What will your renovation cost?
Enter the floor area, the depth of the work and the age of the property. The calculator returns an indicative all-in range in dirhams, built from the rates in our own priced bills of quantities rather than from a number somebody invented.
It is a planning range. It will tell you the order of magnitude you are dealing with, which is what you need before you commission a design or make an offer on a property. It is not a quotation, and the page below is honest about why.
Villa · mid-range renovation AED —
| Element | AED range |
|---|
Indicative planning range only. Not a quotation and not an offer. Figures are derived from priced bills of quantities on Dubai renovation projects, reviewed September 2026, and rounded. Your price depends on specification, condition and what is found on site.
Where these numbers come from
Most renovation calculators online in the UAE produce a number and will not tell you where it came from. This one applies rates per square metre of internal floor area taken from our own priced bills of quantities on Dubai villa, townhouse and apartment renovations, reconciled against the lump-sum ranges we publish in our cost guides and cross-checked against published UAE construction cost research.
The bands below are the ones the calculator applies. They are all-in construction rates: they include the contractor's preliminaries, site management, plant, protection, waste removal and overheads, because a rate that excludes those is not a rate anybody can build to. They exclude VAT and contingency, which the calculator shows as separate lines.
| Property & scope | AED / m² | AED / sq ft |
|---|---|---|
| Villa — cosmetic refurbishment | 800 – 1,500 | 75 – 140 |
| Villa — mid-range renovation | 1,400 – 2,400 | 130 – 225 |
| Villa — full strip-out and rebuild | 2,000 – 4,000 | 185 – 370 |
| Townhouse — cosmetic refurbishment | 900 – 1,600 | 85 – 150 |
| Townhouse — mid-range renovation | 1,600 – 2,700 | 150 – 250 |
| Townhouse — full strip-out and rebuild | 2,400 – 4,600 | 225 – 430 |
| Apartment — cosmetic refurbishment | 1,000 – 1,900 | 95 – 175 |
| Apartment — mid-range renovation | 1,800 – 3,600 | 165 – 335 |
| Apartment — premium strip-out | 3,400 – 6,500 | 315 – 605 |
Two things are worth saying about those rates. A townhouse costs more per square metre than a villa, because the site set-up, the welfare, the skips, the supervision and the approvals cost roughly the same whatever the size, and on a smaller property that fixed cost is spread over less floor area. And an apartment costs more per square metre again, because a tower adds service-lift bookings, restricted working hours, protection of common areas, longer material handling routes and building management approvals, none of which appear in the finished flat.
How age is applied
Age does not change the band. It changes where inside the band a property of that age realistically lands, and that is how the calculator treats it — it narrows the range rather than inflating it.
The reason is mechanical, electrical and plumbing services. In a Dubai villa built before about 2006, the wiring, the pipework, the drainage and the air conditioning are at or past the end of their service life. Once the ceilings are open, replacing them stops being a decision and becomes a fact. A twenty-five-year-old villa on a mid-range brief lands in the upper half of the mid-range band, not the lower half, and pretending otherwise is how a renovation quoted at AED 600,000 finishes at AED 900,000.
External works
Pools, landscaping and shade structures are priced as lump sums rather than per square metre of house, because they have nothing to do with internal floor area. The figures applied are a complete pool of around 4.5 by 6 metres including excavation, RC shell, tiling, coping, pumps, filtration and commissioning at AED 120,000 to 170,000; hard and soft landscaping with irrigation across a typical villa or townhouse plot at AED 45,000 to 120,000; and a powder-coated aluminium pergola of around twenty square metres at AED 15,000 to 24,000. Each is taken from the same priced bills of quantities as the internal rates.
What sits outside the construction sum
Two things are shown below the total rather than inside it, because that is how a contract sum is properly presented.
Authority and developer charges — NOC fees, fit-out deposits, access permits, DEWA and cooling provider charges. These are paid at cost and passed through without mark-up. A Dubai Municipality pool permit is a few thousand dirhams; a developer or Owners Association NOC on top of it, with the drawings it requires, takes the total to somewhere between AED 3,000 and AED 12,000. An internal fit-out NOC is usually a few thousand plus a refundable deposit.
Contingency — five to ten per cent of the construction sum, and ten per cent on anything over twenty years old. That is not padding and it is not an allowance for contractor error. It covers what is found behind the walls and the changes you will want once you can stand in the space.
What is excluded entirely
Professional fees for architects, engineers and quantity surveyors. Loose furniture and soft furnishings. Appliances and white goods beyond those integrated into the kitchen. Audio visual, automation and smart home systems beyond basic containment. Structural remedial work, which only a condition survey will reveal. Anything outside your demise, including facade, common areas and the building's own services.
