What an office fit-out actually involves in Cyprus

An office fit-out in Cyprus is priced per square metre of net internal area, and the published range runs from about EUR 350 to EUR 950, with the mid-point near EUR 560 for a Category B fit-out including services. What decides where a project sits in that band is not the finishes. It is how much of the base building the landlord has already delivered, how much of the mechanical and electrical installation has to be replaced, and how much of the programme runs while the floors above and below are occupied.

Scope in plain terms

The market uses three labels, and the confusion between them is where most budget errors originate.

Shell and core is the building as the developer hands it over: structure, external envelope, lift cores, stairs, plant rooms, incoming services and common areas. There are no ceilings, no floor finish and no distribution inside the tenancy. It is what a tenant sees in many of the newer Limassol towers, where rapid high-rise development has produced a supply of floors at this stage.

Category A is the landlord's baseline fit-out: raised floor or screed, suspended ceiling grid, general lighting, fire detection, sprinklers where present, air conditioning distribution to an open-plan layout, and finished walls to the perimeter and core. A lettable but unusable condition — an empty, serviced floor with no rooms in it.

Category B is the occupier's fit-out: layout, partitions, doors, meeting rooms, tea points, joinery, data cabling, altered air conditioning and lighting to suit the new rooms, decoration, signage, and furniture if it is in the contract. The range quoted above is a Category B rate.

Two consequences follow. A Category B rate applied to a shell and core floor understates the cost, because the landlord's baseline is missing. And a Category B fit-out on a good Category A floor is largely addition, whereas the same fit-out on a tired 1990s floor means stripping out first — which is why commercial interior refurbishment, shell to occupied, is published separately at roughly EUR 420 to EUR 1,150 per square metre.

What is included as standard

A Category B fit-out in Cyprus normally covers the following.

Demolition and strip-out of existing partitions, floor finishes, redundant cabling and ceiling tiles, plus removal from site. In a multi-tenanted building this is where restricted lift access and out-of-hours working enter the price.

Partitioning and doors. Plasterboard partitions on metal frame, glazed screens to meeting rooms, ironmongery and door sets. Where partitions run to the underside of the slab rather than stopping at the ceiling grid, acoustic performance, cost and the fire compartmentation position all change with them.

Ceilings and floors. Modification of the ceiling grid around the new layout, tile replacement, and floor finishes — carpet tile to open areas, harder-wearing finishes to circulation, tiling to wet areas.

Mechanical alterations. Air conditioning is rarely left untouched, because a system designed for open plan does not serve enclosed rooms. Relocating indoor units, adding fan coils to meeting rooms, altering ductwork and rebalancing are ordinary scope. Fresh air to enclosed rooms is the item most often overlooked at design stage.

Electrical and fire. Small power, containment, sub-distribution boards, new circuits, lighting and emergency lighting; alarm devices moved to suit the new compartments and sprinkler heads relocated where a system exists. The fire element is a certified activity, not a general trade.

Decoration, joinery and making good. Tea points, reception joinery, storage walls, painting and reinstatement of everything the works disturbed.

Commissioning and handover documentation. Certificates for the electrical installation and fire systems, commissioning records for mechanical plant, and as-built drawings for the next occupier.

What is almost always extra

Items excluded from the headline rate, in rough order of how often they surprise a budget holder.

Furniture. Desks, chairs, storage and meeting tables are usually a separate package. If the number in front of a board is a per-square-metre fit-out rate, furniture is probably not inside it.

Audio-visual, IT and security equipment. Screens, video conferencing, switches, servers and racks, plus door controllers, readers, CCTV and intruder alarm. The contractor provides containment, power and cabling; the equipment is the occupier's. Integration between security and the fire alarm needs designing rather than assuming.

Incoming capacity. If the fit-out adds significant load — additional cooling, a server room, a demonstration kitchen — the existing supply may not carry it, and increasing capacity is a matter for the electricity authority and the building owner rather than the contractor. Lead time is measured against the utility's programme, not the builder's.

Base building works. Anything on the elevation, in the core, in the plant room or in the common areas is landlord territory. Where the lobby and stairwell are upgraded too, that work is priced on a common-areas basis of roughly EUR 180 to EUR 560 per square metre and sits outside the tenant's rate.

Professional fees, permits and statutory approvals. Design, mechanical and electrical engineering, fire strategy and supervision by registered professionals. Internal, non-structural reconfiguration generally proceeds without a planning permit, but alterations to structure, external appearance or use require consent from the planning and building authority. Establishing which category a project falls into is work for a registered architect or civil engineer, and it belongs before the lease is signed.

Dilapidations. The obligation to return the space to a defined condition at lease end is a cost created on the day the fit-out is built.

The parts people underestimate

The programme, not the price. The critical path runs through long-lead items — glazed partition systems, bespoke joinery, specific light fittings, air conditioning plant — and through the approvals that precede them. The date a business can move is set by the slowest of these, not by the speed of the trades.

Working in an occupied building. In Limassol's newer towers and Nicosia's established commercial stock, a fit-out is nearly always built with neighbours in the building. Restricted delivery hours, single goods-lift access, noise windows and protection of common areas all consume time. A contractor who priced the same area on an empty building priced a different job.

Cooling and shading in the summer. Nicosia's inland position gives the widest temperature range on the island, which drives insulation and shading specifications. A layout that puts enclosed meeting rooms along a west-facing glazed elevation will be uncomfortable every summer afternoon regardless of the plant installed, and external shading fixes that far more cheaply than extra cooling capacity. Where the works improve fabric or plant efficiency, national energy efficiency schemes may be relevant, and they require documentation prepared before the works start.

Acoustics. Open-plan floors with hard finishes and glass partitions are the most common source of complaint after occupation, and the remedies — absorptive ceiling tiles, partitions carried to slab, acoustic seals — are far cheaper to build than to retrofit.

Small power, data density and reinstatement. Positions per workstation, containment routes and desk cable management are disruptive to add later. So is making good what the works disturb — ceiling tiles, floor boxes, blinds, skirting and the paint finish where a partition used to be.

Organisations comparing a refit of existing premises against a move to a new floor will find the office fit-out sector pages and the district coverage pages on this site set out how each option is sequenced and where the timing risk sits.

Common questions

Is a Category A floor cheaper to fit out than a refurbished older floor?

Usually, because the baseline is new, the services are documented and nothing has to be stripped out first. The comparison that matters is rent incentive plus fit-out cost across the lease term, not the fit-out rate alone — a floor with a poor Category A and a generous rent-free period can still be the better commercial outcome.

Does an office fit-out need a permit in Cyprus?

Internal, non-structural work in an existing office generally does not require a planning permit. Work that alters the structure, the external appearance or the use of the premises does, and a change of use is the one most often discovered late. A registered architect or civil engineer should confirm the position before commitment.

Design and build, or a separately appointed designer?

Design and build gives a single point of accountability and suits a straightforward Category B on a good Category A floor. Appointing a designer and engineer independently gives the occupier control of the specification and a better basis for comparing tenders, and tends to pay for itself where compartmentation, structure or heavy services are involved.

How should two fit-out quotes with different totals be compared?

By rewriting both onto one scope and one programme. What settles it is the handover condition each has assumed, whether professional fees, fire certification, commissioning and making good are inside or outside, what allowance each carries for out-of-hours working, and what date each commits to.

Is a fit-out worth doing on a short lease?

It depends on the lease term against the write-down period and on the dilapidations obligation at the end of it. Short leases favour demountable partitions, relocatable furniture and a light touch on services. Fitting out a short-term space as though it were long-term is the most expensive common error in this market.

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