A fit-out in Dubai takes 12 to 32 weeks from appointment to handover, depending on sector. A standard office runs 12 to 24 weeks. A mall retail unit runs 12 to 20 weeks, of which only 4 to 8 are on site. A restaurant runs 16 to 30 weeks. A clinic runs 20 to 32 weeks because of the additional health authority review.
Roughly half of any fit-out programme happens before anyone picks up a tool. Design, approvals and procurement typically consume 8 to 14 weeks, and they are where projects are won or lost. Construction is the visible half and the predictable half.
| Sector | Design & approvals | Construction | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office, Cat A unit | 5 – 9 weeks | 7 – 15 weeks | 12 – 24 weeks |
| Office, shell and core | 7 – 11 weeks | 11 – 21 weeks | 18 – 32 weeks |
| Retail, mall unit | 8 – 12 weeks | 4 – 8 weeks | 12 – 20 weeks |
| Retail, standalone | 6 – 10 weeks | 6 – 12 weeks | 12 – 22 weeks |
| Restaurant / F&B | 8 – 13 weeks | 8 – 17 weeks | 16 – 30 weeks |
| Clinic / healthcare | 10 – 16 weeks | 10 – 16 weeks | 20 – 32 weeks |
| Warehouse / industrial | 5 – 9 weeks | 7 – 14 weeks | 12 – 23 weeks |
Notice retail. The total is comparable to an office, but the construction window is a quarter of the length. That is because a mall grants a fixed fit-out period and everything else has to be finished beforehand. The detail is in the retail fit-out guide.
Site measurement, condition survey of existing services, review of the landlord’s fit-out manual, headcount and function brief.
The services survey is the one that gets skipped, and it is the one that causes trouble. What the drawings say the building has and what is actually above the ceiling are frequently different.
Space planning, layout options, 3D visualisation, material and finish selection, lighting design.
MEP must be involved here, not later. An engineer reviewing an early layout will tell you within an hour whether the ceiling void is deep enough, whether the cooling capacity serves the room count, and whether the electrical load is adequate. Those three answers change layouts, and layouts are cheap to change on a drawing. See what MEP covers in construction for why this is the package that governs the programme.
Dubai Municipality fit-out permit, Civil Defence design approval, DEWA where the load changes, plus the landlord or building management NOC. Add 4 to 8 weeks for DHA on clinics or KHDA on schools.
This runs in parallel with procurement, not before it. Waiting for approval before ordering is the single most common cause of a compressed construction phase. The full sequence and why submissions come back is covered in how architectural design and approvals work in Dubai.
Long-lead items ordered off approved drawings. Joinery is the constraint at 5 to 10 weeks from survey to installation, and it cannot start until dimensions are confirmed. See joinery works in Dubai for the full workshop sequence.
Also long-lead: specialist lighting, imported stone and tile, glazed partition systems, commercial kitchen equipment, medical equipment.
| Activity | Typical share |
|---|---|
| Mobilisation, protection, strip-out | 1 – 2 weeks |
| Civil works, blockwork, screeds | 1 – 2 weeks |
| MEP first fix | 2 – 4 weeks |
| Partitions and ceilings | 2 – 4 weeks |
| MEP second fix | 1 – 3 weeks |
| Flooring and finishes | 1 – 3 weeks |
| Joinery installation | 1 – 2 weeks |
| Snagging and making good | 1 – 2 weeks |
These overlap. A well-sequenced project runs several in parallel across zones; a badly sequenced one runs them end to end and takes twice as long on the same scope.
Air and water balancing, electrical testing, fire alarm cause-and-effect with Civil Defence witnessing, sprinkler flow testing, BMS verification, snagging, as-built drawings, O&M manuals.
Civil Defence inspection is the final gate. It cannot happen until installation is complete, and without the certificate you do not occupy. Every day of construction slippage pushes this directly.
Furniture delivery, IT commissioning, stock and merchandising for retail, staff training for F&B.
Handing over on the day you planned to open is handing over late. Build this in.
Most activities have slack. These four do not.
1. Authority approval. Nothing about it can be accelerated with money. The only lever is submitting a clean first application, because each comment round costs two to four weeks.
2. Joinery lead time. Five to ten weeks, and it cannot begin until the site is measurable and shop drawings are approved. Approval time sitting on a client’s desk delays the whole package day for day.
