Office fit-out in Cyprus, Cat A and Cat B compared

Cat A and Cat B are not competing products. They are two halves of the same building. Cat A is the landlord's work — the floor finish, ceiling, primary services distribution, general lighting and detection that make a floorplate lettable but not yet usable. Cat B is the occupier's — partitions, meeting rooms, joinery, data, secondary services and furniture, the work that makes it one company's office rather than anyone's.

The reason the comparison matters in Cyprus is that a genuine Cat A handover is uncommon here. Most floorplates arrive either as shell and core, with nothing above the slab, or as a previous occupier's Cat B that was never stripped out. The real decision is therefore between three routes, and the Cat A / Cat B vocabulary only becomes useful once the starting condition is established.

The options

1. Shell and core to finished office in one contract

   The occupier, or the landlord on the occupier's behalf, takes the floorplate from bare slab to occupation under a single contract covering what would elsewhere be split into Cat A and Cat B. One design team, one programme, one party holding the interfaces between mechanical, electrical and fabric. It is the most common route for new floorplates in Cyprus and for converted stock, because in both cases the services are the job rather than an inherited given.

2. Cat A handover, occupier fits out Cat B

   The landlord delivers a defined base build and the occupier fits its own layout on top. The scope boundary has to be written before the lease is signed. Where it fails is at the interfaces: whose scope holds the fire detection reconfiguration when partitions land under existing sensors, and whose holds the cooling controls when one open floor becomes a run of cellular rooms.

3. Adapting an existing fit-out

   Taking a previous occupier's Cat B and reworking it — new finishes, some partition changes, replacement of what has reached the end of its life, reuse of the rest. Cheapest by a wide margin when the underlying services are sound and the layout is broadly right. Expensive and disappointing when neither is true, because the strip-out is paid for anyway and the savings evaporate.

All three are priced against the same recorded rate.

Category B fit-out including services is published between €350 and €950 per square metre, with a median near €560. Very little of that spread is contractor margin — most of it is the route. Adapting a sound existing fit-out sits at the bottom of the band. A Cat B on a correct Cat A handover sits near the middle. Taking a floorplate from shell to occupation in one contract sits at the top, because that single contract also carries the containment and structured cabling, the mechanical plant sized for occupied density, the acoustic performance between meeting rooms and the statutory design work that a Cat A handover would otherwise have paid for. A rate quoted without a stated starting condition therefore cannot be compared against another one.

Side-by-side comparison

The row that decides most cases is the fourth. A permit is not triggered by spending money; it is triggered by altering layout, means of escape or use. Rearranging desks on an open floor is not the same exercise as forming cellular rooms that change escape distances, and converting a residential floor to office use is a different application again. That distinction, not the value of the works, is what determines whether the district town planning authority is involved and how long that adds.

Which suits which property

Limassol is where a defined Cat A handover is most likely to be on the table, because rapid high-rise development has put newer stock into the market. That same development has also raised demand for balcony waterproofing and facade maintenance, which is external scope rather than fit-out scope and belongs in a different budget line. Where a landlord genuinely offers a written Cat A specification, taking it and fitting Cat B on top is usually the better trade, because duplicating a base build that is already correct buys nothing. Where "Cat A" appears as a description rather than a scheduled specification, it is worth nothing until it is written down.

Nicosia is a different exercise. Much of the usable office space there sits in 1970s to 1990s block stock, a large share of it built as apartments, and in that stock rewiring and replumbing dominate any serious work. There is rarely a ceiling void worth the name, so containment goes into dado trunking or into a dropped ceiling that costs headroom the floor cannot spare. Those buildings are one-contract jobs. Splitting them into Cat A and Cat B creates a boundary in the middle of the only part of the work that matters.

Climate does more to the specification in Nicosia than most occupiers expect. The inland location gives the widest temperature range on the island, which is what drives the insulation and shading decisions, and glazing orientation then drives the cooling plant more than headcount does. A west-facing floorplate and an equivalent north-facing one are not the same mechanical exercise, and the shading decision — external, interstitial or film — is taken at fit-out and then lived with for the length of the lease.

Coastal offices carry a maintenance specification the inland ones do not. External condensers, fixings and any exposed metalwork in directly exposed locations such as Kato Paphos sit in salt-laden air, where galvanised and marine-grade fixings are the standard rather than an upgrade. Whichever scope holds the external plant should also hold that specification explicitly, because it is the classic item that falls between a Cat A package and a Cat B one.

Adapting an existing fit-out suits short leases, sub-lets and occupiers whose headcount is uncertain. It stops suiting anything once the electrical distribution is at capacity, because at that point the strip-out happens anyway.

Cost over ten years

Fit-out is paid once and lived with monthly. Over a ten-year horizon five things carry most of the difference between the three routes.

Amortisation against the lease term. A specification with a fifteen-year life on a five-year lease is a transfer to the landlord. Matching the two is the single largest cost lever available, and it is available only at design stage.

Reinstatement. Where the lease requires return to Cat A, a heavily cellular Cat B has a demolition bill attached to it that nobody budgets at the start. A lighter layout is cheaper to remove as well as cheaper to build.

Churn. Ten years of team moves means power and data moving with them. A floor built on dado trunking is cheaper to install and dearer to change than one with a raised floor and floor boxes. The right answer depends on how stable the organisation is, which the occupier knows and the contractor does not.

Energy. Cooling is the dominant load in a Cyprus office, and the decisions that set it — glazing, shading, zoning, controls — are all taken during fit-out. An open floor on a single zone will be cold at the perimeter and warm in the middle for a decade.

Variations. Small alterations after handover are priced at trade rates rather than contract rates. Electrical work alone sits at €32–65 per hour for a certified electrician, labour only, and a decade of ad-hoc changes at those rates adds up to a meaningful share of the original package. Building spare capacity into containment and distribution at the outset is almost always cheaper than adding it later.

Whether an office fit-out is worth it in Cyprus is therefore a lease question before it is a construction question. On a long lease in stock that suits the headcount, the arithmetic is comfortable. On a short lease in a building that needs its services replaced, the honest answer is often to find a different building. The office fit-out sector page carries the cost breakdown in more detail, and the coverage pages record the district conditions that move it.

Common questions

Is Cat A the landlord's responsibility in Cyprus?

Only if the lease says so. There is no market default here in the way there is in institutional markets elsewhere, and most Cyprus landlords let shell and core or let the space as the last occupier left it. The scope split has to be documented as part of the lease negotiation.

Does a Cat B fit-out need a building permit?

It depends on what changes rather than what it costs. Layout changes that affect means of escape, alterations to the structure, and any change of use are the triggers. A registered architect or civil engineer, listed with ETEK, is the person who determines that and prepares the application if one is needed.

Can a company simply move into a previous occupier's fit-out?

Frequently yes, and it is the cheapest route by a distance. The checks worth doing first are electrical distribution capacity against the intended headcount, the age and service history of the cooling plant, and whether the existing partition layout matches the escape strategy the building was approved on.

How long does an office fit-out take?

The construction is rarely the long pole. Design and coordination, any permit that is required, and lead times on plant and joinery usually set the programme. Where the intended density exceeds the existing electrical supply, the connection application to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus should be started before the construction programme is agreed, not alongside it.

Is an office fit-out worth it on a short lease?

Rarely at full specification. Adapting an existing fit-out, keeping the specification demountable, and negotiating away the reinstatement obligation is the combination that makes short-term space work. Anything that has to be demolished at the end should be avoided in the first place.