Furnishing a B&B costs roughly €3,500 to €12,000 per room, complete with textiles and lighting: around €3,500-6,000 for a basic tier, €6,000-9,000 for a mid tier, and over €9,000 for a boutique-style B&B. On top of these figures, you should add €5,000-15,000 for the breakfast room and common areas. For a three-room B&B, the realistic total budget starts at €16,000-20,000.
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The three budget tiers per room
The cost of a B&B room depends on three variables: the build quality of the furniture, how much is bespoke, and the level of the textiles. Combined, they produce three recognisable tiers on the Italian market in 2026.
Basic tier: €3,500-6,000 per room
Entry-level contract-grade furniture, a simple upholstered bed, a two-door wardrobe, a good-quality hotel mattress, and decent textiles. This is the starting point for a B&B that wants to feel professional without boutique ambitions: clean, solid, photogenic. Below this threshold, anyone looking for budget furnishing for a B&B should expect a shorter lifespan, fragile finishes and spare parts that are hard to source.
Mid tier: €6,000-9,000 per room
The tier where most quality B&Bs sit: a bespoke headboard, a wardrobe sized to the room, lighting designed across several points, coordinated textiles, and one statement piece. This is the level that holds up well in photo comparisons against competitors in tourist cities and leisure destinations.
Boutique tier: €9,000-15,000 per room
Extensive bespoke work, superior materials, statement panelling or wallpaper, a bathroom designed to match the room, and high-end textiles. This is the territory of B&Bs selling at €120-200 a night and competing with boutique hotels: here the furnishing is part of the product, not just a shell.
The item-by-item table
How is the budget split within a room? This table gives the indicative 2026 ranges for a mid-tier double room:
| Item | Indicative cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bed with headboard | €800-2,000 | The headboard is the room’s visual focal point |
| Mattress and base | €500-1,000 | Hotel-grade quality, built for intensive use |
| Wardrobe | €700-1,800 | Bespoke if the room is irregular |
| Bedside tables and chest of drawers | €400-900 | Coordinated with the bed |
| Desk or work surface | €200-600 | Increasingly requested by business travellers |
| Lighting | €300-800 | At least 3 light points, warm colour temperature |
| Curtains with blackout | €300-700 | Blackout isn’t optional |
| Textiles and linen (initial set) | €400-800 | Double full change of linen |
| Accessories and decoration | €200-600 | Mirror, artwork, rugs |
The total confirms the mid tier: €3,800-9,200 depending on the choices made. The item that should never be skimped on is the bed itself: mattress, base and pillows determine the quality of sleep, which is the substance of what a B&B is actually selling.
The bathroom and common areas
The room budget isn’t the whole project. A B&B also needs:
Bathrooms, first of all. If they’ve already been renovated, fitting them out costs on average €800-2,000 per bathroom for a washbasin unit, mirror cabinet, accessories and lighting; if they need to be rebuilt, that opens a whole separate chapter, from €4,000 to €8,000 per bathroom, and with the plumbing to redo, site time stretches by weeks. The breakfast room is worth roughly €4,000-10,000 for 15-20 covers, including tables, seating, a service unit and a buffet corner: it’s the space where guests spend their waking time, and in a B&B it weighs on reviews almost as much as the room itself.
Then there’s the entrance and corridors, €1,000-3,000 for signage, coat racks, mirrors and a few courtesy seats. This is the item that disappears from every initial quote and reappears right on schedule once the work is finished, when the property is ready and the only thing missing is the number on the door.
For a three-room B&B, the realistic overall total is therefore this: €16,000-22,000 for the basic tier, €26,000-36,000 for the mid tier, and over €40,000 for the boutique tier. Per-room budgets for a B&B remain far more contained than those needed to furnish a hotel, where specifications, quantities and category requirements push the per-room cost up.
