What office fit-out costs in Cyprus in 2026

The short answer

Office fit-out in Cyprus is published between €350 and €950 per square metre, with a median near €560, for a Category B fit-out including services. On a 300 m² floor that is a range from roughly €105,000 to €285,000, with the middle of the band landing near €168,000. Almost none of that spread is contractor margin. It is the difference between relining and recabling an office that already works, and building meeting rooms, a comms room and a cooling system into a shell that has none of them.

Two occupiers taking identical 400 m² floors in the same district can receive quotes a factor of two apart, and the reason is almost always what the landlord handed over rather than what the tenant asked for. For a wider frame, commercial interior work taken from shell to occupied is published at €420 to €1,150 per square metre across all commercial uses; office work sits low in that category because it carries no kitchen extraction, no cold rooms and no shopfront.

Two consequences follow. A rate quoted without a stated starting condition cannot be compared against another. And the cheapest route to a working office in Cyprus is frequently not the cheapest rate per square metre — it is the building that needs least done to it.

What drives the range

What the landlord handed over. The largest single variable. A newer Limassol office building typically hands over closer to a finished shell: raised floor or a screeded slab ready for one, central plant, a fire alarm loop, lifts and washrooms complete. Much of the older Nicosia stock does not. A great deal of office space in the capital is a converted upper floor of a residential building or a block from the 1970s and 1980s, where the slab-to-slab height leaves no usable void for ductwork, the incoming supply was sized for a different use, and there is no fresh-air provision at all. Bringing that to a modern office standard is a services project with a decoration project attached.

Density and how much of the floor is cellular. Open plan is the cheapest office there is. Cost climbs with every enclosed room and fastest with glazed partitioning, because acoustic separation is bought through specification — full-height systems, acoustic seals, the right door closers and a ceiling detail that does not leak sound over the head of the partition.

The services, which are usually the real budget. Air conditioning in Cypriot offices is predominantly VRF, and the sizing follows the cooling load rather than the floor area. In Nicosia that load is set by an inland climate with the widest temperature range on the island, which pushes glazing, shading and insulation specifications harder than a coastal site does — a west-facing glass elevation in Strovolos or Engomi costs real money to cool every summer afternoon, and shading at fit-out stage is cheaper than the plant to overcome the lack of it. On the coast the pressure is different: Limassol's high-rise growth has made balcony waterproofing and facade maintenance a live concern, and terrace works attached to an office floor there carry that specification.

Beyond cooling the list follows — small power and containment, structured cabling, lighting and controls, fire detection and, where the building demands it, sprinkler modification. Firms that cannot tolerate an outage add uninterruptible power and comms room cooling that runs when the building system is off.

Whether the building is trading while the work happens. A vacant floor in an empty building is the cheapest condition to build in. A floor inside an occupied office building brings restricted hours, booked lift slots, protected common routes and waste removal at times that suit everyone else — real costs that belong in preliminaries rather than being absorbed silently.

Long-lead items. Glazed partition systems, VRF outdoor units, raised access flooring, made-to-order joinery and specified light fittings are ordered rather than bought. They set the programme far more often than the trades do.

Reinstatement at the end of the lease. Commercial leases in Cyprus commonly oblige the tenant to return the space as it was handed over. A fit-out that raises floors, cuts risers or replaces ceilings creates a future liability, and the cost of removing it belongs in the business case when the specification is chosen rather than in the final year of the term.

Cost by district

Rates are published by district and the variation is consistent. Limassol sits around twelve per cent above the national figure, Paphos around six per cent above, Nicosia at it, Larnaca around four per cent below and the Famagusta district around eight per cent below.

Limassol carries the premium because demand is concentrated and the buildings are newer and taller. Shipping, corporate services and investment firms compete for the same contractors and the same specification tier, and tower work carries hoisting and access constraints a two-storey building does not.

Nicosia is the deepest office market on the island and the one with the oldest stock. Rates sit at the national figure, but the starting condition varies more than anywhere else, so the gap between the cheapest and dearest quote for the same brief is widest here. Inside the walls of the old town a second constraint never appears as a line: narrow streets, no lay-down space, restricted delivery hours and scaffolding that requires municipal agreement.

