What a bathroom renovation costs in Dubai

Two figures read on 2026-09-20 show the whole problem.

Green Grove Maintenance publishes the low end, and read further and the page explains what sits behind it: doing the painting, hardware and grouting yourself, and hiring out only the tiling and plumbing. That is a partly self-managed job on a small room, and it is an honest figure for that job. Its range is the last row of the table below.

Bestimate, a Dubai quote-comparison platform, publishes the other end. Its basic full bathroom band is defined as demolition, standard tiles, basic sanitaryware, waterproofing, mixer replacement, repainting and cleanup, and it sits several times above the Green Grove figure for work that sounds similar until you read the scope.

Neither is wrong. They are not the same job. One is labour on selected tasks with the owner doing the rest. The other is a contractor stripping the room to the slab and handing it back finished. A price with no scope attached to it cannot be compared with anything, which is why the first question to ask about any Dubai bathroom figure is not how much, but what does it include.

The table below is one publisher's planning benchmark, and Bestimate defines each band by scope, which is the only way a range is usable. These are not Dubai Renovations prices and not a quote. Read the bands downward and the pattern is clear: the jump from the second row to the third is not a jump in taste, it is the difference between replacing what is there and testing what is behind it.

Whether the layout moves. Leaving the toilet, shower and basin where they are keeps the drainage where it is. Moving any of them means opening the floor screed, rerouting waste pipes and rebuilding falls to the drain. It is the single decision that separates a four-week job from a ten-week one, and it is the decision to make before anyone prices the work.

Whether waterproofing is in the price. Bestimate's advice on this is blunt: ask whether the quote includes waterproofing, before paying a deposit. In a tower, a bathroom sits directly above someone's ceiling, and the cost of a failed membrane is not your bathroom. It is the unit below and whatever was in it. Ask for the membrane product, the height it runs up the walls, and whether there is a flood test before tiling starts.

What is behind the tiles. A standard band assumes the pipes and the distribution board are fit to reuse. Older stock in Dubai often is not. Concealed cisterns, thermostatic mixers and electric water heaters all put demands on supply pressure and circuits that a surface refresh never touches, and the discovery usually happens after demolition, when it arrives as a variation rather than as a line in the original quote.

Tile format. Large-format slabs cost more to buy, more to cut, more to handle up a service lift and more in wastage. Bestimate places them in its premium band for exactly that reason.

This is the line most published Dubai bathroom prices leave out entirely, and it is one of the few that can be looked up rather than estimated.

In areas regulated by Dubai Development Authority, works inside part of a building run under a fit-out permit, and the authority publishes the fee rather than leaving it to be estimated. It is charged per square foot of permitted area, with a floor and a ceiling, plus the Knowledge Dirham and the Innovation Dirham that attach to the transaction. The figures are in the table below with the authority named beside them. Because the rate is charged by area, a single bathroom is almost always priced at the floor rather than at the rate. The estimated service time is 2 working days.

The permit is requested by the contractor, not by you. Dubai Development Authority lists what has to be assembled first: a fit-out permit request form, a contractor appointment letter by the tenant, a copy of the Ejari, an NOC from the building owner, NOCs from the relevant authorities where the matrix requires them, and approved stamped drawings alongside the proposed ones. The two working days are the authority's part. Gathering the building owner's NOC is your building's part, and nobody publishes how long that takes.

If the property sits outside a Dubai Development Authority area, the authority changes and so does the process. The renovation approvals guide in the list beside this page sets out who approves what, by area and by property type.

Yes, and the order is set in law. Article 19 of Dubai Law No. 26 of 2007 is short, and it decides the order of everything else. A tenant may not make any changes or carry out any restoration or maintenance works to the Real Property unless so permitted by the Landlord and after obtaining required licences from the competent official entities.

Both conditions, in that order. This is also why the fit-out permit file asks for a contractor appointment letter by the tenant and a copy of the Ejari: the authority is checking that the person commissioning the work is entitled to commission it. Getting a bathroom quote before getting the landlord's written permission is how a renovation budget turns into a dispute.

In a jointly owned building, Article 39 of Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 adds a further step for substantial alterations to a unit's structure or external appearance, which need the master developer, the Dubai Land Department and the competent authority to approve. Most like-for-like bathroom refits do not reach that threshold. Moving a wall does.

Check, because it changes the comparison. The UAE Ministry of Finance states that Value Added Tax was introduced across the UAE on 1 January 2018 at a standard rate of 5 percent.

Five percent of a bathroom in the standard band is more than the difference people agonise over between two quotes. A quote showing a VAT line and a quote that is silent about it are not the same price. If VAT is charged, ask for a UAE tax invoice showing the contractor's TRN.

Bestimate publishes this as a planning figure: a straightforward bathroom renovation typically takes two to four weeks once approvals and materials are ready, and premium finishes, custom glass, layout changes or hidden plumbing repairs can extend this to six weeks or more.

Note the two conditions in that sentence. Once approvals and materials are ready. Neither sits inside the two to four weeks. Add the authority's stated 2 working days for a fit-out permit, whatever your building takes to issue an owner NOC, the lead time on tiles and sanitaryware you have chosen rather than taken from stock, and the working hours your building management allows.

Custom glass is usually measured after tiling, so a frameless shower screen adds its own fabrication window near the end of the job, when the room otherwise looks finished. And if it is your only bathroom, plan where you will wash before demolition starts, not after.

Ask every contractor to break the quote into the same lines, then compare line by line rather than total by total.

The last line is the one that decides whether your final invoice matches your quote. A provisional sum is a placeholder, and placeholders move.

• Demolition, and who removes and disposes of the debris
• Waterproofing: product, coverage height, and whether a flood test is included
• Screed and floor falls to the drain
• Tiling: supply and install separated, with the wastage allowance stated
• Sanitaryware and brassware: supplied by the contractor, or supplied by you and installed
• Plumbing: supply, waste, concealed cistern, water heater, and a pressure or leak test
• Electrical: circuits, lighting, extract fan, shaver point, and who tests it
• Glass: shower screen, measured after tiling
• Making good: paint, ceiling, door, thresholds
• Permits and NOCs: which ones, and whether the fees are inside the price
• VAT: shown or excluded
• Provisional sums: anything priced as an allowance rather than as a fixed figure