Construction costs in France: cost per m² by building type and the factors that move them (2026)

A construction ratio per square metre is not a universal property of buildings; it is the economic translation of a set of technical, regulatory and programmatic constraints that differ radically from one use to another.

Standard apartments are optimised for repetition: the floors repeat, the flats resemble one another, the services packages are standardised. A four-star hotel, at an apparently similar cost per square metre, concentrates half its budget on 30 % of its area, the kitchen, the spa, the reception. A logistics warehouse deploys simple structures over vast areas but demands reinforced industrial floors and dock equipment with no residential equivalent. A public building such as a school or a restaurant must satisfy acoustic, ventilation, accessibility and fire safety requirements that structurally raise its cost above an equivalent housing programme.

That is why the ratios in this guide are not interchangeable. Each use has its own economic logic, its own dominant packages, its own contingency margins and its own reference area, which must not be confused, on pain of comparing figures that do not measure the same thing.

The reference area: the most frequent trap

A ratio expressed per square metre of habitable area, as used for housing, is not comparable to one per square metre of regulated floor area, as used for planning, or per square metre of gross usable area, as used for offices. Habitable area is always smaller than floor area, which is itself smaller than gross area.

For example, 2,000 €/m² of habitable area on an apartment building corresponds to roughly 1,650 €/m² of floor area if the ratio between the two is 0.82. Misread, that gap of 350 €/m² can distort a budget by several hundred thousand euros.

Every article in this cocoon states the reference area it uses. Never compare two ratios without checking they are expressed in the same unit.

The table gives cost bands excluding VAT, excluding land, fees and external works, for the principal project types in France, in values for a provincial location outside the Paris region. The regional factors to apply are detailed in the following section.

Use	Lower bound	Upper bound	Reference area	Contingency	Complexity
House	1,430 €/m²	2,550 €/m²	Habitable	5–8 %	Low
Apartments	1,630 €/m²	3,270 €/m²	Floor or habitable	5–8 %	Moderate
Social housing	1,630 €/m²	2,140 €/m²	Floor	5–8 %	Moderate
Serviced residence / care home	2,240 €/m²	3,880 €/m²	Usable, or per bed	8–12 %	High
Offices, shell and core	1,630 €/m²	2,860 €/m²	Gross usable	5–8 %	Moderate
Offices, fitted out	2,240 €/m²	4,590 €/m²	Gross usable	5–10 %	Moderate to high
Public buildings / restaurants	2,040 €/m²	4,080 €/m²	Total area	10–15 %	High
Hotel, per room	82,000 €/room	306,000 €/room	Per room	10–15 %	High
School / sports hall	1,840 €/m²	3,270 €/m²	Usable	8–12 %	Moderate to high
Warehouse, ambient	360 €/m²	710 €/m²	Floor area	5–8 %	Low
Cold store	710 €/m²	1,430 €/m²	Floor area	8–12 %	High
Light refurbishment	310 €/m²	710 €/m²	Habitable	12–15 %	Moderate
Heavy refurbishment	1,220 €/m²	2,040 €/m²	Habitable	15–20 %	Very high
Roof extension	2,240 €/m²	3,570 €/m²	Habitable created	15–20 %	High
Timber construction, premium	+5 %	+15 %	against equivalent concrete	unchanged

Source: the Quostra ratio base, site data from 2022 to 2024, and the BT indices published by INSEE. These bands are indicative; every project needs a bespoke estimate to be operationally reliable.

How to read the table

The lower bound corresponds to a simple, well-defined programme, in an untight market, with standard specification. The upper bound corresponds to a complex programme, a high level of finish, or constrained site conditions.

The ratios include structure, finishing trades, technical packages, finishes, fixed equipment and a contingency at the rate shown. They exclude design fees at 8 to 12 % of the works, land, external works, utility connections and furniture.

Housing is the best known and best documented family. Yet the spread within it is considerable: between a single-storey house in a rural area at 1,430 €/m² of habitable area and a care home in a major city at 3,570 €/m² of usable area, the ratio is one to two and a half. The individual house benefits from structural simplicity and standardised methods. Apartments optimise the ratio through repetition of floors and shared communal packages. The serviced residence, a care home, a student residence, carries the extra cost of shared facilities, specific standards and a more complex brief.

To go further, see the articles on apartments, houses, social housing and serviced residences in this cocoon.

