What does a hotel cost to build in Türkiye? Reading the official unit-cost table

Türkiye publishes a building unit-cost communiqué that gives reference costs per square meter by building class, including hotel classes. It is a basis for architecture and engineering fees, not a construction quote. The figures change every year, so read the current year's table in the Resmî Gazete and use the class that matches your project; do not carry last year's numbers into a new budget.

An investor asks what it costs to build a five-star hotel in Türkiye, and the first number that comes back is a line in the Resmî Gazete. The useful question is not what that number is, but what it was written to do. After reading this article you will know which row of the 2026 table applies to which hotel type, what the figure includes and excludes, and how to place it correctly inside a feasibility study.

What is the official building unit-cost table?#

It is a yearly communiqué from the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change that sets a reference cost per square meter for each building class, and its stated job is to calculate architecture and engineering service fees. The 2026 edition was published in Resmî Gazete No. 33157 (opens in a new tab) on 3 February 2026 and applies from 1 January 2026.

A tebliğ is a communiqué: an administrative reference, not a market survey of what contractors actually charge. Its structure is building class and group. Classes run from I to V, each split into groups such as A, B, C and D, and the unit cost rises with the class and group. The figures are stated without VAT, and they already include 15% overheads and 10% contractor profit.

Because the same published number is available to the hotel, the architect and the engineer, a fee negotiation can start from one shared reference instead of two private estimates. Read every figure as the number a fee calculation starts from, not as a price anyone has offered to build for.

Where do hotels sit in the 2026 table?#

Hotels are placed by star class: 1- and 2-star hotels in class IV (A) at TRY 26,450 per m², 3-star hotels in class IV (C) at 40,500, 4-star hotels in class V (B) at 43,850 and 5-star hotels in class V (D) at 53,500. The full set of lodging lines looks like this.

Source: T.C. Resmî Gazete (Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı), Mimarlık ve Mühendislik Hizmet Bedellerinin Hesabında Kullanılacak 2026 Yılı Yapı Yaklaşık Birim Maliyetleri Hakkında Tebliğ, 3 February 2026, No. 33157. Figures are without VAT and include 15% overheads and 10% contractor profit. Public data. No endorsement implied.

Bungalow houses, at TRY 15,100 per m² in class II (C), matter for resort projects that mix room blocks with separate units, because the two parts of the same project sit on different rows.

Two cautions before you pick a row. First, the star class that decides the line is the one set under the Ministry certification regulation, not the class a project intends to market itself with, so confirm it before you use the row; the certification process is described in How hotel stars are set in Türkiye. Second, a higher row does two things at once: it raises the cost per square meter, and it usually comes with more square meters per room, because lobbies, kitchens, spas and back-of-house grow with the star class. The two effects multiply, so never compare star classes on the rate alone.

Is the unit cost a construction quote?#

No. It is a reference value for a fee calculation, built on average-quality materials, and it deliberately leaves out the land, the landscaping and the site infrastructure.

The table assumes average-quality building materials. A project with imported stone, custom joinery or an unusual structural system will price above its row, and that gap is a design decision, not an error in the table. The communiqué itself excludes the land price, landscaping and site infrastructure, so the row covers the building, not the plot it stands on.

It is not a contractor's offer. A contractor prices the drawings, the ground conditions, the schedule and the risk, and the table sees none of those. It is not a market average either: it is an administrative figure republished each year, not a survey of what hotels in Türkiye were actually built for. The architecture and engineering fees it is used to calculate sit outside it, so do not read the row as an all-in project cost.

The safe use is a floor reference and a sanity check on a quote. If an offer lands far below the row for the right class, ask what has been left out of the offer.

How do I turn square meters into a first reference figure?#

Multiply the building's construction area in square meters by the unit cost for its class and group, and label the result as a reference figure with a date, not as a budget.

Step one: fix the star class and confirm the building class and group the table assigns to it. Step two: take the construction area from the architect's drawings, and ask the architect which area figure the fee calculation actually uses, because gross, closed and usable areas give different answers. Step three: multiply. Step four: add VAT at the applicable rate, confirmed with your accountant, since the published figures are without VAT. Step five: write the figure down with its date, its class and group, the area used and the source, so that a reader a year later can see exactly how it was made.

One thing not to do: do not divide by room count and present the result as a per-room construction cost. The per-room figure depends entirely on how many square meters each room carries, which is a design choice, not a table value.

Which budget lines does a hotel budget still need?#

Everything the table leaves out: land, site works, furniture and equipment, pre-opening, working capital, financing and a contingency, each priced from its own source.

Land means the purchase price or lease, plus transfer taxes and title costs, confirmed with an adviser. Site works mean excavation, retaining structures, external lighting, landscaping and utility connections. Furniture, fixtures and operating equipment mean the contents of the rooms, the kitchen, the laundry and the spa, which are a separate procurement exercise from the building.

Pre-opening covers hiring and training, trial operation, licences, and the sales and marketing spent before the first paying guest arrives. Working capital and financing cover the months before the hotel covers its own costs, and the cost of the money that carries it. Contingency covers ground conditions, permit delays and currency movement on imported items. For the operating side of the plan once the hotel is running, see Hotel budget: how to build next year's plan month by month.

Do not apply a rule of thumb for how the total splits between building and everything else. The split varies by project, so build it line by line and let your own quotes set the ratio.

How should the table sit inside a feasibility study?#

As one dated line among several: market data on the demand side, the unit-cost table on the building side, and real contractor quotes as the number you actually plan with.

On the demand side, use official accommodation and visitor statistics, each cited with its publisher and date, so the file can be checked rather than trusted; the tables that matter are covered in Official tourism data in a hotel feasibility study. On the building side, keep the unit-cost table as the reference, contractor quotes as the working number, and a clear label on which is which. On the operations side, run a break-even calculation that says what the finished building must earn, which is the test the building cost has to pass; the method is in Break-even occupancy: how many rooms a hotel must sell to cover its costs.

Show a range, with a low case from the table and a high case from quotes, and state the assumptions behind each. Keep every figure on one sheet with its source, date and the area or room count it was applied to, so the file survives a change of team. And recheck the table each January, because a new communiqué resets the reference and an old row silently becomes last year's number.

What to do next#

Open the communiqué, find the row that matches your certified star class, and write that reference figure into your file with its date, class, group and area beside it. Then replace it, line by line, with contractor quotes, market data and a break-even test before anyone signs. The table tells you where the building cost conversation starts, and the rest of the file tells you whether the project works.