Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A user equipment may determine parameters for congestion metrics based on a type for a channel access procedure associated with a sidelink transmission. The user equipment may determine a channel access procedure type for a sidelink channel transmission, and determine a limit for a channel occupancy (e.g., a channel occupancy ratio) based on the type. The user equipment may compare the channel occupancy with the limit to determine whether to transmit the sidelink channel transmission, based on whether the channel is available. In some aspects, the user equipment may additionally perform the channel access procedure (e.g., a listen before talk procedure) to determine whether to transmit the sidelink channel transmission. The user equipment may also perform channel measurements to obtain a congestion metric (e.g., a channel busy ratio) based on a threshold before transmitting the sidelink channel transmission.