risen a lot since 2005.
The 2020 spike is a revenue effect. POM spending was cut 30.8% that year, but revenue fell much further, so the ratio jumped. A high POM ratio in a bad revenue year doesn't mean maintenance was overspending.

You'll also see vendor blogs quote ranges like "8–12% of revenue" or "3–7%". We couldn't trace those to published data, so we left them out. For current segment benchmarks, CBRE's Trends in the Hotel Industry and HotStats are the primary sources, and both are paid.

How to build a 2027 hotel maintenance budget

Start from what actually happened at your property this year, then adjust. A ratio from someone else's hotel is only the last step, as a sanity check.

Step 1: Pull 12 months of work orders

Export or count every maintenance task from the last 12 months by category: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, furniture, appliances, and so on. You're looking for three things:

Volume by category, which tells you where labor time goes.
Repeat jobs in the same room, which point to a replacement that's cheaper than another year of repairs.
Whether the backlog grew. If more tasks were created than completed, your current spend wasn't keeping up, and holding it flat for 2027 means falling further behind.

If your work orders live in a paper log or a spreadsheet, this step is where you'll feel it. See work order software vs spreadsheets for the trade-offs.

Step 2: Budget labor first

Labor has been about half of POM in both the PKF and CBRE data, so get this line right before anything else. Include:

Current maintenance payroll plus scheduled raises.
Overtime from this year. If it was high, decide whether to keep paying it or hire.
On-call or after-hours coverage, especially for winter (see the winter maintenance checklist).

Step 3: List every service contract

Go through your vendor list and write down the 2027 price for each: pest control, elevator, fire and life safety inspections, HVAC service, landscaping and snow removal, waste, pool. Ask vendors for 2027 pricing now. Most send renewal increases in December or January, after budgets are locked.

Step 4: Estimate parts and supplies from history

Use your actual 2026 supply spend by category, adjusted for any jobs you know are coming. Then add your preventive maintenance consumables: filters, lamps, batteries, belts, and pool chemicals. A preventive maintenance checklist with quantities makes this a count rather than a guess.

Step 5: Separate repairs from capital

For each big-ticket item from Step 1 (the boiler that needed three service calls, the PTACs failing on one floor), decide whether it's a repair (POM) or a replacement (capital). Moving a recurring failure into the capital plan often lowers next year's POM.

Step 6: Sanity-check against the benchmarks

Divide your draft POM budget by forecast total revenue. If you land far outside the historical 4.5–5% range, that's not automatically wrong. Older buildings, resorts, and full-service hotels run higher. But be ready to explain why.

Budget line checklist

How to get the budget approved

Owners approve numbers they can trace. Three habits help:

Show the backlog trend, not just the total. A chart of tasks created vs. completed per month makes the case for more labor much better than "we're busy." We wrote up how one owner spotted a problem from that chart.
Name the repeat offenders. "Room 214's drain: four calls this year. Replacing the line is cheaper than a fifth" is an easy yes.
Tie preventive maintenance to things owners care about: rooms back in inventory, fewer emergency call-out fees, and equipment lasting longer.

FAQ

What percentage of revenue should a hotel spend on maintenance?

Historically about 4.5% to 5% of total revenue in the US, based on PKF data going back to 1960. The ratio swings with revenue (it hit 8.2% in 2020), and older, full-service, and resort properties tend to run higher. Build your budget from your own work order history and use the ratio as a sanity check.

What is POM in a hotel?

Property operation and maintenance: the hotel department that covers maintenance labor, outside service contracts, and parts and supplies for routine upkeep. Major renovations and capital replacements are budgeted separately.

How much of a hotel maintenance budget is labor?

About half. PKF found labor was 49.7% of POM expenses in 2005, and CBRE found it averaged around 50% from 2015 to 2021.

Is the FF&E reserve part of the maintenance budget?

No. The FF&E (furniture, fixtures, and equipment) reserve funds capital replacements and is tracked separately from POM. Keep replacements out of your maintenance line so the two are easy to compare year over year.

How do I estimate maintenance costs for a small hotel with no history?

Start with labor (who will do the work, and for how many hours) and get quotes for every service contract. Then track every work order from day one, so next year's budget is based on real data rather than estimates.

Start 2027 with real numbers

The hardest part of a maintenance budget is not having the data: how many jobs, in which rooms, and whether the team kept up. StayServ logs every work order with its room, category, and assignee. Its dashboard charts tasks created vs. completed each month, so next year's budget starts from your own history. Click through it in the free interactive demo with no signup. The Standard plan is a flat $29 USD per property per month (up to 200 rooms) with unlimited users.