Where the money goes
What is the most expensive part of a house to renovate?
The kitchen as a single room; the kitchen and the bathrooms per square metre; and in a villa with several bathrooms, the bathrooms as a set. The published bands behind each answer, with the company that prints them.
The answer
The most expensive part of a house to renovate, room by room
The most expensive part of a house to renovate depends on how you measure it: by the room, by the square metre or by the whole bill. In Dubai all three point at the same two rooms, the kitchen and the bathrooms, for the same reason. They are where water, power, drainage, joinery and tiling meet in a small floor area. The bands below come from the UAE Renovation Cost Index, with the company behind each one.
What is the most expensive part of a house to renovate?
The kitchen, as a single room. Its published bands run from AED 12,000 for a small refit on MBC Renovation Services' list to AED 300,000 for imported joinery, where one bathroom runs from AED 8,000 to AED 150,000 and more. Per square metre, kitchens and bathrooms both outprice the home around them: First Unicorn Interiors, the one company in the index that prints a per-foot rate for kitchens and whole homes alike, puts a standard kitchen at AED 400 to 800 per sq ft against AED 200 to 350 for a standard villa. In a villa with several bathrooms, the bathrooms together can pass the kitchen. Every band is in the cost index.
Renovation rates per square metre, by room and by home
| What is priced | AED per square metre | As published | Published by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen, standard renovation | About 4,300 to 8,600 | AED 400 to 800 per sq ft | First Unicorn Interiors |
| Kitchen, 3 x 3 metre refit with worktops and plumbing | From about 1,670 | From AED 15,000 for a 9 m² room | MBC Renovation Services |
| Bathroom, scope not stated | 3,000 to 6,000 | Per square metre, printed once | First Unicorn Interiors |
| Villa, standard renovation | About 2,150 to 3,770 | AED 200 to 350 per sq ft | First Unicorn Interiors |
| Apartment, standard renovation | About 1,610 to 2,690 | AED 150 to 250 per sq ft | First Unicorn Interiors |
| Apartment, standard renovation | 850 to 1,350 | Per square metre | Revive Hub Renovations |
Conversions use 10.76 square feet to the square metre. The first comparison stays inside one publisher on purpose. First Unicorn's pages disagree with each other in places, and its kitchen page also prints a second, higher set of rates, AED 600 to 1,200 per sq ft for mid-range work; even its lower standard kitchen rate is double or more its standard villa rate.
Two further checks point the same way. MBC's 3 x 3 metre kitchen, a published total with its room size attached, works out at about AED 1,670 per square metre at its starting price, above the top of Revive Hub's standard apartment rate. And Revive Hub prices a kitchen alone, in a villa, at AED 35,000 to 80,000, against AED 65,000 to 135,000 for a light renovation of a whole compact three-bedroom villa. The bathroom row is the weakest in the table: First Unicorn prints its figure once, without a scope, which is why the index prices bathrooms per room.
Is the kitchen or the bathrooms the bigger bill?
In an apartment with one or two bathrooms, usually the kitchen. In a villa, often the bathrooms, because every one of them is priced as a job of its own. The arithmetic with the index's bands:
- A full mid-range kitchen: AED 45,000 to 120,000 across Vision Three's, Bayut's and Design Divine's mid-range bands.
- Two standard bathrooms: AED 30,000 to 90,000, at AED 15,000 to 45,000 each.
- Three standard bathrooms: AED 45,000 to 135,000, level with the kitchen band at the bottom and past it at the top.
- One luxury master bathroom: AED 50,000 to 150,000 and more, from MBC Renovation Services, Bayut and Design Divine, enough on its own to match a mid-range kitchen.
Because the bathroom bands are per bathroom, a quote that folds several into one line cannot be checked against the index. The service sites break each room down: the kitchen site's kitchen breakdown and the bathroom site's bathroom breakdown.
What is the hardest room to renovate?
The bathroom, because most of its cost ends up where nobody sees it. The strip-out, the drainage, the screed laid to falls and the waterproofing membrane all sit under the tiles, and a mistake in any of them surfaces as a leak, often through the ceiling below. Revive Hub Renovations prices a minor refresh at AED 3,000 to 9,000 and a standard renovation at AED 12,000 to 28,000, and most of the gap between those two rows is the work a refresh leaves out.
Rules add to it in apartments. Emaar's factsheet does not allow MEP services to be relocated or existing floor tiles to be lifted in its apartments, and Town Square's apartment manual allows new tiles only on top of the old, so the drain positions and the floor level are fixed before any design starts.
What costs more than any single room?
Changing the building rather than a room: moving a wall, adding area or relocating a service. That work leaves the maintenance and décor routes and becomes a modification, drawn and filed by a registered consultant, with permit fees on top of the build.
- Dubai Municipality land: a modification permit, service 4127, stated at 3 working days and filed through a registered consultant.
- Abu Dhabi plots in Tasareeh's scope: about AED 5,900 in published fees for a single-villa modification: registration AED 600, design review AED 3,500, work start notice AED 600 and structural inspection AED 1,200.
- Town Square: breaking or opening an interior wall is a major alteration, AED 2,000 plus an AED 5,000 deposit, and allowed in townhouses only.
- Emaar communities: added floor area carries an extra fee, and Emaar publishes no amount for it.
Our Dubai permit guide sets out which route a change falls into, and the Abu Dhabi guide the Tasareeh schedule in full.
Which renovation adds the most value to a home?
The one a buyer can check. Emaar and Town Square both publish what unapproved work costs: Emaar lists refused transfers and resales among the risks of unapproved alterations, and Town Square sets an AED 50,000 penalty for an unapproved major alteration. Value lasts where the paperwork does, so keep each NOC and completion certificate with the title documents. The villa site covers villa resale value, and the apartment site the rental upgrades worth making before a new tenancy.
Planning the budget around the costly rooms
Price the kitchen as a job, each bathroom as its own job, and the rest of the home by area and finish, then add the designer's fee and the approvals. The hub's renovation cost answer sets out that budget step by step, and Corvana Renovation puts the whole home, room by room, to licensed contractors who quote against the index.
Related questions
Room cost questions
- Is the kitchen always the most expensive room?
- Not always. A single luxury master bathroom, published at AED 50,000 to 150,000 and more, can cost more than a kitchen that keeps its layout, which starts at AED 12,000. The kitchen leads when both rooms are done to the same level.
- Why do bathrooms cost so much for their size?
- Because a small bathroom still needs the full set of trades: a plumber for the drains, a membrane and its flood test, a tiler, and glass measured to the finished tiles. The index prices them per bathroom for that reason.
- What is the cheapest part of a home to renovate?
- The surfaces that sit on what is already there: paint, and flooring laid over the old where the rules allow. Town Square, for example, files interior repainting and wallpaper, and SPC flooring laid over existing tiles, as home improvements at AED 160, its lightest approval tier.
- Does the most expensive room differ between villas and apartments?
- The rooms are the same; the price per room is not. Vision Three publishes apartment work at 15 to 25 percent above villa work at the same specification, because of building access and logistics.
- How do I find which part of my renovation costs most?
- Ask each contractor to price the kitchen, each bathroom and the rest of the home as separate lines. We ask for that split on every quote, so the costly rooms can be checked against the index one at a time.
Who you are dealing with
- OperatorWebsiteOS LLC
- Licence2646567.01
- Cost to homeownerNone
- Figures datedSeptember 2026
Tell us about the renovation
Villa or apartment, community, which rooms and what you want changed. We come back with contractors who price each room as its own line, against the published bands.