TL;DR: An interior decoration company in Dubai styles and finishes a space that is already built: paint, wallpaper, curtains, furniture, lighting and decor, without moving walls. Budget roughly AED 10,000–25,000 for a studio and AED 80,000–250,000+ for a villa, over 40–60 days. Design firms plan the structure; decorators dress it.
What an interior decoration company actually does
Decoration is the finish layer. The company sources and installs the things you see and touch once the building work is done: wall finishes, flooring dressing, window treatments, soft furnishings, furniture, rugs, lighting fixtures and accessories. There is no wall-moving, no re-routing of plumbing, no structural drawing set. That distinction matters in Dubai, because the moment a project touches partitions, MEP or the facade, you cross into fit-out territory that needs a permit from the developer or master community.
Plenty of owners use "decoration" and "design" as if they mean the same job. They don't, and the gap shows up in your quote, your timeline and whether you need approvals at all. A design company (or interior architect) produces the concept, space planning, technical drawings and specifications. An interior decoration company takes a space that already works and makes it look intentional and finished. We often do both under one contract, but the scope, the deliverables and the money behind each are different.
| | Interior decoration | Interior design |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Style and dress an existing space | Plan and re-shape the space |
| Touches structure/MEP | No | Often yes |
| Typical deliverables | Mood boards, FF&E, curtains, styling | Layouts, technical drawings, specs |
| Permit from community | Usually not needed | Frequently needed |
| Rough cost | AED 100–200/sqm decoration-only | From AED 10,000 for a design set |
| Best when | Layout works, look is tired | Layout itself needs to change |
If you already know the walls are staying put and you just want the place to look finished, decoration is the shorter, cheaper route. If you're unsure whether the layout needs to change first, read our companion piece, interior design contractors in Dubai and what they cost, before you commit to either scope.
Where to start: send a few photos of the space and tell us whether the layout stays. That one answer decides everything else.
What sits inside a decoration package
A full decoration scope in Dubai usually covers wall and ceiling finishes, flooring dressing over the existing floor, window treatments, the furniture package, lighting, and the styling layer that ties it together. Soft furnishings do a lot of the visible work here: curtains, sheers, blinds, upholstery, cushions, bed dressing and rugs. Fabric choice is also where the AED climbs, because imported European textiles and made-to-measure curtains carry both a longer lead time and a heftier line item than off-the-shelf.
The parts most people underestimate are furniture and lighting. A sofa, dining set, beds and casegoods for a two-bed apartment run into serious money before you've hung a single picture. Imported pieces from Italy or the wider EU add 30 to 90 days of shipping on top. Lighting is the cheap lever that punches above its price: swapping fixtures, adding dimmers and layering warm sources changes a room more than another coat of paint.
A typical package includes:
- Wall and ceiling finishes: paint, wallpaper, decorative panels, feature walls
- Window treatments: curtains, sheers, roller and Roman blinds, motorised tracks
- Soft furnishings: upholstery, cushions, throws, bed linen, rugs
- Furniture: sourcing, procurement and installation of the FF&E package
- Lighting: fixtures, lamps, dimming, warm layered sources
- Decor and styling: art, mirrors, plants, accessories, the final placement day
One honest caveat: if you're decorating a rental to let, don't over-import. Off-the-shelf furniture with sharp styling photographs almost as well and pays back faster than a fully bespoke fit. We'll say that on the call rather than after the invoice.
Next: decide which of these lines you actually want us to run, and which you'll keep in-house.
Cost range in Dubai by home type
Decoration cost tracks the size of the space and how much of it is furniture and imported fabric versus finishes and styling. As a rough band, a decoration-only scope runs around AED 100–200 per square metre for the styling and finish labour, before the furniture and materials themselves. Treat the numbers below as market orientation, not a fixed DOMECO rate card; the real figure depends on how much furniture is new, how much is imported, and how bespoke the soft furnishings get.
| Home type | Typical decoration budget (AED) |
|---|---|
| Studio apartment | 10,000 – 25,000 |
| 1–2 bedroom apartment | 25,000 – 120,000 |
| 3–5 bedroom villa | 80,000 – 250,000+ |
The spread inside each band is mostly furniture and fabric. A one-bed styled with a mix of retail furniture and local curtains sits near the bottom; the same flat with imported Italian seating, motorised sheers and made-to-measure upholstery sits near the top. Add VAT at 5% on top of every quote in the UAE, and remember that imported materials carry shipping and, in some cases, customs on the way in.
Our quote is fixed by contract with no add-ons once work starts, and we back the job with a one-year warranty. How we structure a fixed decoration and fit-out quote is set out in our design and fit-out services.
Before you sign: get the furniture allowance broken out as its own line. That's where quotes quietly differ.
How to choose one you can trust
Three checks separate a real interior decoration company from a WhatsApp middleman: a valid licence, a portfolio you can verify, and a contract that fixes price and dates. Take them in that order.
