The breakdown by trade
In a standard 3,000 m² office building of four storeys, concrete frame, with certification in progress, the works cost divides roughly as follows:
| Trade | Share of the works | Indicative amount at 1,850 €/m² |
|---|---|---|
| Structure: foundations, frame, heavy façade | 32–38 % | 590 – 700 €/m² |
| Mechanical services and smoke control | 18–25 % | 330 – 460 €/m² |
| Power, data and building management | 12–16 % | 220 – 300 €/m² |
| External joinery and façade | 8–14 % | 150 – 260 €/m² |
| Internal fit-out: partitions, ceilings, finishes | 10–15 % | 190 – 280 €/m² |
| External works, parking and landscaping | 5–10 % | 95 – 190 €/m² |
| Site set-up | 3–5 % | 55 – 95 €/m² |
The effect of certification and performance
Environmental certification and energy performance requirements bear directly and significantly on the construction cost. The differential has narrowed over the years as the technologies have become general.
| Offices to the previous thermal standard | Base 100. A standard brief: regulatory insulation, a simple ventilation system, no environmental certification. |
|---|---|
| Offices to the current regulations, entry-level certification | + 3 to 7 %. Better envelope performance, limited construction carbon, bio-based materials encouraged. |
| Higher national certification or BREEAM Very Good | + 8 to 15 %. Reinforced acoustics, air quality, surface water management, building management monitoring, commissioning. |
| BREEAM Excellent or LEED Gold | + 15 to 25 %. Very low-emissivity double glazing, free cooling, heat recovery, roof planting, integrated vehicle charging. |
| Passive or positive-energy offices | + 25 to 40 %. Very high insulation, triple glazing, photovoltaic generation, storage, advanced automation. Recovered over 15–20 years in operating savings. |
The technical services: the differentiating item
Mechanical services, electrics, data and building management are the principal factor differentiating a standard office from a premium one. They represent 30 to 40 % of the works cost in a well-equipped commercial building.
| Heating, ventilation and cooling | A four-pipe system with independent heating and cooling, heat recovery on the extract, centralised building management, zone-by-zone control. Cost: 260 to 460 €/m² according to performance. |
|---|---|
| Data infrastructure | Category 6A or 7 cabling, fibre to the building or the floor, redundant access, a secure server room, modern wireless coverage. Cost: 80 to 150 €/m². |
| Building management | Centralised supervision of the equipment: lighting, blinds, services, access control, energy metering. Indispensable for certification and for tracking consumption. Cost: 40 to 100 €/m². |
| Security and access control | Badges, CCTV, IP intercom, category A fire detection. Cost: 30 to 80 €/m² according to the level of security. |
What is particular about high-rise
Above 28 m in height, specific regulatory requirements bring substantial and incompressible premiums:
- Additional escape stairs and reinforced fire compartmentation
- Mechanical smoke control at every level
- Standby generators and redundant electrical supply
- Pressurised lifts accessible to the fire service
- Strengthened structure for wind and dynamic loads
- Site premiums: high-capacity lifting plant, vertical logistics
These requirements explain why the cost per square metre of a high-rise is systematically 50 to 100 % above that of a four-storey building of the same area, even at an identical specification.
The total cost: what not to forget
| Design fees | 8 to 12 % of the works cost for an ordinary commercial building |
|---|---|
| Technical control and health and safety coordination | 0.5 to 1.2 % of the works cost |
| Structural warranty insurance | 1 to 2 % of the works cost |
| Commissioning for certification | 0.3 to 0.8 % of the works cost |
| Finance costs during construction | 1 to 3 % of the total according to the holding period |
| Contingency | 5 to 8 % of the works cost |
Articles liés : The cost of building a house · cost per square metre by building type · How materials affect the budget
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Price bands established for mainland France from commercial databases, the national indices and professional federation statistics. They do not substitute for a bespoke estimate.
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 2024 values using the BT01 all-trades index published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base: 130.8 in January 2024, 134.7 in January 2026, a rise of about 3 %.
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.
Sources: the BT construction cost indices published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base, used to update the figures · construction cost statistics from SDES, the statistical service of the ministry responsible for construction · regulatory texts published in the Journal officiel and consolidated on Légifrance for the requirements cited.