Larnaca and Paphos are thinner markets with fewer specialist contractors, which cuts both ways — Larnaca rates are lower but the choice is narrower, and a contractor travelling in from another district carries that travel inside their day rate whether or not it appears as a line. The Famagusta district records the lowest rates on the island, but its commercial stock is overwhelmingly hospitality, so office work there is small and usually let to local general contractors. Which contractors work which districts is recorded on the coverage pages rather than assumed.

What is usually excluded

Exclusions are where two quotes that look comparable stop being comparable. Commonly outside the number:

• Furniture, IT and audiovisual. Desks, storage, servers, active network equipment and screens. Containment and cabling are usually in; the equipment is not.
• The landlord's works. Anything the lease obliges the landlord to complete before handover. If those slip, the fit-out programme slips with them.
• Professional fees. Architect or designer, mechanical and electrical design, and the ETEK-registered professional whose certified drawings a permit application requires.
• Statutory approvals. Where layout, envelope or use changes, the permit chain is engaged and the application is made in the name of the party with the interest in the property. A contractor offering to handle it is handling someone else's application while the exposure stays where it started.
• Reinstatement at lease end, and any dilapidations outstanding on the space being left behind.
• Out-of-hours premiums and building charges for lift use, hoisting and protection of common areas in an occupied building.
• Contingency and VAT. The first a contractor has no reason to carry on the occupier's behalf; the second should be shown separately with the rate applied stated rather than assumed.

How to compare quotes

Every contractor invited to price should receive the same written scope with the same schedule of assumptions. Three quotes built on three different readings of a brief are three different projects, and comparing their totals is arithmetic without meaning.

1. Preliminaries itemised, not folded into a rate

   Site set-up, supervision, temporary power, protection, waste removal, insurance, out-of-hours working and access charges. When these are missing from a quote they have not been removed from the project, only from the paperwork.

2. Provisional sums flagged with the specification each one assumes

   Floor finishes, light fittings, ironmongery and partition glass. An allowance set low is the most polite available way to make a quote look competitive, and the difference reappears later as a variation.

3. A programme with long-lead order dates against each item

   Not a duration, a sequence. The dates on which partitions, VRF plant, flooring and joinery must be ordered decide whether the handover date is real.

4. Payment tied to verifiable stages

   Strip-out, first fix, partitions installed, commissioning complete, handover. Never to calendar dates, and never a large uninvoiced sum before mobilisation.

5. Registration class and insurance checked against this contract

   Contractor registration is granted by category and by class, and the class limits the value of works that may lawfully be undertaken. Liability cover should be in force across the programme dates, not merely in existence.

6. Retention, a defects period and a signed contract

   With the percentage and the length written in, and commissioning records for the mechanical and electrical installation handed over with the keys.

A quote materially below the others is not a saving until it is explained. On office work the gap is usually preliminaries, a provisional sum nobody could build to, or a services scope that stops at supply and leaves commissioning out.

Common questions

How long does an office fit-out take?

The build is rarely the constraint. Three things set the date: how long the design takes to freeze, the order dates on the long-lead list, and whether the building is occupied. A design still moving once the contractor is on site produces a variation account and a date nobody can commit to.

Is it cheaper to take a shell or an office already fitted out?

An office that already works is cheaper to occupy and dearer to change. The comparison worth making is total cost across the lease term rather than rate against rate: a fitted floor needing cosmetic work and recabling beats a shell on day one, and loses to it if the layout has to be rebuilt in year two.

What is the difference between Category A and Category B?

Category A is what the landlord delivers — the base building brought to a lettable condition, with plant, lifts, washrooms, a raised floor or screed and often a ceiling grid. Category B is everything the occupier adds. The recorded rates here are Category B, and the most common comparison error is pricing a Category B rate against a building that has not had Category A done to it.

Does an office fit-out need a building permit?

Non-structural internal work — partitions, ceilings, finishes, containment, like-for-like plant replacement — generally proceeds on the strength of the contract. The line is crossed when the structure, the envelope, the escape routes or the permitted use change. Those require drawings certified by an ETEK-registered professional and engage the permit chain. A change of use from residential to office is the case that catches occupiers most often in older Nicosia buildings.

How much contingency is realistic?

It follows what is unknown behind the finishes rather than the contract value. A vacant modern shell with drawings matching what is standing needs less than a 1980s building where nobody has seen above the ceiling. Set the allowance against the number of unopened surfaces, and open as many as possible before tender.

Fit-out contractors with recorded registrations

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