What a villa or apartment fit-out costs per square foot in Dubai in 2026

Dubai fit-out prices in 2026 range from AED 150 to AED 1,200 per square foot

Dubai renovation and fit-out prices in 2026 fall between AED 150 and AED 1,200 per square foot, according to the price guides that four licensed Dubai contractors and consultants published between May and August 2026, with the finish level, the property type and the community deciding where a project lands inside that range. The figures below come from those guides, each named with its publication date, and from two construction cost indices that explain why the 2026 guides sit above the 2025 ones.

A per square foot figure in a Dubai guide describes the built-up area of the home, not the plot, and covers labour and materials for the interior works. The guides exclude VAT, developer NOC fees, authority permit fees and consultant drawings unless a line says otherwise, and the section on exclusions below quotes the fee ranges that a homeowner has to add.

Vision Three Technical Services prices four finish tiers in July 2026

Vision Three Technical Services, a Dubai fit-out contractor, published a home renovation cost guide on 24 July 2026 that prices a cosmetic refresh at AED 150 to 300 per square foot, a mid-range renovation at AED 350 to 600, a premium renovation at AED 600 to 900 and a luxury gut rebuild at AED 900 to 1,200 or more. The Vision Three guide also converts those tiers into whole-project totals for common Dubai unit types.

Project (Vision Three, July 2026)	Total budget (AED)	Duration
Studio or 1-bedroom apartment, cosmetic refresh	35,000 to 80,000	3 to 5 weeks
2-bedroom apartment, mid-range	150,000 to 350,000	8 to 12 weeks
3-bedroom villa, mid-range	300,000 to 700,000	10 to 16 weeks
4-bedroom villa, full renovation	600,000 to 1,500,000	16 to 28 weeks
Single bathroom	15,000 to 90,000	2 to 3 weeks
Kitchen only	45,000 to 250,000	3 to 6 weeks

The same guide states that kitchens absorb 50 to 60 percent of nearly every renovation budget the company sees, that custom joinery takes 35 to 45 percent of the kitchen cost, and that apartments carry a premium of 15 to 25 percent over villas for the same scope because of service lift bookings, working hour limits and building management conditions. Vision Three prices flooring at AED 45 to 350 per square foot installed, false ceilings at AED 45 to 120 per square foot, joinery and wardrobes at AED 800 to 3,500 per linear metre, full-home painting at AED 8,000 to 45,000, and MEP works at AED 25,000 to 200,000 or more.

Zia Luxury prices apartments, villas and penthouses by finish level in July 2026

Zia Luxury, a Dubai interior fit-out company, published a fit-out price guide on 6 July 2026 that splits the per square foot rate by property type as well as finish level, and the split shows that a villa at a standard finish costs AED 220 to 350 per square foot while an apartment at the same finish costs AED 180 to 280. The Zia Luxury guide prices the tiers as follows.

Property type (Zia Luxury, July 2026)	Economy (AED per sq ft)	Standard (AED per sq ft)	Luxury (AED per sq ft)
Apartment	120 to 180	180 to 280	280 to 450+
Villa	150 to 220	220 to 350	350 to 600+
Penthouse	200 to 300	300 to 450	450 to 800+
Office	100 to 150	150 to 250	250 to 400+

Zia Luxury applies those rates to two worked examples: a standard 1,200 square foot apartment at AED 216,000 to AED 336,000, and a 4,000 square foot villa at AED 880,000 to AED 1,400,000. The guide prices rooms separately at AED 400 to 1,200 per square foot for kitchens, AED 350 to 900 for bathrooms, AED 150 to 350 for living and dining areas and AED 120 to 280 for bedrooms, and states that choosing imported natural stone over locally sourced porcelain shifts a budget by 30 to 50 percent. Zia Luxury gives a fit-out timeline of 3 to 5 months and notes that its prices exclude the 5 percent VAT.

Dar Al Naseeb prices villa renovation by community in August 2026

Dar Al Naseeb, a Dubai design and build consultancy, updated its villa renovation cost guide on 15 August 2026 with a table of AED per square foot by community for a full renovation from design to handover, and the table runs from AED 195 per square foot in independent mainland villas to AED 1,020 per square foot on Palm Jumeirah. The community premium reflects developer NOC conditions, access restrictions and the finish level that buyers in each community expect, according to the Dar Al Naseeb community table.