First, the licence. A legitimate decoration or fit-out company holds a DED trade licence with the right activity, and for anything that touches fit-out, an approval trail with the community management office. Ask for the trade licence number and check it before paying a deposit. A decorator who only styles and supplies furniture needs less paperwork than a fit-out contractor, but they should still be a registered LLC with a verifiable entity number, not a personal account.
We operate as Domeco Design and Fit Out LLC, licensed for both interior fit-out and decoration work. If you shortlist other firms, apply the same test: find their company name in the DED register and confirm the licence activity covers what you're asking them to do.
Second, the portfolio. Photos are easy to borrow, so ask which projects the company actually delivered and where. We can point to real Dubai work: apartments across the Address Dubai Creek and Bluewaters, villas in The Meadows, and commercial fit-outs at Dubai Hills Mall, City Walk and Platinum Tower JLT. Ask any shortlisted firm the same and expect specific buildings, not stock renders.
Third, the contract. It should name the full FF&E and finishes list, the fixed price, the payment schedule, the completion date and a penalty for overrun. We fix the quote by contract, charge no add-ons after the start, and pay a percentage for every day past the agreed deadline. If a decorator can't cap import lead times in writing, treat the timeline as optimistic.
Your move: shortlist two or three firms, ask all of them for the trade licence number and a fixed-price contract, and compare like for like.
Where decoration jobs cluster in Dubai
Decoration demand concentrates in the communities where handover-ready homes need dressing rather than rebuilding: Downtown, Business Bay, Palm Jumeirah, Emirates Hills and the villa communities like The Meadows. New off-plan handovers across Business Bay and the Creek feed a steady flow of "the layout is fine, make it look finished" jobs, which is exactly the brief a good interior decoration company is built for.
Season matters more than owners expect. Winter, roughly November to March, is the high season, and good decorators book out; import lead times stack on top of an already busy calendar. Ramadan runs slower, with reduced site hours and delivery delays, so if you want a place styled before winter guests arrive, order fabric and furniture in early autumn. Building the sourcing window into the plan is the difference between 45 days and a scramble.
Next step: if your handover is coming, lock a decoration slot before the winter rush closes it.
Common mistakes owners make
The expensive errors are nearly always about sequence and sourcing, not taste. People buy furniture before the styling plan exists, then discover the sofa is the wrong scale for the wall it faces. Others under-budget the furniture line, treating decoration as "just paint and curtains" until the FF&E quote lands. And plenty forget that imported pieces don't arrive on Dubai time.
The three that cost the most money:
- 1. Buying furniture before the layout and styling plan is agreed
- 2. Under-budgeting the FF&E line and treating decor as an afterthought
- 3. Ordering imported fabric or furniture with no lead-time buffer
There's a fourth, quieter one: over-decorating a rental. If the property is going out to let, the market rewards clean, durable, well-styled retail furniture over a bespoke import that a tenant will scuff in a year. Match the spend to the exit, not to a Pinterest board.
Timeline: how long decoration takes
A decoration-only project in Dubai typically runs 40 to 60 days from sign-off to styling day. The single biggest variable is sourcing: 14 to 30 days for furniture and fabric that's available locally or on short import, and considerably longer for made-to-measure European pieces. The styling and installation itself is fast once everything is on site; it's the waiting for deliveries that sets the clock.
A workable sequence looks like this: concept and FF&E selection in the first week or two, procurement and lead-time management across the following four to six weeks, then a short installation and styling window at the end. Fixing that sourcing schedule in the contract is how we keep a decoration project honest, the same way we fix dates on renovation work. See our Dubai projects for the finish standard, or go straight to get a fixed-price decoration quote.
FAQ
What's the difference between an interior decoration and an interior design company?
A decoration company styles and finishes a space that's already built: paint, curtains, furniture, lighting and decor, with no wall-moving. A design company plans and re-shapes the space, producing layouts and technical drawings, and often needs a permit. If your layout stays, you want decoration; if it needs to change, start with design.
How much does interior decoration cost in Dubai?
As a market band, expect roughly AED 10,000–25,000 for a studio, AED 25,000–120,000 for a one to two-bed apartment, and AED 80,000–250,000+ for a three to five-bed villa. Decoration-only labour runs around AED 100–200 per square metre. Add 5% VAT, and remember furniture and imported fabric drive most of the spread.
Does an interior decoration company need a licence in Dubai?
Yes. A legitimate firm holds a DED trade licence with the correct activity and operates as a registered LLC, not a personal account. Anything crossing into fit-out also needs approval from the developer or community management office. Ask for the trade licence number and verify it before you pay a deposit.
Can a decoration company do structural changes?
No, not under a decoration scope. Moving walls, altering plumbing or electrical routing, or changing the facade is fit-out work that requires drawings and a community permit. If your project needs that, it's a design-and-fit-out contract, not decoration. We handle both, but we scope and price them separately.
How long do imported materials take to arrive?
Locally available or short-import furniture and fabric usually land within 14 to 30 days. Made-to-measure European pieces from Italy or the wider EU can add 30 to 90 days on top. Order early, especially before the winter high season, and make sure lead times are written into the contract rather than promised verbally.