Fit-out cost per square foot in Dubai: the 2026 bands

Most owners get a single number on one page and no way to audit it. The rate itself is easy to quote and almost impossible to compare, because two contractors quoting "AED 450 per square foot" can be pricing scopes that differ by a third. Five line items sit inside a defensible rate, the authorities take their own cut on top of it, and a quiet 10% usually hides outside the quote altogether. If you need the vocabulary first (shell and core, Cat A, Cat B, turnkey), that sits in our Dubai fit-out guide.

What the per-square-foot number actually includes

A defensible fit-out rate covers five things: design and drawings, authority approvals, civil works and finishes, MEP, and commissioning with snagging. What it usually excludes is loose furniture, IT hardware, signage above the shopfront line, and your own contingency.

That exclusion list is where the arguments start. FF&E on a corporate office commonly adds 10–20% on top of the construction rate, and on an F&B venue the kitchen equipment package can rival the entire civil works line. Ask for the rate with FF&E stated separately, then compare.

One habit worth adopting before you read any table: convert. Dubai contractors quote in both square feet and square metres, and 1 m² is 10.76 sqft. Our own residential benchmarks run from AED 1,500/m² for cosmetic work and AED 3,000/m² for capital renovation, with turnkey at AED 8,500–16,000/m². In square feet that is roughly AED 140, AED 280, and AED 790–1,490. When a quote looks 10x cheaper than another, check the unit before you check the contractor.

Fit-out cost per square foot in Dubai: the 2026 bands

These are market bands we see in Dubai, not a DOMECO rate card. Your real figure depends on the base you inherit, the finish schedule and the building.

| Fit-out category | AED/sqft | AED/m² | What sits in it |

|---|---|---|---|

| Category A (landlord base) | 220–450 | 2,370–4,840 | Raised floors, ceilings, lighting grid, HVAC distribution, fire and life-safety |

| Category B, standard | 280–600 | 3,010–6,460 | Partitions, meeting rooms, pantry, joinery, final lighting, floor finishes |

| Premium | 600–900 | 6,460–9,690 | Bespoke joinery, stone, acoustic glazing, feature lighting, controls |

| Luxury turnkey | 900–1,500+ | 9,690–16,150+ | Imported finishes, custom metalwork, integrated AV and smart systems, FF&E |

By space type the picture shifts, because services drive cost more than aesthetics do.

| Space type | Standard (AED/sqft) | Premium (AED/sqft) |

|---|---|---|

| Office | 350–550 | 600–1,500 |

| Retail (in-line unit) | 350–550 | 800–1,800+ |

| F&B | 500–750 | 800–2,000+ |

| Warehouse / light industrial | 75–150 | 200–400 |

F&B sits at the top for reasons that have nothing to do with taste: extraction, grease traps, gas approval, drainage falls, and a Civil Defence scope that a shirt shop never touches. A 1,200 sqft café can carry more engineering than a 4,000 sqft office.

Where the money goes: a budget waterfall for a 3,000 sqft office

Take a 3,000 sqft office at AED 450/sqft. Total construction budget: AED 1,350,000. Here is how that splits in practice.

| Phase | Share | AED on this example |

|---|---|---|

| Design, drawings, coordination | 8–12% | 108,000–162,000 |

| Approvals, NOCs, consultant submissions | 3–5% | 40,500–67,500 |

| Civil works, partitions, ceilings, floors, joinery, finishes | 45–55% | 607,500–742,500 |

| MEP | 30–35% | 405,000–472,500 |

| Testing, commissioning, snagging, handover | 2–3% | 27,000–40,500 |

Two things fall outside this table. Loose furniture, which you should price as its own package. And contingency, which belongs to you rather than to the contractor.

Now the number nobody puts on the proposal. Amortise AED 1,350,000 across a five-year lease and it is AED 270,000 a year, or AED 90/sqft/year on top of your rent. If you have three years left on the lease, the same spend costs AED 150/sqft/year, and a AED 900/sqft luxury specification stops making commercial sense. Match the spend to the lease term before you match it to the mood board.

Shell and core, Cat A, or a fitted unit: the real delta

The starting condition of your unit moves the budget more than any other single decision, and it is written into your lease rather than your design brief.

| You are starting from | What exists | What you still pay (AED/sqft) |

|---|---|---|

| Shell and core | Concrete slab, external envelope, services capped at the boundary | 350–700 |

| Category A | Floors, ceilings, lighting grid, HVAC distribution, life-safety | 280–600 |

| Fitted / second-generation unit | Previous occupier's layout and services | 150–400, plus strip-out |

Strip-out is the line owners forget. Removing a previous tenant's partitions, ceilings, flooring and dead MEP with licensed disposal typically adds AED 20–50/sqft, and it happens before a single new thing is installed.

