Office Space — 9 min read
Office space for rent in Dhaka: a complete guide
How office rent works in Dhaka, what the advertised figure leaves out, and how to compare a conventional lease against a ready office honestly.
The three shapes an office takes in Dhaka
Almost every option in the city is a version of one of three things. A bare shell that you fit out yourself. A furnished floor or unit you take on a conventional lease. Or a ready, serviced workspace where the desks, internet, power backup and cleaning are already in place and you pay one monthly figure.
They are not competing products so much as different answers to one question: how much of running a building do you want to own? A shell gives you control and costs you time. A serviced office gives you speed and costs you control over the details.
What the advertised rent does not include
A rental figure in Dhaka usually refers to the space alone. Service charge, utility bills, internet, generator or IPS arrangements, security, cleaning and building maintenance are commonly separate and commonly quoted later.
Before you compare two options, rebuild both into the same shape: total monthly cash out, including the one-off cost of getting in — deposit, fit-out, furniture, wiring — spread across the length of time you actually expect to stay.
Questions worth asking before you sign
Ask what the service charge covers and when it was last revised. Ask what the backup power arrangement is and what it covers — lifts, air conditioning, or only lights and sockets. Ask about the lift-to-floor ratio if you are above the eighth floor, and about parking for staff and visitors.
Ask how long the deposit is held after you leave, and under what conditions. Ask what reinstatement you owe at the end — returning a fitted-out floor to shell condition is a real cost that lands at the worst possible moment.
Matching the commitment to your certainty
The length of a commitment should follow how confident you are about headcount. If you can describe your team eighteen months out with a straight face, a lease is a reasonable bet. If you cannot, the flexibility premium on a serviced office is usually cheaper than the cost of being wrong.
A practical middle path for growing teams is to take a private office in a serviced space now, and revisit a conventional lease once the team has been stable for a year.