Community (Dar Al Naseeb, August 2026)	Full renovation (AED per sq ft)	5,000 sq ft villa total (AED)
Independent mainland villas	195 to 325	975,000 to 1,625,000
Jumeirah Park and Al Furjan	227 to 370	not stated
Damac Hills	251 to 412	not stated
Arabian Ranches	267 to 435	1,335,000 to 2,175,000
Al Barari	445 to 730	not stated
Emirates Hills	495 to 820	2,475,000 to 4,100,000
Palm Jumeirah	595 to 1,020	2,975,000 to 5,100,000

Dar Al Naseeb also splits a full villa renovation budget into layers: finishes take 45 to 55 percent, structural works 15 to 20 percent, MEP 15 to 20 percent, approvals and NOCs 6 to 10 percent, design and consultancy 6 to 9 percent, and landscaping and handover 5 to 8 percent. A homeowner who adds built-up area in an Emaar community pays a GFA fee of AED 700 per square foot of new area in standard communities and AED 1,000 per square foot in Emirates Hills, according to the same guide, which makes a small extension one of the most expensive items on a renovation invoice.

Turner and Townsend and AGBI explain why 2026 prices sit above 2025 prices

Turner and Townsend's UAE Market Intelligence 2025 report puts Dubai construction costs at USD 1,926 per square metre, ranked 74th among the cities the firm surveys, with tender price inflation of 3.3 percent in 2025 after 1.9 percent in 2024 and a forecast of 4.0 percent for Dubai in 2026. The Turner and Townsend cost performance page also publishes Dubai unit rates that a homeowner can compare with a contractor's line items: ceramic floor tiles at AED 150 per square metre, medium tufted carpet at AED 200 per square metre, plasterboard on stud at AED 240 per square metre, lighting installation at AED 500 per square metre, air conditioning at AED 450 per square metre, 10 mm tempered glass at AED 475 per square metre and a single core door at AED 4,000. Turner and Townsend states that materials make up around 60 percent of construction baseline costs and that contractor margins run at 8 to 12 percent.

AGBI reported on 20 July 2026 that Dubai's construction cost index rose 5.2 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, with raw materials up by more than 8 percent for residential projects, block work up almost 25 percent, and mechanical works tied to air conditioning running more than 40 percent above 2021 levels. The AGBI report adds that Abu Dhabi electrical materials rose more than 14 percent year on year and finishing materials almost 11 percent quarter on quarter, and that UAE construction costs are projected to rise a further 4.5 percent in 2026. The cost of cooling equipment matters for interiors because a renovation that moves partitions usually moves ducts and fan coil units, and the article on DEWA tariffs and cooling loads explains what the running cost of that equipment looks like on a monthly bill.

Dubai fit-out quotations leave out VAT, NOC fees, permits and drawings

A Dubai fit-out quotation in 2026 states a price before VAT and before the fees paid to the master developer, the permitting authority, DEWA and Dubai Civil Defence, so the homeowner has to add 5 percent VAT and between AED 4,000 and AED 25,000 of approval costs to compare two quotations on the same basis. The UAE Ministry of Finance states that VAT was introduced across the UAE on 1 January 2018 at a standard rate of 5 percent, and the Ministry of Finance VAT page gives the mandatory registration threshold as AED 375,000 of taxable supplies, which every fit-out contractor of any size exceeds.

Vision Three's July 2026 guide lists the approval costs a villa renovation attracts: a developer NOC at AED 2,000 to 5,000 plus a refundable deposit of AED 5,000 to 20,000, a municipality permit at AED 3,000 to 18,000, consultant drawings at AED 12,000 to 25,000 and DEWA approvals at AED 500 to 5,000, which together come to 3 to 7 percent of project value. The article on Dubai fit-out approvals by DM, DDA and Trakhees explains which of those authorities applies to a given plot and how long each takes.

A homeowner comparing quotations in 2026 should check the following items line by line:

• Whether the price is before or after 5 percent VAT.
• Whether the developer NOC fee and the refundable deposit appear as separate lines.
• Whether the consultant's drawings and the authority permit fee are included or billed by a separate consultant.
• Whether the kitchen line includes appliances, worktops and joinery or only carcasses.
• Whether the flooring rate is supply only or supply and installation, and at what grade (Zia Luxury's 30 to 50 percent stone premium applies here).
• What contingency the contractor has allowed; Dar Al Naseeb's layers leave no line for it, and Vision Three's totals are ranges rather than fixed sums.
• Which items sit in a provisional sum that the contractor will reprice once the design is final.

Room sizes decide the per square foot figure as much as the finish does

A per square foot rate multiplies by the built-up area, so the rooms a household adds to a standard plan change the total before any finish is chosen, and in the UAE the room that most often pushes a villa above the 4,000 square foot examples in the guides is the majlis. A 40 to 80 square metre reception room at Zia Luxury's standard villa rate of AED 220 to 350 per square foot adds AED 95,000 to AED 301,000 to a budget at 2026 prices, before the seating that fills it. The article on majlis planning dimensions sets out the room sizes, seat heights and clearances that the seating needs, so the area can be fixed before the quotation is requested.

Every figure on this page describes Dubai only. Abu Dhabi contractors did not publish comparable per square foot guides in 2026 that the editorial team could fetch, and the AGBI index data shows Abu Dhabi material inflation running on a different path from Dubai, so a Dubai rate applied to an Abu Dhabi villa is an assumption rather than a price.