diff --git a/tests/v1/metrics/test_perf_metrics.py b/tests/v1/metrics/test_perf_metrics.py
index 3868cc772e..c0997ec459 100644
--- a/tests/v1/metrics/test_perf_metrics.py
+++ b/tests/v1/metrics/test_perf_metrics.py
@@ -133,7 +133,56 @@ def test_base_config_parser():
     assert result.num_attention_heads == 16
     assert result.num_hidden_layers == 24
     assert result.weight_byte_size == 2  # float16 is 2 bytes
-    assert result.activation_byte_size == 2  # default activation size
+    assert result.activation_byte_size == 2  # float16 activations are 2 bytes
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "model_dtype,expected_byte_size",
+    [("float16", 2), ("bfloat16", 2), ("float32", 4)],
+)
+def test_base_config_parser_activation_byte_size_follows_dtype(
+    model_dtype: str, expected_byte_size: int
+):
+    """Activation traffic is sized from the model's compute dtype.
+
+    Activations are produced in the model dtype, so pinning them to 2 bytes
+    under-reported memory traffic by half for a float32 model while that same
+    model's weight traffic was sized correctly.
+    """
+    hf_config = Qwen3Config(
+        hidden_size=2048,
+        num_attention_heads=16,
+        num_hidden_layers=24,
+    )
+    vllm_config = create_mock_vllm_config(hf_config, model_dtype=model_dtype)
+
+    result = BaseConfigParser().parse(ParsedArgs(), vllm_config)
+
+    assert result.activation_byte_size == expected_byte_size
+    assert result.weight_byte_size == expected_byte_size
+
+
+def test_attention_read_bytes_scale_with_activation_dtype():
+    """A float32 model reads twice the activation bytes of a bfloat16 one."""
+    hf_config = Qwen3Config(
+        hidden_size=2048,
+        num_attention_heads=16,
+        num_key_value_heads=16,
+        num_hidden_layers=4,
+    )
+    ctx = ExecutionContext.from_single_request(
+        num_tokens=128, context_len=128, is_prefill=True
+    )
+
+    bf16 = AttentionMetrics.from_vllm_config(
+        create_mock_vllm_config(hf_config, model_dtype="bfloat16")
+    ).get_read_bytes_breakdown(ctx)
+    fp32 = AttentionMetrics.from_vllm_config(
+        create_mock_vllm_config(hf_config, model_dtype="float32")
+    ).get_read_bytes_breakdown(ctx)
+
+    # qkv_input is pure activation traffic, so it doubles exactly.
+    assert fp32["qkv_input"] == 2 * bf16["qkv_input"]
 
 
 def test_base_attention_config_parser_with_gqa():
diff --git a/vllm/v1/metrics/perf.py b/vllm/v1/metrics/perf.py
index dd046a8250..1cd8fa79f1 100644
--- a/vllm/v1/metrics/perf.py
+++ b/vllm/v1/metrics/perf.py
@@ -369,9 +369,10 @@ class BaseConfigParser(Parser):
 
         args.weight_byte_size = get_dtype_size(torch_dtype)
 
-        # FIXME: handle this better by parsing whether activations use
-        # bf16, fp32, etc...
-        args.activation_byte_size = 2
+        # Activations are produced in the model's compute dtype. Quantization
+        # overrides weight_byte_size below but leaves activations alone, so
+        # this stays keyed on the model dtype.
+        args.activation_byte_size = get_dtype_size(torch_dtype)
 
         args.dp_size = vllm_config.parallel_config.data_parallel_size
         args.tp_size = vllm_config.parallel_config.tensor_parallel_size