What Are Acceptable Noise Levels in an Office?

There's no single acceptable noise level for every office. The right number depends on which standard you're checking against and what kind of space you're in, since a private office, an open floor, and a conference room don't share the same target.

Here's what WELL and ASHRAE set as acceptable thresholds, and why a level that's safe for your hearing can still be too loud for focused work.

What Noise Levels Does the WELL Building Standard Consider Acceptable?

WELL sets acceptable noise levels by space type, not as one flat number. Under WELL v2 feature S02 (Maximum Noise Levels), open areas for concentration get the most headroom of the three, since some ambient noise there helps mask distracting conversations rather than count against the space.

Areas built for conferencing, learning, or speaking get the strictest caps (even stricter than enclosed private offices) because the whole point of those rooms is understanding a speaker, and background noise competes directly with speech intelligibility there in a way it doesn't for heads-down concentration work.

L10 means the level a space exceeds only 10% of the time, not a hard ceiling the way "maximum" implies. Office noise isn't steady across a day - a short burst, like a call two desks over or a delivery cart passing through the hallway, can push a room well past its average without ever showing up if you're only checking that average. The L10 cap is designed to catch that kind of variability in a way that a single average dBA reading misses.

What Does ASHRAE Recommend for Office Noise?

ASHRAE also breaks its targets out by space type, and it uses three numbers per type of space instead of one. Open-plan offices get the loosest targets of the group, executive and private offices land in the same tighter tier as conference rooms, and teleconference rooms get the tightest target of all, since a live mic feed leaves the least room for background noise to interfere.

A single A-weighted decibel reading can hide a heavy low-frequency hum that still feels loud even when the meter shows an acceptable number, so ASHRAE pairs each of those dBA targets with two other checks:

• The NC (Noise Criteria), or the newer RC (Room Criteria), curve plots the sound level in each octave band against a reference curve, instead of averaging everything into one number, so it flags a rumbly or hissy spectrum that a flat dBA reading would average away.
• The dBC ceiling adds a separate C-weighted reading, which doesn't discount low frequencies the way dBA does, so it catches the low-frequency hum a dBA number would otherwise hide.

That's also why ASHRAE itself notes there's no accepted simple method yet for characterizing tones and fluctuations in a single figure. An office that reads "acceptable" on one metric can still fail on another.

It’s also important to note that ASHRAE doesn't set a general standard for total office noise the way WELL does. ASHRAE’s thresholds are design targets for the mechanical system alone, meaning how quiet the HVAC equipment should keep a room before anyone starts talking or working in it - not a cap on the room's overall noise once it's occupied.

That's why its number for open-plan offices reads lower than WELL's for the same room type: the two thresholds are optimizing for slightly different targets.

Is a Safe Noise Level Also a Comfortable One?

No, hearing safety and acoustic comfort use two different thresholds. OSHA sets an occupational exposure limit of 90 dBA over an 8-hour day, with action required at 85 dBA, and NIOSH recommends staying under 85 dBA. Both standards exist to prevent hearing damage, not to define a comfortable workday.

An office that never approaches OSHA's action level can still fail WELL's or ASHRAE's targets by a wide margin. A mid-50s dBA open-plan floor is nowhere near a hearing risk, but it's already loud enough to interrupt focused work, and OSHA/NIOSH compliance checks alone will never flag that.

How Do You Know If Your Office Actually Meets These Levels?

You have to measure it, continuously. None of these thresholds mean anything against a guess, and a one-time reading only confirms whether a space passes on the specific day and moment someone happened to check it.

That’s the difference between being acceptable on paper and being acceptable all day. A room can read 44 dBA when a consultant walks through with a handheld meter at 10:00 am and still spend the 2:00 pm stretch well above the WELL open-plan target once a call starts two desks over.

You can't fix, or even verify, what you don't measure continuously, which is why continuous sound monitoring rather than a single spot check is what actually tells you whether a space holds its target over a real workday.

The same logic applies to all aspects of indoor environmental quality (IEQ), including indoor air quality, light, and thermal comfort. You have to measure first to know how your space is performing and, if there are gaps, how to close them.

Learn More About Meeting Acceptable Noise Levels in Your Office

Want to know how your office is performing acoustically? Connect with an IEQ expert on our team today to learn more about measuring sound in your office and creating a targeted, data-backed plan to achieve and maintain acoustic comfort day in and day out.