Office strip out
$40–$80
per m²
Master Strip Outs, Sydney price guide, 2025
Make Good and Defit Cost Benchmarks: Australia, 2026
A full office strip out typically costs $40 to $80 per square metre in the Sydney market, according to Master Strip Outs' 2025 price guide, while a new office fit-out costs many times more: $2,400 to $3,000-plus per square metre depending on city, per Cushman & Wakefield and JLL's 2026 cost guides. Removing a fit-out is dramatically cheaper than installing one, which is exactly why tenants routinely underestimate their exit cost against their move-in cost.
Data scope note: This page aggregates figures published by third-party industry cost guides, listed with each figure and in the source list below. It is not Make Good Quotes' own measured or transactional data; we hold no listings database. Figures marked "Sydney market" are not assumed to apply nationally. Treat every number here as a planning benchmark, not a quote, and always confirm your exact scope with a licensed provider.
1. Strip out and defit removal costs (Sydney market, 2025)
The clearest published per-square-metre removal pricing available is Sydney-specific. We have not found an equivalent published breakdown for Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Canberra; the new fit-out cost table in section 2 is the best available proxy for how relative costs are likely to differ between cities.
Retail strip out
$50–$100
per m²
Master Strip Outs, Sydney price guide, 2025
Ceiling removal
$15–$35
per m²
Master Strip Outs, Sydney price guide, 2025
Partition removal
$30–$60
per lineal metre
Master Strip Outs, Sydney price guide, 2025
Floor covering removal
$10–$30
per m²
Master Strip Outs, Sydney price guide, 2025
By total project size: small office strip outs typically run $2,000 to $8,000, medium commercial spaces $10,000 to $30,000, and large building strip outs can exceed $100,000, per the same source. For general context only, Airtasker's 2026 national cost guide puts average commercial demolition (not office-specific interior strip out) at around $80 per square metre across Australia.
2. New office fit-out cost by city (2026)
Fit-out (installing a new space) and make good or strip out (removing an existing one) are different cost lines, but fit-out pricing is the only figure published consistently across all five cities, so it is the best available way to compare relative cost position between cities.
| City | Typical new fit-out cost (2026) |
|---|---|
| Canberra | $2,938 per m² |
| Brisbane | $2,615 per m² |
| Sydney | $2,599 per m² |
| Melbourne | $2,535 per m² |
| Perth | $2,406 per m² |
Source: Cushman & Wakefield, Office Fit Out Cost Guide Australia (March 2026). A second source, AS Estimation's 2026 city guide, independently reports close figures for four of these cities: Sydney around $2,665/m², Melbourne around $2,607/m², Brisbane around $2,548/m² and Perth around $2,453/m², a useful cross-check that the Cushman & Wakefield ordering (Canberra highest, Perth lowest) is consistent across sources. JLL's 2026 ANZ Fit-Out Cost Guide separately reports a national average of AU$3,011 per m² for a moderate-style, medium-quality fit-out as of Q1 2026.
3. Office refurbishment cost by scope tier
Refurbishment tiers (renovating an existing space rather than a full new fit-out) give a useful reference point for the upper end of make good reinstatement work, since a full reinstatement can involve similar trades to a basic refurbishment.
| Tier | Cost | Typical scope |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $800–$1,200 per m² | Paint, carpets, lighting upgrades, minor layout changes |
| Mid-tier | $1,200–$1,800 per m² | New workstations, partitions, tech upgrades, moderate reconfiguration |
| High-end | $1,800–$2,800+ per m² | Designer finishes, smart tech, acoustics, custom joinery |
Source: Stemar Group, Guide to Office Refurbishment Costs by City and Scope (2026). By-city ranges from the same source: Sydney $1,400–$2,800+/m², Melbourne $1,300–$2,600/m², Brisbane $1,200–$2,400/m², Perth $1,000–$2,000/m², Canberra $1,200–$2,300/m².
