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Office space for rent in Lagos

Office space & total cost of occupancy · Lagos

The rent is the small number. This is the real one.

A Lagos office is not quoted the way it is paid. The headline is a rent per square metre; what the landlord actually wants before you get the keys is two years of it, plus service charge, VAT, agency, legal and a fit-out. Size the floor and see the whole number below.

Rents are indicative Lagos asking prices by district and grade · every figure is editable

Size the space

Desks you need on day one

Cheaper than moving again

Workstation plus a share of circulation

Rooms, reception, store, comms

Sets the asking rent

Prime towers are quoted in dollars, at roughly 3× naira-listed Grade A

Overwrite with the quoted figure

Often quoted separately per sqm
How it has to be paid

Two is the Lagos norm

Partitions, power, data, furniture
Transaction costs

Cash needed before you move in
—year one
—
—Per month, all in
—Per person / month
Set your headcount to size the floor and total the first-year cash.
Ask us to find the spaceCompare with serviced

Indicative asking rents

Per square metre per annum, from current Lagos office listings. Grade A means a modern tower with full power backup, working lifts and managed common parts; Grade B is older or walk-up stock, often converted.

The island

₦120k – ₦300kper sqm / year
  • Ikoyi — ₦200,000 to ₦300,000, prime stock often quoted in dollars
  • Victoria Island — ₦150,000 to ₦250,000 for Grade A
  • Lekki Phase 1 — ₦100,000 to ₦350,000, a wide and uneven range
  • Prime towers are quoted at $600–$750 per sqm per year — roughly three times the naira-listed Grade A figure
  • Dollar-quoted rents move with the rate — fix the currency in the lease

The mainland

₦60k – ₦200kper sqm / year
  • Ikeja GRA — ₦130,000 to ₦200,000, the mainland’s Grade A
  • Yaba, Surulere and similar — materially below that
  • Cheaper per sqm, but check power, lifts and flood history
  • Commute cost is a real line item for your team, not a rounding error

Where leases go wrong in Lagos

Four things decide whether an office deal is good, and none of them is the rent per square metre.

1

Advance rentTwo years upfront is normal and three is not rare. That capital is gone from the business for the whole term — price it as the financing cost it is.

2

Service chargeFrequently uncapped and reconciled annually. Ask for the last two years of actual accounts, not the budget, and negotiate a cap.

3

What you are paying forConfirm whether the area quoted is net internal or gross, which can differ by a fifth. Measure, or have it measured.

4

PowerFind out what the building actually supplies, what it costs per hour of generator running, and who pays for diesel when the grid is down.

Common questions

Why does the first-year number look so large?
Because it is. It adds the advance rent the landlord demands, the service charge for the same period, VAT, agency and legal fees, the refundable deposit, and the fit-out capital. Most budgets only carry the first of those.
Is VAT really charged on commercial rent?
Commercial lettings attract VAT at 7.5% in Nigeria, and service charge normally does too. If a quote omits it, assume it is about to be added.
Can the advance be negotiated down?
Sometimes — usually by paying slightly more per square metre, by offering a bank guarantee, or by taking a longer term. It is the single most negotiable term in a Lagos office deal and the one tenants challenge least.
How much space do we actually need?
Ten square metres per person is a workable planning figure for open-plan space including circulation, before meeting rooms. Dense fit-outs reach eight; client-facing offices with several meeting rooms pass twelve.
Should we take serviced space instead?
Below roughly thirty people it is often cheaper once fit-out, diesel and facilities staff are counted, and it asks for a deposit rather than years of rent. The serviced calculator runs the same comparison from the other side.
Indicative only. Rents, service charges and fit-out costs vary widely by building, floor and negotiation, and dollar-denominated rents move with the exchange rate. Verify every figure before committing.
Wigmore Trading

We will find the floor and argue about the advance.

Tell us headcount, district and budget. We will come back with what is genuinely available, what the service charge has actually run at, and where the lease terms have room in them.

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