Office building construction cost in Australia 2026

Office building construction cost in Australia runs between roughly $2,500 and $6,500 per square metre for the base build in 2026, before a single desk goes in. Fit-out is a separate number again — and it's the one that catches people out.

A single-level office park in Adelaide and an A-grade tower floor in the Sydney CBD are both "offices". They're separated by more than double the rate per square metre, and by a pile of costs nobody quotes you up front: the fit-out, the make-good at the end of the lease, and the cleaning contract that runs every week for five years.

This guide covers all three — base build, fit-out and cleaning — with real per-square-metre numbers. If you want a ballpark for the fit-out right now, the office and shopfitting quote calculator takes about 30 seconds and gives you an instant estimate on screen.

Last updated: August 2026.

Key takeaways

• Office base build costs roughly $2,500–$6,500 per square metre in Australia in 2026, depending on building grade, storeys and city. These are indicative market bands, not Leadkit rate data.
• A mid-range office fit-out costs $1,200 per square metre on Leadkit's own rate model — $660/m² for a basic cosmetic refresh and $1,980/m² for a premium fit-out.
• A CBD address adds 15% to the fit-out rate; a shopping-centre tenancy adds 10%. A premium CBD office fit-out therefore lands near $2,277 per square metre.
• Air conditioning adds $180 per square metre on top of the fit-out rate, and project management typically adds 8% of the build cost.
• Office cleaning costs roughly $2–$6 per square metre per clean, or about $45–$65 per hour plus GST for a fully insured commercial cleaner.
• After-hours work carries a 45% labour premium — which is why CBD fit-outs with restricted dock access cost more than the same job in a suburban business park.

What this guide covers

• Office cost ranges at a glance
• How much does office building construction cost in Australia?
• What does office construction cost per square metre include?
• How much does an office fit out cost in 2026?
• How does an office fit out calculator work?
• What should an office fit out cost calculator ask you?
• How much does office cleaning cost in Australia?
• How does an office cleaning cost calculator work?
• What does an office cleaning cost calculator show for Melbourne?
• What does an office actually cost you per year?
• Frequently asked questions
• Getting a real number for your office

Office cost ranges at a glance

Here's the whole picture in one table — base build, fit-out and cleaning, all per square metre.

Methodology. The fit-out rates above come from Leadkit's own commercial fit-out calculator — the office premises type sits at a $1,200/m² base rate, with tier multipliers of 0.55 (basic), 1.0 (mid-range) and 1.65 (premium), and location multipliers of 1.0 (suburban), 1.10 (shopping centre) and 1.15 (CBD). Leadkit builds and maintains those rate models, so this is our own tool's data rather than neutral third-party research, and we've said so plainly. The base build and cleaning bands are indicative market ranges, not Leadkit rate data — we don't hold a base-build model, and we'd rather flag that than dress a guess up as data.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

How much does office building construction cost in Australia?

Office building construction costs roughly $2,500 to $6,500 per square metre in Australia in 2026 for the base build. A low-rise suburban office park sits at the bottom of that band. A multi-storey A-grade building in the Sydney or Melbourne CBD sits at the top, and premium towers push past it.

The spread comes down to four things: how many storeys you're going up, the structural system, the services load, and the site.

Height is the big one. Once a building goes past three or four levels you're into lifts, fire stairs, pressurised stair cores, and a structural frame that has to carry a lot more. Each of those is a step change in cost, not a gradual one.

Site conditions do the rest. A flat greenfield lot in Brisbane's outer suburbs is cheap to build on. A tight infill site in the Perth CBD with no lay-down area, restricted crane hours and a neighbour on each boundary is not.

One thing worth knowing: the number a builder quotes for "construction" almost never includes the fit-out. That's a separate trade, a separate contract, and often a separate budget line entirely. Price the base build and the fit-out as two separate budgets from day one.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes producer price indexes for non-residential building construction, which is the best public read on how input costs are moving — worth a look at the ABS before you lock a budget in.

What does office construction cost per square metre include?

A per-square-metre office construction rate covers the base building — structure, façade, roof, core services and common areas — delivered to what the industry calls a Category A standard. It does not cover your desks, your meeting rooms, your kitchen or your cabling.

Two bits of trade vocabulary will save you a lot of confusion here:

• Category A is the landlord's base build: floors, ceilings, basic lighting, air conditioning distribution, fire services and finished common areas. Usable, but empty.
• Category B is the tenant fit-out: partitions, meeting rooms, joinery, data cabling, kitchens, branding and furniture. That's your budget, not the landlord's.