Offices differ from housing in the notion of shell-and-core delivery and in the dominant role of the technical packages: mechanical services, electrics, data. An office delivered as a shell, façades, structure, services capped off and basic finishes, costs between 1,630 and 2,240 €/m² of gross usable area. One delivered fitted out for an end user, with partitioning, cabling, raised floors and high-quality finishes, reaches 2,860 to 4,590 €/m². Environmental certification adds 5 to 15 % according to the level sought and the size of the building.

To go further, see the articles on offices and on shell against fitted-out delivery in this cocoon.

This is the most heterogeneous family. What its members share is the regulatory premium over housing: universal accessibility, reinforced fire safety, ventilation specific to the use, regulated acoustics. A staff restaurant or a fast-food unit concentrates 30 to 45 % of its budget on the professional kitchen, the ventilation and the extraction, items with no residential equivalent. A hotel is reasoned per room rather than per square metre, with a spread of one to four between an economy two-star and a luxury establishment.

To go further, see the articles on public buildings, hotels, and schools and sports facilities in this cocoon.

The warehouse is the cheapest type per square metre in shell terms, but also the one whose equipment costs vary most with use. A simple ambient warehouse at 360 to 510 €/m² shares almost nothing with a multi-temperature cold store at 920 to 1,430 €/m²: reinforced insulation, structure designed for refrigeration loads, refrigeration plant, energy consumption. Height to eaves is also decisive: above 12 m the structure and the foundations become significantly heavier.

To go further, see the articles on warehousing and on cold stores against ambient warehouses in this cocoon.

Refurbishment is not priced like new build. The structural uncertainty, the real condition of the fabric is known only when the walls are opened, justifies markedly higher contingencies, 12 to 20 % against 5 to 8 % on new build. A roof extension combines the constraints of both: a structural survey is indispensable beforehand, the interface with the existing building is delicate, and site access is restricted. Timber and bio-based construction carries an initial premium of 5 to 15 % over concrete, partly offset by its carbon advantage under the current thermal regulations and by savings in operation.

To go further, see the articles on refurbishment by use, energy retrofit, roof extensions, and modular and timber construction in this cocoon.

The ratios in the summary table are expressed for a provincial location outside the major cities. To apply them to a located project, multiply by a regional factor reflecting market differences between areas: labour costs, how full local contractors' order books are, logistics, urban density.

Area	Factor	Example cities	Comment
Inner Paris	1.20 – 1.35	Paris	The tightest market: labour, logistics, party walls
Outer Paris region	1.10 – 1.20	Versailles, Évry	Moderate tightness but difficult site access
Major regional cities	1.05 – 1.15	Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse, Marseille	Active markets, full order books
Intermediate cities	1.00 – 1.05	Rennes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Montpellier	The reference base
Medium towns and rural areas	0.90 – 1.00	Limoges, Troyes, Alençon	Cheaper labour, wider choice of contractors
Overseas territories	1.30 – 1.60	Fort-de-France, Saint-Denis	Material transport plus insularity
Corsica	1.15 – 1.30	Ajaccio, Bastia	Insularity plus a narrow local market

These factors are orders of magnitude

They reflect market trends observed on recent operations, not contractual factors. Within a single area, differences between contractors and between project types can be significant.

In periods of strong market tension, full order books, labour shortage, the factors for the tight areas can temporarily exceed the ranges shown. That is one argument for going out to tender at the right moment in the calendar.

Geography is not the only factor to apply to a base ratio. The table lists the principal parameters that move the final cost away from the reference, with the order of magnitude of each.

Factor	Effect on cost	Direction	Concrete example
Geography	± 10 to 35 %	Upward	Paris 25 % above the provincial average
Level of specification	± 20 to 80 %	Upward	Social housing against high-end
Number of storeys	± 5 to 15 %	Upward	Each extra level adds 3 to 5 % on the structure
A basement	+ 10 to 20 %	Upward	Underground parking adds 15 % of the total
Form of the building, compactness	± 5 to 15 %	Upward	An L or U plan against a compact rectangle
Site conditions	± 5 to 30 %	Upward	Special foundations, party walls, difficult access
Material inflation in the period	± 5 to 25 %	Upward	In 2022, construction materials rose 15 % in 12 months
Environmental certification	+ 5 to 15 %	Upward	Certification on an office building
Refurbishment against new build	Different ratios	Variable	Structural unpredictability plus risk
Timber and bio-based construction	+ 5 to 15 %	Upward	Initial premium offset in operation

Combined, these factors can produce very large departures from the raw ratio. High-end apartments in Paris on a constrained site, special foundations, difficult access, high environmental certification, can reach 4,590 to 5,600 €/m² of floor area, two and a half to three times the provincial base. That reality is why a serious estimate never comes down to applying a generic ratio.

