Office Fitout Cost Brisbane 2026: The Real Number Isn't the Build, It's the Make-Good Bill

Office fitout cost in Brisbane sits somewhere between $695 and $3,475 per square metre depending on what you're building, and most of the quotes landing in business owners' inboxes right now only cover half the story. Builders price the construction. Almost nobody prices what happens when the lease ends and the landlord wants the space handed back exactly as it was found. If you're budgeting a retail or office fitout in Brisbane this year, the gap between those two numbers is where projects go over budget.

We pulled current cost benchmarks and legal guidance to put together a realistic picture: not just what the build costs per square metre, but what it costs to walk away from it in three or five years, and the one tax lever that can soften the blow if you move before 30 June 2026.

What Office Fitout Cost in Brisbane Actually Looks Like Right Now

According to cost data verified in October 2026, Brisbane office fitouts break down roughly like this, GST-inclusive, per square metre of usable floor area:

Basic / Cat A base building work: $695 to $1,300/m², typically landing around $1,000. This is the bare-minimum tenancy condition most landlords deliver before a tenant moves in: ceiling, basic services, power and data roughed in, nothing finished.

Mid-range Cat B fitout: $1,300 to $2,175/m², typically $1,750. This is what most Brisbane professional services and B2B tenants land on: partitioned offices or workstations, a functional kitchen, meeting rooms, standard flooring and lighting, no architectural statement pieces.

Premium Cat B fitout: $2,175 to $3,475/m², typically $2,600. Feature joinery, branded reception areas, higher-end finishes, bespoke lighting design, the kind of space a professional services firm in a Milton or Fortitude Valley tower builds when the office itself is part of the pitch to clients. You can inspect completed examples of high-spec finishes in our commercial fitout portfolio.

Retail shopfitting runs its own range, $870 to $2,400/m² with $1,725 typical, and tends to track closer to the premium office band because of shopfront glazing, signage zones and point-of-sale infrastructure that office tenancies don't need. Learn more about retail specific requirements on our retail fitouts service page.

Industry forecasters are pointing to roughly a 4.5% year-on-year cost increase sitting underneath those numbers, and Brisbane's tender prices specifically are forecast to climb by around 5% through 2026. That's being driven by sustained building activity across the city and the infrastructure programs running ahead of the 2032 Olympics, both of which are pulling trades and materials away from commercial fitout work and into bigger civil and venue projects. If you've been quoted a number that feels higher than what a mate's fitout cost two years ago in South Brisbane or Woolloongabba, this is largely why.

Office vs Retail Fitout Brisbane: Why the Numbers Diverge

Historically, Brisbane has been one of the more affordable Australian markets for commercial fitout work, tracking close to Perth and noticeably below Sydney and Melbourne on a cost-per-square-metre basis. That gap is real, but it's narrowing. Retail fitout Brisbane businesses are quoting now often sits higher per square metre than a comparable office job, simply because shopfronts carry mechanical services, security shutters and compliance-driven finishes (think food-grade surfaces for hospitality fitouts) that a standard office tenancy skips entirely.

If you're comparing commercial fitout companies Brisbane-wide, ask every one of them to break their quote into base building allowance, fitout works, and loose fixtures and equipment separately. A lump-sum number that bundles all three makes it almost impossible to compare quotes apples to apples, and it's the single biggest reason business owners get quote shock when a second builder comes in 20% lower on paper but has simply scoped less. Review our comprehensive vetting guide on how to choose a commercial fitout company in Brisbane for licensing and contract checks.

The Cost Nobody Budgets For: Make Good at Lease End

Here's the part that catches Brisbane tenants out, usually two or three years after they've stopped thinking about fitout costs entirely. Most commercial leases include a make good clause requiring the tenant to return the premises to its original condition, or to whatever condition the lease specifies, when the lease ends. Typical reinstatement costs run $80 to $350 per square metre depending on the scope of works, with $450 per square metre reported as the average total make-good cost across all trades for a CBD office fit out. On a 300 square metre tenancy, that's a bill of $24,000 to $135,000 landing at the exact moment you're also paying to build out a new space somewhere else.

The legal detail that trips people up: a general make-good clause doesn't automatically force you to rip out everything you've installed. Whether removal is required usually comes down to what the landlord made a condition of consenting to your fit-out works in the first place, and whether your lease is specific about what happens to fixtures when you leave. Left undefined, these terms get fought over, and roughly six in ten commercial lease disputes in Australia reportedly involve make good obligations in some form. If you're signing a new lease or starting fit-out works under an existing one, get the make good clause reviewed and defined properly before the first tradesperson shows up, not after you've handed back the keys. For warehouse, logistics and manufacturing spaces, our team also manages complete make-goods across commercial and industrial fitouts.

One Thing Worth Checking Before 30 June 2026

If your business has an aggregated turnover under $10 million, the instant asset write-off currently sits at $20,000 per asset and has been extended through to 30 June 2026. It applies per item rather than to a combined invoice, so loose fitout assets purchased separately, think individual workstations, a server rack, a commercial coffee machine or signage, may each qualify for an immediate deduction rather than being depreciated over several years, provided they're installed and ready for use before the deadline. This generally won't cover the structural fitout build itself, but for the loose fixtures and equipment layer of a project it's worth running past your accountant while you're still in the budgeting stage, not after the invoices have already been paid.

None of this is a reason to delay a fitout that your business genuinely needs. It's a reason to ask for a full-scope quote, get your make good obligations in writing before work starts, and have the tax conversation early enough that it actually changes a purchasing decision rather than just showing up as a surprise at tax time. For timeline advice to prevent trading downtime, check out our guide on Brisbane fitout project timelines.

Getting an Accurate Quote

When you're comparing commercial fitout companies Brisbane businesses actually use, ask for three things in every quote: the per-square-metre rate broken down by category (base building, fitout, loose FF&E), a written statement of what the lease and consent conditions require at exit, and a timeline that accounts for the current trade and materials pressure in the Brisbane market. A fitout quote that's silent on any of those three isn't wrong, it's just incomplete, and incomplete quotes are where fitout budgets quietly blow out six months after the ribbon's been cut. Have questions regarding certifier approvals or council requirements across all Brisbane service areas? Check our fitout FAQs or contact Brisbane Fitout Co for an itemised quote.