A second-generation unit is not automatically cheaper, either. If the previous layout fights your plan, you pay to demolish work someone else paid to build, and you still inherit their MEP compromises above the ceiling. Get a services survey before you sign a lease on a fitted unit. Half a day with an MEP engineer has saved clients of ours six figures.

MEP: why a third of your budget lives above the ceiling

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing typically takes 30–40% of a standard office fit-out and 45–55% on F&B. In per-square-foot terms that is roughly AED 80–200/sqft on most commercial work, more when a kitchen or a data room is involved.

MEP covers chilled water or DX distribution, ducting and diffusers, extraction, electrical containment and small power, lighting circuits, fire alarm and sprinkler modification, drainage, and data cabling. All of it is invisible on handover day. All of it is expensive to reach afterwards.

This is why a quote that undercuts the field by 30% is almost always thin in MEP. Ask for the MEP line broken out separately, with the AC tonnage, the sprinkler head count and the distribution board schedule stated. If the contractor cannot produce those numbers, they have not priced the job. They have guessed it.

Approvals: what DM, DDA, Trakhees, DMCC, DCD and DEWA cost in time and money

Budget 3–5% of the construction value for approvals, and treat the timeline as a parallel workstream rather than a step. The figures below are the bands we see in the market, including the approved consultant who has to stamp and submit; every authority publishes its own tariff and revises it, so verify against your building before you commit a date.

| Gate | Covers | Typical time | Typical cost (AED) |

|---|---|---|---|

| Building management NOC | Access, working hours, service lift, contractor registration | 3–10 working days | 1,000–5,000 admin, plus a refundable deposit often 5,000–20,000 |

| Building permit (DM, Trakhees, DDA, DMCC or DIFC, by jurisdiction) | Architectural and structural fit-out drawings | 1–3 weeks | 3,000–15,000 with consultant fees |

| Dubai Civil Defence (DCD) | Fire alarm, sprinkler modification, escape routes, fire-rated materials, final inspection | 2–4 weeks plus inspection | 5,000–20,000 with consultant |

| DEWA | Load application, meter, energisation | 2–6 weeks | 2,000–10,000 plus connection charges |

Jurisdiction is the part people get wrong, and it is decided by the address rather than by your DED trade licence. Mainland Dubai routes through Dubai Municipality. Palm Jumeirah, Discovery Gardens and other Nakheel-developed areas route through Trakhees. TECOM communities including Dubai Design District and Media City sit under DDA. JLT works go through DMCC, and DIFC runs its own building control.

Submitting a valid drawing set to the wrong authority costs four to six weeks and the consultant fee twice. We confirm the jurisdiction and the building management rules before design closes, and the approvals window is written into the programme rather than discovered inside it. How the scope, price and dates are fixed by contract is set out in our services.

Location: what changes between Business Bay, DIFC, a free zone and a mall

The district premium is real, and it is made of logistics and rules rather than postcode markup.

• Business Bay and mainland towers: baseline. DM jurisdiction, standard working hours, service lift booking.
• Downtown and prime residential towers: add roughly 5–10% for restricted delivery windows, night-only material movement and stricter noise rules.
• DIFC: add roughly 10–20%. Own building control, security clearance for crews, and a shorter list of contractors cleared to work in the district.
• Free zones (DMCC, DDA, Trakhees areas): budget the deposit, the registration and the approved-contractor requirement before you compare rates.
• Malls: add 15–25%. Mall units are typically fitted at night around trading hours, MEP tie-ins go through landlord-appointed specialists, and hoarding and access charges are the landlord's, not yours to negotiate.

We fitted a 135 sqm dates-and-sweets boutique in Dubai Hills Mall on a landlord-set night-works schedule, and an office in JLT that answered to DMCC rather than Dubai Municipality. The rate per square foot on those two jobs looked nothing alike, and neither did the reason. Completed work in each of these conditions is in our Dubai projects.

Timeline, hidden costs and the contingency you should hold

A standard office fit-out runs 8–12 weeks on site. Premium and heavy-MEP work runs 16 weeks or more, plus the approvals window in front of it. Compressing that schedule with night shifts and double crews is possible, and it usually adds 10–20% to labour.