4. Dilapidation report cost
Small commercial dilapidation report
$1,500–$2,500
Owner Inspections, 2026 pricing guide
Large commercial dilapidation report
$2,500–$5,000+
Owner Inspections, 2026 pricing guide
Residential dilapidation reports are cheaper, typically $500 to $1,500. See our full dilapidation report guide for what one covers and why it matters for your make good.
5. Building approvals and asbestos compliance context
Two more public data points are useful context if you are planning a make good: recent non-residential building approvals in Australia, a forward-looking pipeline indicator rather than a measure of work already under way, and the compliance backdrop for asbestos, the hazard most likely to complicate a strip out in an older building.
Non-residential building approvals (ABS, June 2026). The Australian Bureau of Statistics' Building Approvals collection measures the value of building work approved to go ahead, not work already commenced or completed; some approved projects never start. In its June release, the value of non-residential building fell 24.7% (to $8.26b), after rising 40.4% in May, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The trend measure, which smooths this month-to-month volatility, moved a comparatively steady 1.0% in June after a 0.7% May rise.
| Non-residential building approved | Seasonally adjusted | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Value ($m) | $8,255 | $7,770 |
| Monthly change | −24.7% | +1.0% |
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building Approvals, Australia, June 2026 (released 30 July 2026). Building Approvals is a separate, monthly ABS collection from Building Activity, which measures quarterly work done, not approvals: this table shows the value of non-residential building approved, a forward-looking consent pipeline, not current construction activity. Approvals move sharply month to month on the seasonally adjusted series; read the trend column, or several consecutive months, for the steadier signal.
Asbestos: the compliance backdrop (Safe Work Australia). Asbestos was banned in Australia in December 2003, and it remains present in many buildings fitted out before then. Breathing in asbestos fibres can cause asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, and people rarely get symptoms of these diseases until 20 to 30 years later, Safe Work Australia says. For the specific licensing thresholds that apply to an office strip out (when a licensed removalist and a clearance certificate are required), see our asbestos and make good guide.
6. Methodology and data limitations
- Aggregation, not original measurement. Every figure on this page is compiled from a published third-party industry cost guide or government statistical release, cited against the figure. Make Good Quotes did not commission or conduct its own cost survey.
- City coverage differs by data type. New fit-out and refurbishment pricing is published across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. Strip out and defit removal pricing was only found published in per-square-metre detail for the Sydney market; other cities are not assumed to match Sydney pricing exactly.
- No fabricated or derived figures. Where a source did not publish a number (for example, a per-city strip out rate outside Sydney, or a specific dollar figure for "paint and patch" make good), this page does not estimate or invent one. Sections 2 and 3 are offered as the closest available proxy for relative city cost position, explicitly labelled as such.
- Currency. All figures are 2025 or 2026 publications as cited. Construction and demolition costs move with material and labour markets; check the source guide's publish date before relying on a figure for a live quote.
- Not a quote. Every figure here is a planning benchmark. Get an actual fixed-price quote against your specific lease and premises before budgeting a real project.
How to cite this page
Make Good Quotes (2026). Make Good and Defit Cost Benchmarks: Australia, 2026. Retrieved from https://makegoodquotes.com.au/data/make-good-cost-benchmarks/. Underlying figures remain sourced to their original publishers, listed below.
Sources
- Master Strip Outs, Strip Out Cost Sydney Price Guide (2025)
- Cushman & Wakefield, Office Fit Out Cost Guide Australia (2026)
- JLL, Australia and New Zealand Fit-Out Cost Guide (2026)
- AS Estimation, Office Fit-Out Cost Per m² in Australia: 2026 City Guide
- Stemar Group, Guide to Office Refurbishment Costs by City and Scope (2026)
- Owner Inspections, Dilapidation Report Cost in Australia (2026)
- Airtasker, Demolition Cost Guide (2026)
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building Approvals, Australia (June 2026)
- Safe Work Australia, Asbestos (topic overview)
Related guides
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