Unlike brittle tiles made of minerals, resilient flooring is made of material that has some elasticity, giving the flooring a degree of flexibility called resilience. The flooring is available in large sheets or pre-cut tiles, and either comes with pre-applied adhesive for peel-and-stick installation or requires adhesive to be troweled on to the substrate.

Resilient flooring includes many different manufactured products including linoleum, sheet vinyl, vinyl composition tile (VCT), cork (sheet or tile), and rubber. Performance surfaces used for dance or athletics are usually made of wood or resilient flooring. 

Many different seamless flooring materials are available. These are usually latex, polyester, urethane or epoxy compounds which are applied in liquid form to provide a completely seamless floor covering. These are usually found in wet areas such as laboratories or food processing plants. These may have granular or rubberized particles added to give better traction.