We give an explicit formula for the motivic zeta function in terms of a log smooth model. It generalizes the classical formulas for snc-models, but it gives rise to much fewer candidate poles, in general. This formula plays an essential role in recent work on motivic zeta functions of degenerating Calabi–Yau varieties by the second-named author and his collaborators. As a further illustration, we explain how the formula for Newton non-degenerate polynomials can be viewed as a special case of our results.