Basis and review
The bands come from our own priced bills of quantities on Dubai villa, townhouse and apartment renovations, aggregated to an all-in rate per square metre and reconciled to the lump-sum ranges published in our cost guides so that this page and those pages cannot contradict each other. They are cross-checked against independent published UAE construction cost research, including the AECOM Middle East Handbook and Turner & Townsend UAE Market Intelligence.
Where our own data and a published benchmark disagreed, we used our own, because a rate taken from a measured bill of quantities on a real Dubai project is worth more than a national average. Where our own data was thin, we widened the band rather than narrowing it. Reviewed September 2026 and revised as projects complete.
What actually moves the number
Floor area sets the scale. Four things move the figure inside that scale, and only one of them appears on a floor plan.
Finish specification. This is the largest single variable and it is not a function of size. The same 400 m² villa can be finished in porcelain and laminate or in book-matched marble and solid timber joinery, and the gap between those two is wider than the gap between a cosmetic refresh and a full strip-out. It is why any honest calculator returns a range.
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Invisible when finished, and therefore the first thing a cheap quotation leaves out. In a villa over fifteen years old it is not optional. See what a villa renovation actually costs in Dubai for how much of a budget this typically consumes.
Structural alteration. Removing a wall is cheap. Removing a wall that is carrying something is a structural engineer, a drawing, a developer NOC and a steel or concrete solution. Whether your wall is load-bearing is not a judgement call and it is not something a contractor should be guessing at on site.
Approvals and access. Community rules cost money and time before anybody lifts a tool. What you need depends entirely on who the developer is — see the guides for Emaar, Nakheel, DAMAC, Trakhees and DDA. Apartment towers add building management approvals, service lift bookings and working-hour restrictions on top.
Why a calculator cannot give you a price
Because a price comes from a measured bill of quantities against a defined specification, and a calculator has neither. What a calculator can do is tell you whether you are looking at a 500,000 dirham project or a 1.5 million dirham project, and that is a genuinely useful thing to know before you commission a designer or make an offer on a property.
What it cannot do is protect you. A lump sum quotation with no measured basis is not a price, it is an opening position — and the variations arrive later. We price every project from a bill of quantities, item by item, which is how you get a figure that means something and a variation account you can actually audit.
Further reading: villa renovation costs, apartment renovation, kitchen renovation costs, bathroom renovation costs and the full guide library.
Common questions
How accurate is a renovation cost calculator?
It gives you a planning range, not a price. It is accurate enough to tell you whether a project is a 500,000 dirham job or a 1.5 million dirham job, which is what most people need before they commit to anything.
It cannot tell you your price, because your price depends on what is specified, what condition the property is actually in, and what is found once ceilings and floors come up. Only a measured bill of quantities against a defined specification produces a real figure.
Why is the range so wide?
Because finish specification is the single largest variable in a Dubai renovation and it is not a function of floor area. The same villa can be finished in porcelain and laminate or in book-matched marble and solid timber joinery, and the difference between those two is larger than the difference between a cosmetic refurbishment and a full strip-out.
Anyone quoting you a single number from a floor area alone is guessing.
Does the calculator include VAT?
The construction figures exclude VAT and it is added as a separate line, because that is how a contract sum is presented in the UAE. VAT is charged at 5 per cent on construction works.
Developer and authority charges — NOC fees, fit-out deposits, DEWA charges — are shown separately again, below the total, because they are paid at cost and are not part of the contract sum.
What is not included in the figure?
Professional fees for designers, engineers and quantity surveyors. Loose furniture and soft furnishings. White goods and appliances unless integrated into the kitchen. Audio visual and smart home systems beyond basic containment. Structural remedial works that only a condition survey will reveal. Any works to the building outside your demise.
Contingency and VAT are shown as separate lines rather than buried in the rate.
Why does property age change the figure?
Because mechanical, electrical and plumbing services have a service life. In a Dubai villa built before about 2006 the wiring, pipework, drainage and air conditioning are at or past end of life, and once the ceilings are open replacing them stops being a choice.
Age does not change the cost band. It changes where inside that band a property of that age typically lands, which is how the calculator treats it.
How much contingency should I hold?
Five to ten per cent of the construction sum, even with a full measured bill of quantities. On a property over twenty years old, hold ten per cent.
That money covers what is found behind walls and the changes you will want to make once you can see the space. It is not an allowance for contractor error.