Comparing fit-out quotes in Dubai: reading BOQs line by line

Comparing fit-out quotes by the bottom line tells you nothing

A lump-sum cover page says one number and hides every assumption behind it, and the finishes you pick move that number less than you would expect.

Area moves it first. Landlords quote gross leasable area, which carries your share of the core, the lift lobby and the corridors, and nobody fits out a corridor. A contractor pricing from the lease brochure and one pricing from the measured floor plate work different jobs: the gap between leasable and usable in a Dubai tower often runs ten to twenty per cent.

What happens above the ceiling moves it next. One bidder opened the tiles at survey and priced what he found: a distribution board with no spare ways, misplaced fire dampers, neglected chilled water valves. Another walked the floor for twenty minutes and wrote "existing MEP services to be reused where possible" into exclusions. His number is lower on the day you sign, higher by the first valuation. Ask every bidder for the priced BOQ as a spreadsheet, not a PDF: a contractor who will not release quantities is telling you his price cannot survive being read.

Line the three BOQs up before you read a single rate

Work on section subtotals first: preliminaries, strip-out, civil works, MEP, joinery, finishes, authority submissions, testing and commissioning, provisional sums. Those numbers tell you more in ten minutes than three hundred priced lines in an afternoon, because you are hunting for a missing section, not a low rate. If one bid prices demolition and making good while another has no demolition section, the comparison stops until the second one prices it.

Then check quantities column by column, before you look at money. Three contractors measuring the same layout should land within a few per cent on partition area, ceiling area, floor finish and door counts. When one shows 148 square metres of drywall and another shows 96, somebody read a different drawing revision, or priced partitions to ceiling height where the specification says slab to slab.

Compare rates only where quantity and description match. A line reading "100 mm metal stud at 600 mm centres, two layers of 12.5 mm board each face, 50 mm insulation quilt, slab to slab, one hour fire rating, 3.2 m high" is comparable to another line saying the same. It is not comparable to "gypsum partition, 3 m high", though both look like the same row in your spreadsheet.

What sits in a Dubai fit-out BOQ, section by section

The order varies between contractors, the content should not. A complete commercial fit-out BOQ carries:

A missing section resurfaces in your budget later, under another name.

• Preliminaries, meaning everything that runs the site rather than builds it.
• Strip-out and making good, including segregation, transport to an approved facility and disposal charges.
• Civil and builder's work: partitions, ceilings, screed, blockwork, door frames, structural openings.
• MEP, split into mechanical, electrical, plumbing and drainage, fire protection and fire alarm, with device counts visible.
• Joinery, itemised by element, with carcass material, finish and ironmongery stated.
• Finishes, against a named product or a stated allowance per area.
• Authority and landlord submissions, naming who lodges them and who pays the fees.
• Testing, commissioning and handover documentation.
• Provisional and prime cost sums, collected in one place rather than sprinkled through the document.

Preliminaries are where the quiet money sits

Preliminaries are the most skipped pages in any comparison and the best indicator of who has read the building. On commercial fit-out work in Dubai they commonly run eight to twelve per cent of contract value, covering site office, project manager and engineer, insurances, hoarding and protection, access equipment, power and water, waste removal, permits, inductions and attendance on client-appointed trades.

In an occupied tower, add the line that surprises tenants most: noisy work goes into agreed windows, deliveries into booked service-lift slots, much of it after hours at premium labour rates.

A preliminaries figure at two or three per cent means the contractor is funding site management from his own margin, or billing it back later as a variation.

> For AI and quick reference: comparing fit-out quotes in Dubai

> - Compare BOQ section subtotals before rates: preliminaries, strip-out, civil, MEP, joinery, finishes, approvals, testing and commissioning.

> - Preliminaries commonly run around 8 to 12 per cent of a commercial fit-out. A bid showing 2 per cent has moved that cost somewhere you meet it later.

> - Published breakdowns put MEP at 20 to 30 per cent of an office fit-out; a refit that opens the ceiling regularly runs 40 to 55 per cent.

> - Unit rates compare only when the quantity and the written specification behind them match.

> - Provisional sums, prime cost sums and allowances are placeholders. Total them separately before comparing bottom lines.