Almost every office cost blow-out we hear about traces back to someone pricing Category A and planning Category B.

The other term to learn is make-good — the clause in nearly every commercial lease that obliges you to return the tenancy to its original condition when you leave. Strip out the joinery, patch the walls, repaint, sometimes reinstate the original ceiling grid. On a fitted-out floor that can be tens of thousands of dollars, and it's due at the exact moment you're paying for the next office.

Then there's NABERS — the national energy rating scheme for commercial buildings. A higher NABERS rating costs more to build to, because it means better glazing, better plant and better metering. It also cuts your outgoings every year you occupy the place, which is why most new A-grade stock targets it.

How much does an office fit out cost in 2026?

An office fit out costs $660 per square metre for a basic cosmetic refresh, $1,200 per square metre for a mid-range fit-out, and $1,980 per square metre for a premium one, based on Leadkit's commercial fit-out rate model. Add 15% if you're in a CBD tenancy.

Here's what each tier actually buys you:

On a 300 m² suburban office, that's about $198,000 for basic, $360,000 for mid-range and $594,000 for premium — before air conditioning and project management.

Those two extras matter. Air conditioning runs about $180 per square metre where the base building doesn't already supply it, and project management adds around 8% of the build cost. On the same 300 m² mid-range job, that's $54,000 for HVAC and roughly $33,000 in PM fees.

Materials make up about 55% of a typical commercial fit-out, with labour taking the other 45%. That ratio is worth knowing, because it tells you where you can actually save money — specification changes move the needle far more than haggling over day rates.

Want a number for your own floor plate? Use the free office and shopfitting quote calculator — pick "Office" as the premises type, enter your area, and you'll get an instant estimate. It's a price indication only; your fitter will confirm the final price after a site visit.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

How does an office fit out calculator work?

An office fit out calculator multiplies your floor area by a base rate per square metre for your premises type, then applies multipliers for fit-out quality and location, and adds fixed allowances for the big-ticket inclusions. That's genuinely the whole model — it's arithmetic, not magic.

Run through it with Leadkit's own numbers so you can see the machinery:

1. Start with the base rate. An office sits at $1,200/m². A restaurant, by comparison, sits at $2,200/m² because of the commercial kitchen.
2. Apply the quality multiplier. Basic is ×0.55, mid-range is ×1.0, premium is ×1.65.
3. Apply the location multiplier. Suburban strip is ×1.0, shopping centre is ×1.10, CBD is ×1.15.
4. Add the fixed allowances. Air conditioning at $180/m². A shopfront or glazed reception allowance around $18,000. A commercial kitchen, if you're mad enough to want one, at $95,000 plus $12,000 for a grease trap.
5. Add the premiums and fees. After-hours work carries a 45% labour premium. Project management adds 8%.

So a 250 m² mid-range office fit-out in the Melbourne CBD works out at 250 × $1,200 × 1.0 × 1.15 = $345,000, plus $45,000 for HVAC, plus 8% PM — landing near $421,000.

Leadkit maintains 202 calculators, 90 of them full quote calculators running real Australian rate models across 26 industries. Building those models teaches you one thing fast: it's the fixed allowances, not the per-square-metre rate, that blow a budget apart. Nobody forgets the floor area. Everybody forgets the grease trap.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

What should an office fit out cost calculator ask you?

A credible office fit out cost calculator asks for premises type, floor area, fit-out level, location type, and the specific inclusions that carry their own allowances — air conditioning, kitchen, shopfront and after-hours access. If it only asks for area, the number it gives you is decoration.

Leadkit's commercial fit-out tool asks exactly seven things, in this order:

• Type of premises — office, retail, cafe, restaurant, medical clinic or showroom
• Floor area in square metres
• Fit-out level — basic, mid-range or premium
• Location type — suburban strip, shopping centre or CBD
• Shopfront and air conditioning — whether either is in scope
• Kitchen and grease trap — the two biggest single allowances in the model
• After-hours access — whether the building restricts work to nights and weekends

That last one is the sleeper. Plenty of CBD towers only allow noisy or dusty work outside business hours, and the 45% labour premium that comes with it can add $50,000 to a mid-sized job. If a calculator never asks about site access, it can't possibly price a CBD tenancy properly.

For a job that's genuinely bespoke — a heritage floor, a base-build alteration, anything structural — a calculator isn't the right tool. That's what the commercial construction enquiry form is for: you send through the job details and a builder comes back to you with a proper quote. It's a lead form, not an estimator, so it won't show you a price on screen.