B&B and hotel: why the budgets don’t match
B&B figures are lower than hotel ones, and not only because of quality: the requirements are different. A hotel deals with dozens of identical rooms, specifications, and strict fire safety regulations above certain bed-count thresholds; a B&B deals with just a few rooms, often inside a historic house with irregular walls, alcoves and varying ceiling heights. This has two practical consequences:
Across three rooms that are all different from each other, fixed-size furniture wastes space in every one of them, and it wastes it exactly where it costs most, in a property that has few rooms and can’t afford dead square metres. Bespoke furniture recovers those centimetres and turns constraints, an alcove, a sloped ceiling, into character. From this follows everything else: a B&B’s rooms shouldn’t look alike. Guests choose their room from photographs, and three rooms with three coherent but distinct personalities sell better than three clones. Standardisation is a tool for whoever runs fifty rooms to the same specification, not for whoever has three inside a historic house.
This is exactly the kind of project we take on as a contract partner: active for over fifty years, we design bespoke rooms in-house and produce them through a supply chain of selected Italian workshops, with a single point of contact from survey to installation. Solutions specific to these properties are gathered on the page about bespoke furniture for B&Bs.
Depreciation and grants: the real cost
The purchase price isn’t the true cost: for an accommodation business, furniture is an investment that can be deducted and spread over time.
For those running the business as a company, furniture and fittings are depreciated at standard rates of around 10-15% a year, so over 7-10 years: a €30,000 investment generates deductible amounts of €3,000-4,500 a year. Rates, rules and special cases are covered in the guide on how hotel furniture depreciation works, and it’s worth checking before deciding how much to spend. Those operating on a casual basis, without a VAT number, can’t depreciate anything: it’s a factor to weigh when choosing the business structure, alongside the other requirements to work through when opening a B&B in 2026.
Then there are grants. Regions and chambers of commerce regularly publish calls for the upgrading of non-hotel accommodation businesses, with non-repayable grants that typically cover 30-50% of eligible costs, furniture included. It’s worth checking the calls active in your own region before placing orders, not after: almost all of them exclude invoices issued before the application, and on a full furnishing order, missing that detail can cost several thousand euros.
Looking at it over the furniture’s life cycle, the gap between tiers narrows: a basic room costing €4,500 and lasting 6 years costs €750 a year; a mid-tier room costing €7,500 and lasting 12 years costs €625 a year, and in the meantime it sells at higher rates.
How long furniture lasts and when to renew
Well-chosen contract furniture lasts 10-15 years; textiles and mattresses much less. The practical schedule to keep on the calendar: linen every 2-3 years, curtains and bedspreads every 4-6, mattresses every 7-8, furniture whenever its appearance starts to weigh on photos and scores. The warning sign isn’t a broken piece of furniture but a review that mentions a “dated” property: by that point, the rate is already dropping. A countryside B&B tends to work with budgets and positioning close to how much it costs to furnish an agriturismo, where exposed wood and reclaimed pieces matter more than lacquered finishes.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to furnish a room with a bathroom?
A complete room costs roughly €3,500-6,000 for the basic tier, €6,000-9,000 for the mid tier and over €9,000 for the boutique tier, textiles and lighting included. Fitting out the bathroom, with a washbasin unit, mirror, lighting and accessories, adds on average €800-2,000 if the tiling is already in place. With a full bathroom renovation, add €4,000-8,000.
Can B&B furniture be depreciated?
Yes, if the B&B is run as a company with a VAT number: furniture and fittings are depreciated at standard rates of around 10-15% a year, deducting the amount from income over 7-10 years. Those operating on a casual, non-business basis can’t depreciate anything. Many regions also offer non-repayable grants covering 30-50% of upgrade costs, furniture included.
How long does B&B furniture last?
Quality contract furniture lasts 10-15 years. Textiles have shorter cycles: linen every 2-3 years, curtains and bedspreads every 4-6, mattresses every 7-8. The time to renew comes when photos stop holding up against the competition or reviews start mentioning dated interiors: by then, the rate is already suffering.
Is it better to furnish all the rooms identically?
Not in a B&B. Guests choose their room from photographs, and three rooms with different but coherent personalities appeal to more tastes and justify differentiated rates. Consistency should be kept in the palette, material quality and textile level, while headboards, colours and accessories can vary from room to room. It’s the opposite of the hotel logic of a repeated standard room.