Hold 5–10% of the construction value as your own contingency, separately from anything the contractor has priced. The things it covers are predictable in type even when they are not predictable in timing.

• Change orders. Every layout change after drawings are approved reprices procurement and the programme, so agree variation rates in the contract rather than mid-build.
• Snagging and rework, which is a real budget line rather than a formality.
• Long-lead procurement, since imported stone, glazing and joinery hardware commonly run 4–12 weeks.
• Summer conditions. From mid-June to mid-September the midday outdoor working ban and the humidity affect deliveries, screed curing and paint schedules, even on an indoor job.
• The Defects Liability Period. Twelve months is standard in Dubai, and it is worth confirming in writing what is covered. Our guarantee runs a year, and we carry a penalty per day for missing the agreed handover date.

How your contractor model moves the number

Three models dominate Dubai fit-out, and they price differently before anyone discusses finishes.

Direct trades, where you engage the joiner, the MEP contractor and the finisher yourself, looks cheapest on paper. It works on a small Cat B refresh in a clean unit. On anything with an approval route it usually costs more, because coordination gaps become variations and nobody owns the programme.

A main contractor with subcontractors adds preliminaries and overhead, commonly 12–20% on top of trade costs. You are buying a single site manager and a single accountable party for the schedule.

Turnkey design-and-build carries a coordination premium over that, and removes the gap between the drawing and the built thing. It is the model we run, with the estimate fixed in the contract and no additions after mobilisation.

Here is the honest version. If your unit has a good Cat A base, under 2,000 sqft, no MEP change and no DCD scope, a single competent contractor and a decent drawing set will serve you better than a turnkey contract. Turnkey earns its premium when approvals, MEP and bespoke joinery all have to land on the same date. When you want the whole chain priced against one drawing set, send us the floor plan and the lease terms.

FAQ

How much does a fit-out cost per square foot in Dubai in 2026?

Commercial fit-out runs AED 220–1,500+ per square foot. Category A base build sits at 220–450, standard Category B at 280–600, premium at 600–900, and luxury turnkey at 900–1,500+. Warehouse work starts far lower at 75–150. Treat these as market bands and price your own job against a drawing set.

What is the difference between CAT A, CAT B and premium fit-out?

Category A is the landlord's leasable base: floors, ceilings, lighting grid, HVAC distribution and life-safety systems. Category B is your layer on top, with partitions, joinery, branding and final finishes. Premium is a specification level rather than a stage, defined by bespoke joinery, imported stone and integrated controls.

What is shell and core versus fitted, and which costs more overall?

Shell and core is a bare structure with services capped at the boundary, and taking it to occupancy costs AED 350–700/sqft. A fitted second-generation unit needs AED 150–400/sqft plus AED 20–50/sqft of strip-out. Fitted is usually cheaper, unless the previous layout and MEP fight your plan.

What does MEP cost in a Dubai fit-out?

MEP typically runs AED 80–200/sqft, taking 30–40% of a standard office budget and 45–55% on F&B. It covers air conditioning distribution, extraction, electrical containment, fire alarm and sprinkler works, drainage and data. Ask for it as a separate line with AC tonnage and sprinkler counts stated.

How long does a fit-out take, and does the timeline change the price?

A standard office takes 8–12 weeks on site, premium or heavy-MEP work 16 weeks or more, plus 1–3 weeks per approving authority beforehand. Compression through night shifts and double crews typically adds 10–20% to labour. Long-lead imported materials at 4–12 weeks are the more common cause of delay.

Which approvals are needed and what do they cost?

Budget 3–5% of construction value. You need a building management NOC, a building permit from the authority with jurisdiction (DM, Trakhees, DDA, DMCC or DIFC), Dubai Civil Defence sign-off, and DEWA for load and energisation. With consultant fees, that commonly totals AED 10,000–50,000 on a mid-size commercial unit.

What hidden costs and contingency should I budget for?

Hold 5–10% as your own contingency. The usual absentees from a headline rate are strip-out and disposal, loose furniture at 10–20% on top, change orders, snagging, landlord deposits and access charges, and long-lead procurement. A quote with no contingency line is not a cheaper project, only a later argument.

How do fit-out costs vary by location in Dubai?

Business Bay and mainland towers are the baseline. Downtown adds around 5–10% for restricted delivery windows, DIFC 10–20% for its own building control and cleared contractor list, and mall units 15–25% because work runs at night and MEP tie-ins go through landlord-appointed specialists. The premium reflects access rules and logistics.