Renovation cost per square metre
The price per square metre is the first benchmark everyone looks for, and the most misleading. Look it up: depending on the source, the published ranges for a full renovation differ threefold. It is not that one is lying and the other telling the truth.
It is that “renovating” does not describe one single project. Here are the three tiers behind the word, what tips one into the next, and how to place yours.
The three tiers of renovation
Every apartment renovation belongs to one of these three tiers. Knowing which one your project falls into tells you more than any price per square metre found online.
- Refreshing
- Paint, floors, finishes: the apartment changes face without touching services or partitions.
- Partial renovation
- One or two rooms rethought in depth — the kitchen, the bathroom — with the water and electricity that go with them.
- Full renovation
- The whole apartment taken back to basics: services, wet rooms, layout, joinery, finishes.
Between the first and the third, the price per square metre can be multiplied by five. That is the first reason published ranges diverge so much: they are not talking about the same thing.
A price per square metre says nothing until you know what it covers
Why the ranges differ so much
The second reason is scope. Does a price per square metre include the kitchen and the bathroom, which weigh heavily? The furniture? Everyone counts differently, and not everyone says so.
The third reason is the level of finish, which has almost no upper limit. The same apartment, with the same plan, can double depending on materials, taps, lighting. Site access adds its share: a fifth floor without a lift, a narrow street, building hours — all of it is paid in hours.
What really tips a budget
Three items almost always decide the move from one tier to the next. The state of the electricity and plumbing first: services to be fully redone turn a refresh into a full renovation, without a single wall moving.
Then the kitchen and the bathroom: they are the most expensive rooms per square metre, and moving them costs far more than redoing them where they are. Finally the level of finish, which decides the rest.
That is why two apartments identical on paper can call for very different budgets — and why a price per square metre will never replace a quote based on a designed project.
The case of older apartments
An older apartment adds its own parameters. Ceiling heights increase the surfaces to paint and the cost of indoor scaffolding. Old mouldings and parquet are restored rather than replaced — less material, more labour. And the services, often original, are redone in thick walls that are not drilled like a modern partition.
None of this is a flaw: it is the counterpart of what makes these apartments valuable. But it explains why, at equal surface, older apartments rarely sit at the bottom of the ranges.
Place your project, then price it
A price per square metre serves one purpose: knowing whether your project is plausible before going further. For that, start with its tier, add the state of the services, the number of wet rooms, and the level of finish you have in mind.
Real pricing never comes from a ratio: it comes from a designed project. Once the plan is settled and the materials chosen, every line is priced from a precise file.
Your questions
Why do published prices per m² vary so much?
Because they do not measure the same thing: neither the same tier of works, nor the same scope — with or without kitchen, bathroom, furniture. Comparing two ranges without knowing what they cover teaches you nothing.
Can a budget be estimated before there is a project?
An order of magnitude can be placed: the tier of works, the state of the services and the number of wet rooms are enough to know whether a project is plausible. But a reliable figure requires a designed project.
Does a small space cost less per m²?
Usually the opposite. A studio concentrates a kitchen, a bathroom and a great deal of storage into very few square metres — that is, the most expensive items. The ratio per square metre is often higher there than in a large apartment with simple volumes.
