Office rent withouthidden costsCommercial property in Tashkent

The same quoted rate can produce a different bill

A price per square metre is a useful first filter when looking for an office in Tashkent, but it is not a decision-ready number. One offer may include common-area operation, while another excludes operating expenses, utilities and taxes. One landlord may charge for the office’s internal area; another may add a share of corridors, lifts and the lobby. A lower headline rate can therefore lead to a higher monthly payment.

CMWP reported that Tashkent had 591,200 square metres of gross leasable office area at the end of 2025, with vacancy of about 16%. Its average net base rent was $34.6 per square metre per month for Class A/A+ and $27.3 for Class B/B+. The report explicitly excludes operating expenses, VAT and utilities from those figures. They are a dated market benchmark, not a quote for a specific building.

Compare every option on two tracks. The first is operational fit: location, plan, access and engineering. The second is the total cost expressed on a common basis. A listing can start the search, but the final calculation should rely on a written commercial offer, a floor plan, the service schedule and the draft lease.

Normalize area and delivery condition

Ask for three area figures: total chargeable area, area inside the office and genuinely usable work area. Columns, technical niches, awkward corners, excessive circulation and rooms with poor proportions reduce usable capacity. Two offices advertised as 200 square metres may support different numbers of desks and meeting rooms.

If a common-area factor applies, request the calculation. Paying a share of maintained common space is not inherently unreasonable, but the tenant must know which area attracts rent. Comparing the chargeable area in one building with the internal area in another distorts the result.

Record the delivery condition as carefully as the size. Shell-and-core space requires design, partitions, electrical work, lighting, climate systems, flooring, furniture and time. A fitted office may have a higher recurring rent but a lower total cost over a short lease. Put desks, meeting rooms, server equipment, kitchen and storage onto the floor plan before accepting that the area works.

Test the address at the times that matter. Visit in the morning, at lunch and in the evening. Measure journeys from the team’s main transport points, look for parking availability and queues, and observe lift congestion. A district’s reputation is not a substitute for the routes used by employees and clients.

Build a full monthly and annual cost

Send every landlord the same request. Ask for the base rent, applicable area, tax treatment, operating charge, utilities, parking, internet, internal cleaning, passes, deposit, advance payment, indexation and currency-conversion mechanism. A verbal “all inclusive” statement is not a budget.

Use this recurring-cost formula:

**Monthly occupancy cost = base rent + operating expenses + utilities + parking + connectivity and cleaning + mandatory services + applicable taxes.**

Do not invent variable costs. Request summer and winter invoices for a comparable occupier, meter data or a tariff-based calculation. If there is no history, enter a range and label the source of the assumption. For a payment linked to foreign currency, the lease should identify the rate source, fixing date, settlement currency and treatment of non-business days.

Calculate the first year separately from a normal operating year. The first year includes twelve recurring payments plus design, fit-out, moving, furniture, equipment and professional review, less only documented incentives and rent-free periods. A refundable deposit is not an expense, but it ties up cash and carries a recovery risk, so show it in a separate column.

Divide total cost by the number of months and by usable office area. This creates a comparable monthly cost per useful square metre. Spread fit-out only over the guaranteed occupation period, and review early-termination rights and deposit recovery before treating a long term as an economic benefit.

Check engineering, documents and the lease

Verify allocated electrical capacity, cooling, ventilation, server-room requirements, backup internet and the evening operating mode of lifts and building systems. “24/7 access” does not necessarily mean that cooling or ventilation runs around the clock. Define responsibility for internal air-conditioning units, filters, electrical equipment, leaks and reinstatement after an incident.

Before negotiating the last discount, compare the address, area, permitted use and owner in the cadastral documents with the draft lease. Uzbekistan’s MyGov portal provides a service for checking an extract and cadastral passport from the state register, as well as a service for checking a prohibition attached to a cadastral object. A transaction lawyer should determine which additional checks are needed.

If a representative signs, verify the power of attorney and its limits. For a sublease, review the head lease and the owner’s consent. For a legal entity, confirm registration details and the signatory’s authority.

Uzbek civil legislation requires a lease of a building or structure to be made as one written document signed by the parties. Registration depends on the term and circumstances; Supreme Court guidance specifically addresses the one-year period. Do not infer the correct treatment from a generic online template. Have local counsel check the current rules and the actual draft.

Move the commercial promises into the lease: the payment formula, indexation, repairs, access, liability for system downtime, alteration rights, deposit return and the handover record. Record condition with photographs, meter readings and an equipment list.

Make the final choice without false precision

Keep three finalists and assess operational fit, legal and technical risk, and normalized cost separately. Do not hide judgment inside a complicated score unless management has agreed on the weights. State the non-negotiable conditions in advance: minimum capacity, move-in date, after-hours access, signage rights and a firm budget ceiling.

For each option, write one short explanation beginning, “We choose this office because…”. If the case depends only on a prestigious address or the lowest headline rate, the comparison is incomplete. A defensible decision connects the space to the way the business works and explains why the remaining risks are acceptable.

Finish with six checks. Confirm that the offer and lease use the same area and charges; all incentives and landlord works have dates; engineering data is documented or tested; the object and authority of the parties are verified; the first-year budget survives a delay and the upper end of variable costs; and exit terms are clear before the deposit is transferred.

Office offers change, so save each version with the date received. The best choice is not automatically the lowest advertised rate. It is the office that supports the team, has transparent costs and places manageable risks into an enforceable agreement.

Sources and verification date

• Обзор рынка недвижимости Ташкента за 2025 год — verified 2026-07-30
• Tashkent Commercial Real Estate Market Overview, Q4 2025–Q1 2026 — verified 2026-07-30
• В Ташкенте площадь офисов для аренды прибавила 10,2% за год — verified 2026-07-30
• Проверка выписки и кадастрового паспорта объекта недвижимости — verified 2026-07-30
• Проверка запрета на кадастровый объект — verified 2026-07-30
• Постановление Пленума Верховного суда по вопросам применения законодательства об аренде — verified 2026-07-30
• Треть рынка услуг приходится на столицу — verified 2026-07-30
• Официальные курсы валют — verified 2026-07-30