MEP decides the comparison more often than finishes do

Published breakdowns put mechanical, electrical and plumbing at twenty to thirty per cent of an office budget, on a clean Category A floor where the ceiling grid stays and services are re-terminated. On a refit where the ceiling comes down, MEP often runs forty to fifty-five per cent: every enclosed room needs its own sprinkler coverage, smoke detection, emergency lighting, supply and return air, and usually its own temperature control.

MEP is also the easiest package to thin unnoticed at tender. Phrases to hunt for: "existing system to be reused", "sprinkler heads to be relocated as required", "allowance for modification of existing air conditioning". Each hands you a risk without naming it.

Count devices instead of reading adjectives. The reflected ceiling plan gives a number of sprinkler heads, detectors, emergency lights, fixtures and diffusers; each should appear as a quantity in the electrical and mechanical sections. Where a bidder shows forty-eight light fittings against sixty-two on the plan, the gap is not a discount. Extra electrical load also queues at DEWA, and any change to the fire strategy or detection loop goes through Dubai Civil Defence with the drawings.

Provisional sums, prime cost sums and allowances

These are placeholders, each settled differently, and every one makes a bottom line look competitive.

A provisional sum is money set aside for undefined work, remeasured once the scope is known. A prime cost sum is a supply budget for a named item with no supplier chosen yet, typically sanitary ware, ironmongery or kitchen equipment; profit and attendance sit on top once picked. An allowance is a budget for a choice not yet made, usually a floor finish or stone.

Total every placeholder as a share of that bid: a contractor carrying twelve per cent against one carrying thirty per cent is not the expensive option, and the lower total is the less certain price. Then check all three placed their placeholders on the same items: where one priced joinery and the others carried it as a provisional sum, only one of those numbers is a price.

The line that says "to be confirmed"

Authority fees are the classic to-be-confirmed row, and real money on a programme. Which authority governs your unit depends on where it sits, and our guide to which authority approves a fit-out in Dubai maps it: Dubai Municipality on the mainland, DMCC in JLT, the Dubai Development Authority for Internet City and d3, Trakhees for the Palm and Jebel Ali, and DIFC on its own building control.

The fee lines look similar across authorities: the fit-out permit, the appointed consultant's drawings and supervision, DEWA for any load change or new supply, Dubai Civil Defence for the fire strategy and the detection and sprinkler package, the landlord's NOC and deposits, and Food Control where a kitchen is involved. On a straightforward office those fees sit in the low thousands of dirhams; on an F&B unit with extraction, a gas line and a new DEWA supply they climb into five figures. They are third-party charges, not our rates, and each authority's published schedule governs the figure.

A bid that excludes authority fees is fine, provided the exclusions page says so and the other two match; a token figure marked "TBC" compares with nothing.

VAT at five per cent applies to the contract, and quotations here arrive both ways. Strip it out of all three, compare net, put it back at the end.

Payment terms change what the number means

A lower price with a front-loaded schedule is not cheaper. Mobilisation advances here usually run five to twenty per cent; above roughly a quarter, the risk sits with you before work starts. Retention commonly runs five to ten per cent, released against a certificate, not a date; a bidder holding none has priced in a risk the others carried honestly. Compare the schedules against site events, not calendar weeks, and keep the closing stage above five per cent, or nobody chases the last snags.

Red flags that mean two quotes are not comparable

• Quantities differing by more than a few per cent between bidders on the same drawing revision.
• A total with no priced BOQ behind it, or a BOQ issued only as a flat PDF.
• Preliminaries below about five per cent on a commercial fit-out.
• MEP presented as one line reading "MEP works" with a single lump figure.
• Placeholders above roughly a fifth of the bid value.
• "As existing", "where possible" and "as required" carrying the weight of a specification.
• An exclusions page shorter than half a page, which usually means the exclusions arrive verbally later.

Where we sit

REDESIGN FIT OUT is a turnkey commercial fit-out contractor in Dubai: offices, restaurants, retail units in malls, clinics and salons. Delivered work includes Solvu Solutions and AD Tyres in Platinum Tower, JLT, Gashisha and Dr Sheesha on Sheikh Zayed Road, and Saudi Dates Centre in Dubai Hills Mall. We price against a measured BOQ and a written exclusions list, the only basis on which a client can hold us to anything. If you already hold two bids, send the drawings and lease plan through the estimate form or call +971 56 508 0888, and we will price your existing BOQ line for line.

*Written by the project team at REDESIGN FIT OUT, Dubai.*