Most occupiers ask this after they have already signed the lease. Here are realistic durations for Noida and Delhi NCR, split by floor size, plus the three delays that cause almost every overrun in this market.
For a Category B fit-out on a Cat A floor in Noida, plan for four to six weeks of design and BOQ, then eight to sixteen weeks on site, depending on area and complexity. End to end, most corporate offices land between three and five months from first meeting to occupation.
The number people quote in conversation is almost always the site duration only. When you are counting back from a lease commencement date, count the design and procurement weeks too, because that is where projects lose the time they never recover.
| Carpet area | Design + BOQ | Site duration | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 5,000 sq ft | 3 – 4 weeks | 8 – 10 weeks | ~3 months |
| 5,000 – 12,000 sq ft | 4 – 5 weeks | 10 – 12 weeks | 3.5 – 4 months |
| 12,000 – 25,000 sq ft | 5 – 6 weeks | 12 – 16 weeks | 4 – 5.5 months |
| 25,000 sq ft and above | 6 – 8 weeks | 16 – 24 weeks | 5.5 – 8 months |
Warm shell rather than Cat A adds roughly three to five weeks on site. A heavy joinery specification, a server room, or an AV-integrated boardroom each add one to two weeks. A live floor where you are working around an operating business adds a great deal more, because the productive hours per day drop.
This is a 10,000 sq ft mid-segment fit-out on a Cat A floor in Noida, running a twelve-week site programme.
| Weeks | On site |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mobilisation, site protection, permits to work, setting out, demolition begins |
| 2 – 3 | Civil work, partition framing, blockwork, plumbing rough-in for pantry and washrooms |
| 3 – 5 | First-fix electrical and data, HVAC ducting modification, fire detection and sprinkler rough-in |
| 5 – 7 | Ceiling grid and boarding, partition boarding and skimming, acoustic infill |
| 7 – 9 | Second-fix services, flooring, glazing and glass partitions, doors and frames |
| 9 – 10 | Joinery installation, painting and finishes, workplace branding |
| 10 – 11 | Furniture delivery and installation, AV and IT installation |
| 11 – 12 | Testing and commissioning, deep clean, snag walk and closure, handover |
Trades overlap heavily. The programme is a sequence of dependencies, not a queue: ceiling cannot close until first-fix services are inspected, flooring should not start until wet trades are finished, and furniture cannot land until the floor is clean and protected.
Grade A buildings in Noida and Gurgaon run formal fit-out processes: drawing submissions to the building's project management team, a fit-out deposit, permits to work, contractor inductions and staged inspections. Approval cycles routinely take two to four weeks and the building will stop your site if you start without them. This work should begin during design development, not on the day you plan to mobilise.
Workstations and task seating, specialist glazing, acoustic doors, imported light fittings and bespoke joinery all carry lead times of four to twelve weeks. Ordering them when the trade is due on site guarantees a gap. They should be ordered at BOQ sign-off, which is exactly why the procurement gate matters so much in the fit-out process.
Every fit-out generates decisions only the client can make: a finish sample, a furniture selection, a change to a cabin layout, an approval on a branding artwork. If those decisions route through a committee, your own approval cycle becomes the critical path. Nominate one decision-maker with authority and a 48-hour turnaround commitment. It is the cheapest schedule insurance available.
If your rent-free period ends on 1 March and you need a 10,000 sq ft office, you should be having the discovery conversation by early October, not January. Design and procurement need five to six weeks before a single person is on site.
Yes, within limits, and the honest levers are these.
What does not work is compressing design. A rushed drawing set produces site queries, and site queries stop trades. Time saved in design is repaid with interest in week seven.
We agree the handover date at BOQ sign-off and track it against weekly milestones you can see. Landlord approvals run as their own workstream with a named owner from design development onward, and long-lead orders are placed at sign-off rather than when the trade is due.
We have delivered multi-city rollouts on fixed dates for Unacademy across six cities, Vedantu across six, and Physics Wallah across four, alongside offices for FedEx in Noida and Ghaziabad. Rollouts are unforgiving on schedule, which is where the discipline came from.
See our office fit-out service in Noida or tell us your handover date.
Plan for four to six weeks of design and BOQ followed by eight to sixteen weeks on site. A 5,000 sq ft office is typically around three months end to end, a 12,000 sq ft office around four months, and a 25,000 sq ft floor four to five and a half months. Starting from a warm shell rather than a Cat A floor adds roughly three to five weeks.
About three and a half to four months in total: four to five weeks for design and BOQ, then ten to twelve weeks on site. A twelve-week site programme runs mobilisation and demolition in week one, civil and partitions in weeks two to three, first-fix services in weeks three to five, ceilings in weeks five to seven, second-fix and flooring in weeks seven to nine, joinery and finishes in weeks nine to ten, furniture and AV in weeks ten to eleven, and commissioning, snagging and handover in week twelve.
Start at least five to six months before you need to occupy a mid-sized floor, because design and procurement alone consume five to six weeks before anyone is on site. If your rent-free period ends on 1 March and you need a 10,000 sq ft office, the discovery conversation should happen by early October.
Three causes dominate. Landlord fit-out approvals started too late, since Grade A buildings run formal submission and inspection processes that take two to four weeks. Long-lead items such as workstations, seating, specialist glazing and acoustic doors ordered when the trade is due rather than at BOQ sign-off. And client decisions with no single nominated decision-maker, which makes your own approval cycle the critical path.
Within limits. Off-site production of joinery and workstation modules genuinely compresses the programme, phased handover lets you occupy one zone while another is finished, and reducing the number of enclosed cabins shortens the schedule and cuts cost together. Extended shifts help less than expected because most Grade A buildings restrict noisy work to set hours. Compressing the design phase does not work; it produces site queries that stop trades later.
Tell us the date and the floor area. We will tell you whether it is achievable, and if it is not, exactly what would have to change to make it so.