Here is the economist's method for building an outline envelope from the reference ratios. The example is a standard apartment building in Bordeaux.

Calculation step	Value	Comment
Base ratio, standard apartments, provincial	1,840 €/m² floor area	Source: Quostra base, 2024 site data
× Regional factor for Bordeaux	× 1.10	Regional city under pressure
= Ratio adjusted for geography	2,020 €/m²
× Specification factor, above intermediate	× 1.08	Finishes above the social housing standard
= Ratio adjusted for specification	2,180 €/m²
× Form factor, L-shaped plan	× 1.06	Reduced compactness
= Working ratio	2,310 €/m²	Basis of the outline estimate
× Floor area, 1,200 m²	× 1,200	Brief approved at concept stage
= Estimated works cost excl. VAT	2,720,000 €	Excluding fees, land and external works
+ Contingency, 6 %	+ 163,000 €	Well-defined new-build project
= Recommended works envelope excl. VAT	2,883,000 €	Basis of discussion with the client

The chain illustrates a simple reality: the base ratio is only a starting point. It is the cascade of correcting factors, geography, specification, form, site, and the contingency that turn a generic ratio into an envelope the client can use for investment decisions.

The three levels of reliability

Level 1, the raw ratio at ± 30 %: read straight off the summary table, with no visit and no study. Useful for a quick pre-feasibility, not for an investment decision.

Level 2, the corrected ratio at ± 15 %: the geography, specification and form factors applied. This corresponds to an outline estimate produced by an economist from sketch drawings.

Level 3, the developed-design measure at ± 5 to 10 %: item-by-item measurement on detailed drawings. A reliable basis for going out to tender and confirming funding.

To avoid any misunderstanding, the ratios in this guide exclude the following, which are added to the construction cost to obtain the full cost of an operation.

• Design fees: architect, structural and services engineers, economist, site coordinator, generally 8 to 12 % of the works according to complexity.
• Land and acquisition costs: highly variable with location, representing anywhere from 5 to 50 % of the total cost of an operation according to the local property market.
• External works and utility connections: roads, external services, water, electricity, gas and fibre connections, often 5 to 15 % of the building cost according to distance from the networks.
• Financing costs: interest during construction, construction insurance, guarantee charges, typically 3 to 6 % of the total according to the duration.
• Furniture and IT equipment: furniture, specific equipment such as professional kitchens, sports or medical equipment, according to the brief.
• Operating and maintenance costs: not part of the construction cost, though the economist can produce a whole-life analysis if the client asks.

Construction ratios are budget-steering tools, not contractual guarantees. Their usefulness is greatest in the early phases, pre-feasibility, concept, outline design, where they quickly frame an envelope and reveal projects structurally incompatible with the budget available.

Beyond the outline stage, the reliability of an estimate rests on the real measurement of the works from the project drawings, not on applying ratios. That is where the construction economist's detailed work comes in: measurement trade by trade, application of market unit rates, and the structuring of a pricing schedule that will become the basis of the tender.

You have better things to do. Submit your project on quostra.com and an economist calculates your bespoke estimate within 72 working hours.

Construction costs in France run from 360 €/m² for a simple ambient warehouse to more than 5,100 €/m² for a high-end office programme in the Paris region. The spread is explained by five main variables: the use and its technical and regulatory complexity, the level of specification, geography, the form and site conditions of the project, and the period of construction. A ratio read without its correcting factors and without its contingency is not a budget, it is an order of magnitude to be treated with the greatest caution. The construction economist's value added is precisely to turn that generic ratio into a reliable, documented envelope defensible before the client, the funders and the contractors.

Reference basis of the figures

These bands are orders of magnitude for framing, and their reference market is the Paris region. They serve to place a budget at the earliest stages and to compare building types with one another. They replace neither a tender exercise nor an estimate prepared on drawings, and they are not a record of prices actually charged.

The bands on this page are stated in January 2026 values. They were updated from January 2025 values using the BT01 all-trades index published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base: 132.0 in January 2025, 134.7 in January 2026, a rise of about 2 %.

To bring them forward, apply the usual revision formula: updated value = page value × (BT01 for the month in question / 134.7). The index has kept rising since: it stood at 138,3 in June 2026, the last value published when this page was checked, that is 2,7 % above the reference base.

BT01 measures contractors' input costs, wages and social charges, materials, plant and energy, not the prices actually tendered. The two series diverge as soon as margins move: over 2024 the BT01 rose by 0.9 % while the construction cost observed by the SDES survey rose by 2.1 %. These bands remain orders of magnitude, to be set against an estimate specific to the project.