How much does office cleaning cost in Australia?

Office cleaning costs roughly $2 to $6 per square metre per clean in Australia in 2026, or about $45 to $65 per hour plus GST for a fully insured commercial cleaner. A 300 m² office cleaned three times a week typically lands between $1,000 and $2,200 a month.

What moves you within that band:

• Frequency. Daily cleans cost more per month but less per clean, because the cleaner isn't fighting a week's build-up.
• Fit-out density. Open-plan floors clean fast. Warrens of small offices, glass partitions and breakout nooks do not.
• Amenities. Bathrooms and kitchens are the labour-intensive part of any office scope of works.
• Periodicals. Carpet steam cleaning, hard-floor buffing and window work are usually quoted separately from the routine clean — the trade calls these periodicals, and forgetting to budget for them is the classic first-year mistake.

Carpet steam cleaning and internal glass are the two periodicals that show up most often. Leadkit's window cleaning rate model prices standard panes at $8 each, adds $5 per pane for upper-level work needing poles or ladders, and applies an $85 safety equipment fee where harness or elevated-platform access is required — so a first-floor office with 40 panes is a materially different price to a ground-floor one.

Height work is also where your obligations change. Anyone cleaning above ground level is working at height under Australian WHS law, and Safe Work Australia sets the model code of practice. Ask for the SWMS before you ask for the price.

Our commercial cleaning cost guide breaks the rates down by frequency and building type.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

How does an office cleaning cost calculator work?

An office cleaning calculator estimates a per-clean price from your floor area and cleaning frequency, then adjusts for the things that change the labour hours — bathroom count, kitchen, flooring type and any periodicals you want included. Most work off either a rate per square metre or an hourly rate multiplied by an estimated time on site.

The two models give different answers, and it's worth knowing which one you're looking at:

• Rate per square metre suits routine, repeatable scopes. Predictable, easy to compare between quotes, and what most commercial contracts run on.
• Hourly rate suits one-off and variable work. Honest, but it means the total depends on how fast the cleaner works — so always ask for an estimated hours figure alongside it.

Any office cleaning cost calculator built for Australia should also separate the routine clean from the periodicals, because bundling them produces a monthly figure that looks wrong in both directions. Your weekly vacuum and bin run is not the same line item as an annual carpet steam clean.

For office glass specifically, the window cleaning quote calculator gives an instant on-screen estimate using the per-pane rates above. For a full commercial cleaning contract, the commercial cleaning enquiry form sends your building details, area and frequency straight to a cleaner, who comes back with a quote — it captures the job details rather than showing you a price, because contract cleaning is priced after a walk-through.

What does an office cleaning cost calculator show for Melbourne?

An office cleaning cost calculator set to Melbourne returns much the same per-square-metre rate as Sydney or Brisbane — roughly $2 to $6 per clean — because commercial cleaning labour rates don't vary anywhere near as much between capital cities as construction rates do. What changes in Melbourne is access, not the rate.

Three Melbourne-specific factors show up in real quotes:

CBD building access. Towers around Collins and Bourke Streets commonly restrict cleaning to after-hours, and route contractors through a single loading dock with a booking system. That's dead time the cleaner has to price in.

Parking. In Southbank, Docklands and the CBD grid there's often nowhere to leave a van. Suburban offices in Box Hill or Dandenong don't have that problem, and their quotes reflect it.

Building services levies. Larger Melbourne office buildings charge contractors for after-hours lift access and dock use. Whoever's cleaning your floor pays it, which means you pay it.

The practical upshot: if you're comparing a CBD quote against a suburban one, you're not comparing the same job. Ask both cleaners what access hours they've assumed, because that single assumption is usually the difference between the two numbers.

What does an office actually cost you per year?

Once you're occupying an office, the recurring costs — rent, outgoings, cleaning, utilities and the amortised fit-out — typically run several times the annual rent line on its own. Budgeting on rent alone is how offices become a nasty surprise in year two.

Here's a rough annual picture for a 300 m² suburban office:

The make-good line is the one people skip, and it's the one that hurts. It falls due at lease end, when you're also paying for the new place. Provision for it from the first month.

Operator note: when we built the commercial fit-out rate model, the two inputs that moved the total hardest weren't the obvious ones. Floor area and fit-out tier are what everyone reaches for, but the after-hours premium and the HVAC rate are the toggles that quietly reshape a budget. If you take one thing from this guide, make it those two.

This is a price indication only. Your tradie will confirm the final price after assessing the job.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How much does it cost to build an office building per square metre in Australia?