3. MEP first fix. Everything above the ceiling has to be complete and inspected before ceilings close. A late MEP design pushes every subsequent trade.
4. Civil Defence inspection. Last gate, no route around it.
Everything else — flooring, decoration, loose furniture — can usually absorb a few days without moving the end date.
1. Going to site with unresolved drawings. The most common and most expensive. Design questions get answered on site by whoever is standing there, and the answers generate variations.
2. Late client decisions. Finish selections, joinery approvals, layout sign-off. A decision sitting unmade for ten days delays the project by ten days. This is the delay clients most underestimate and most control.
3. Sequential rather than parallel working. Design, then approvals, then procurement, then construction adds 6 to 10 weeks against running them concurrently.
4. Discovering the base build is not what was assumed. Weak Cat A, inadequate cooling capacity, insufficient electrical load, a ceiling void shallower than drawn. A proper survey at week one prevents this.
5. Changing the layout after authority approval. Resubmission, new comments, new timeline. Layout changes should stop at submission.
6. Out-of-hours restrictions not priced or planned. Occupied towers and malls restrict noisy work to overnight. A programme built on daytime productivity will not hold.
Things that work:
Things that mostly do not:
Twelve to twenty-four weeks from appointment to handover for a Cat A unit. Design and authority approvals take 5 to 9 weeks and construction 7 to 15 weeks. A shell and core office takes 18 to 32 weeks because the base build works are included. Cost ranges for each are covered in office fit-out cost in Dubai.
Four to eight weeks for a standard commercial project, covering the Dubai Municipality fit-out permit, Civil Defence design approval and DEWA where the electrical load changes. Add 4 to 8 weeks for healthcare projects requiring DHA approval or education projects requiring KHDA. Each round of authority comments adds a further two to four weeks.
Joinery, at five to ten weeks from site survey to installation. This covers survey, shop drawings, client approval, material procurement, sample approval, workshop production, finishing and installation. It cannot begin until site dimensions are confirmed, which is why joinery sits on the critical path of most projects.
Small, simple scopes in a good Cat A unit with no layout change and minimal MEP modification can complete in 8 to 10 weeks. Anything requiring new partitions, fire system modification or bespoke joinery will not, because the approval and joinery lead times alone consume most of that window regardless of how quickly construction proceeds.
Six reasons account for most overruns: going to site with unresolved drawings, late client decisions on finishes and layouts, running design and approvals sequentially rather than in parallel, discovering the base build differs from what was assumed, changing the layout after authority approval, and failing to plan for out-of-hours working restrictions.
Not usually. Night shifts cost 20 to 40 percent more in labour and typically deliver less output per hour. In malls and occupied towers they are mandatory rather than optional, and should be priced at tender. As a way of recovering a delayed programme they are expensive and only moderately effective.
At concept stage, before the layout is fixed. Bringing MEP and construction expertise into the design conversation early prevents the layout conflicts that generate variations later. Appointing after the design is frozen is the most common source of cost and time overrun on Dubai projects. The questions to ask are in how to choose a fit-out contractor in Dubai.
Sixteen to thirty weeks against twelve to twenty-four. The difference is the commercial kitchen, which requires Dubai Municipality Food Safety review of the layout and finishes, more complex MEP including extract, gas and drainage, and a separate equipment installation and commissioning phase. Full detail in restaurant fit-out in Dubai.
Work backwards from the date you need to occupy, not forwards from today. Take your handover date, subtract two weeks for occupation and training, three weeks for testing and inspection, then the construction duration for your sector, then 8 to 14 weeks for design, approvals and procurement running concurrently.
If the answer is a start date that has already passed, the programme needs rescoping rather than compressing. That conversation is far cheaper in week one than in week twelve.
Hitesh Design & Build delivers interior design and fit-out, MEP and technical services and architectural design with authority approvals under a single contract, which is what allows design, submissions and procurement to run in parallel rather than waiting on each other.
For background, read what fit-out work involves, and see delivered programmes across sectors in our project case studies.
If you have a lease date, send us the details and we will tell you whether the programme is achievable before you commit to a design.
Our reputation has been earned project by project, grounded in quality execution, ethical practice, and long-standing client partnerships.
