Kitchen renovation in Dubai: what it costs and what drives the price

Two kitchens of the same size, the same finishes and the same contractor can be priced weeks apart. The difference is almost never the doors.

A kitchen renovation in Dubai is the most expensive room in a home per square metre, and the one where quotes differ most. The reason is simple: a kitchen is not a room with furniture in it. It is a room with water, drainage, ventilation and heavy power in it, and every one of those decides what the joinery is allowed to do.

What drives the price of a kitchen renovation in Dubai

In rough order of how much they move the figure:

• Whether anything moves. Replacing a kitchen in its existing position is one job. Moving the sink, the hob or the extract is another, because drainage falls, water routes and ducting have to follow.
• The extract. In an apartment there is usually one permitted route, and it decides where a kitchen can be. In a villa there is more freedom and more ducting to pay for.
• Services. New circuits for ovens and hobs, new water and waste runs, and in older homes a distribution board that was never sized for a modern kitchen.
• The joinery. Carcass material, door finish, drawer hardware, how much is full height, and whether it is standard sizes or made to fit the room exactly.
• The worktop. Material, thickness, number of joints, cut-outs, and whether the splashback is the same stone.
• Appliances. Often excluded from a contractor’s figure, and the easiest way for two quotes to look different when they are not.
• Making good. Floor, ceiling, lighting and paint around the new kitchen. A kitchen never ends at the kitchen.

What a kitchen renovation covers: four levels of scope

Advertised starting prices are not a useful guide here: they describe the simplest possible version of the job, with nothing moved and nothing upgraded. What a kitchen actually costs depends on which of the four levels below the project falls into, and on the property itself.

Four levels, in the order budgets usually climb:

Every band is wider than owners expect, because the same kitchen in two different buildings is two different jobs. How a villa budget divides is in what a villa renovation actually costs in Dubai; the building-side costs that drive an apartment are in why two identical Dubai apartments cost different amounts to renovate.

Why a small kitchen is not proportionally cheaper

Half the area does not mean half the price. Services, extraction, appliances, approvals and site set-up barely change with size, and in a compact kitchen the joinery usually has to work harder: more bespoke sizes, more tall storage, more awkward corners solved properly. The linear metres of cabinet change; the fixed costs do not.

Open or closed: what the choice really changes

Opening a kitchen into the living space is the most common request in Dubai homes, and it is not only a design decision.

• Extraction and smells. An open kitchen needs real extraction ducted outside, not a recirculating hood, or the whole floor smells of dinner. The available route is the constraint.
• Noise. Appliances, extraction and conversation share one room, which changes which appliances are worth paying for.
• Structure and rules. The wall may be structural, and in an apartment the building decides — see what the building decides in your Dubai apartment renovation.
• How the household cooks. Families who cook heavily often keep a closed or semi-closed kitchen, sometimes with a second preparation area behind it.
• Resale. Open plan reads as modern to most buyers, but a kitchen built around one person’s taste rarely returns what it cost — the reasoning is in renovate before you sell in Dubai.

What a luxury kitchen actually buys

Not more drawers. The money goes into joinery built to the millimetre for the room rather than assembled from standard units; worktops with matched veining and few joints; hardware that still closes properly in five years; light designed over the surfaces where the work happens; extraction strong enough to be quiet; and services laid out so appliances can be replaced later without rebuilding the room.

Apartment kitchens and villa kitchens are different jobs

In an apartment the building sets the limits before the design starts: the extract route, the lift bookings, working hours, waste routes and the deposit. In a villa the limits are structural and about the services. Same joinery, different project, different programme.

Where quotes hide the difference

• Appliances in or out — the most common reason two quotes are not comparable.
• Making good — floor, ceiling, lighting and paint around the kitchen.
• The extract — ducting, core drilling and reinstatement, or a vague line that assumes the existing route works.
• Electrical upgrades — new circuits and board work for modern appliances.
• Preliminaries — protection, access, waste removal and permits. What belongs inside a single quoted figure is in what turnkey actually includes in a Dubai renovation.

What to ask before signing

• Is the kitchen staying in the same position, and if not, has the extract route been confirmed?
• Are appliances included, and to what specification?
• What happens to the floor and ceiling around the kitchen?
• Which approvals are needed, and who obtains them?
• How long will the home be without a kitchen, and what is the plan for cooking meanwhile?

A kitchen is the room a renovation is judged by every day for the next ten years. It is also the room where the cheapest quote turns out to be the most expensive.