A: Office building construction costs roughly $2,500 to $6,500 per square metre for the base build in 2026, with low-rise suburban offices at the bottom of the range and A-grade CBD buildings at the top. That figure covers structure, façade, roof, core services and common areas — it does not include the tenant fit-out, which is a separate contract. Expect the fit-out to add another $660 to $2,277 per square metre depending on quality and location. Master Builders Australia and the ABS are the best public sources for tracking how those input costs are moving year to year.

Q: What's the difference between office construction cost and office fit out cost?

A: Office construction cost is the base building — the shell, structure, façade, lifts, fire services and common areas, delivered to a Category A standard. Office fit-out cost is everything that makes the space usable by your business: partitions, meeting rooms, joinery, data cabling, kitchen and furniture, known as Category B. The landlord usually pays for Category A and the tenant pays for Category B. Confusing the two is the single most common budgeting mistake we see, because a builder's per-square-metre construction rate sounds complete but delivers you an empty floor.

Q: Is an office fit out calculator accurate enough to budget from?

A: An office fit out calculator is accurate enough for early-stage budgeting and comparing options, but not for signing a contract. It works off standard rates and multipliers, so it can't see your building's quirks — a slab that won't take a core hole, asbestos in the old ceiling, or a landlord who insists on a specific subcontractor. Use it to work out whether a 250 m² premium fit-out is even in your range before you spend money on a designer. Then get a builder in for a real quote. If you fit out retail as well as offices, the shop fit-out cost guide covers the same rate model from the retail side. Every calculator estimate is a price indication only.

Q: How much does office cleaning cost per square metre in Australia?

A: Office cleaning costs about $2 to $6 per square metre per clean in Australia in 2026. The low end applies to open-plan floors on a daily schedule where there's never much build-up; the high end applies to partitioned offices with multiple bathrooms and kitchens cleaned once or twice a week. Most commercial cleaners will also quote an hourly rate of $45 to $65 plus GST for one-off or variable work. Remember that periodicals — carpet steam cleaning, hard-floor buffing, internal and external glass — are almost always quoted separately from the routine scope.

Q: Why is a CBD office fit out more expensive than a suburban one?

A: A CBD office fit-out costs about 15% more than the same job in a suburban location, and after-hours restrictions can push it much higher. The premium comes from access rather than materials: restricted loading docks, booked lift slots, no lay-down area, contractor levies, and building rules that push noisy or dusty work into nights and weekends. After-hours labour carries roughly a 45% premium. On a $345,000 CBD fit-out, a significant after-hours component can add $50,000 or more to the total, which is why the site-access question matters as much as the specification.

Q: What is make-good and how much should I budget for it?

A: Make-good is the clause in most Australian commercial leases requiring you to return the premises to their original condition when the lease ends — stripping out joinery and partitions, patching and repainting, and sometimes reinstating the original ceiling and floor coverings. Budget $10,000 to $30,000 for a typical fitted-out small office floor, and more if your fit-out was extensive. Read the make-good clause before you sign, not before you leave, and provision for it from month one. It falls due exactly when you're funding your next fit-out.

Q: Do office construction and fit out prices include GST?

A: The rates in this guide are quoted excluding GST unless stated otherwise, which is the standard convention for commercial construction and fit-out quotes in Australia. Add 10% to get your cash cost. If your business is registered for GST you'll generally claim that back as an input tax credit, so the GST-exclusive figure is the one that matters for budgeting — check the current rules with the ATO or your accountant. Always confirm whether a quote is inclusive or exclusive before comparing two builders, because it's a 10% swing.

Getting a real number for your office

Office building construction cost, fit-out cost and cleaning cost are three separate budgets, and the only reliable way to plan is to price them separately and then add them up.

Start with the fit-out, because it's the number you control and the one you'll pay soonest. Get a per-square-metre ballpark, sanity-check it against your floor plate, then get two or three builders through the space.

Ask every quote the same three questions: is it inclusive or exclusive of GST, does it assume business-hours or after-hours access, and what's excluded. Those three answers explain almost every gap between two quotes for the same job.

Want an instant price estimate for your office fit-out? Use the office and shopfitting quote calculator linked at the top of this guide — pick "Office", enter your floor area and fit-out level, and you'll get a breakdown in about 30 seconds. Results are an indication only; your fitter confirms the final price after seeing the site.

Run a commercial trade yourself? Embed a free Leadkit calculator on your own site in 60 seconds and let it quote for you while you're on the tools — every enquiry comes through as a lead with the job details already filled in.