Medical Fitout Cost Calculator
Estimate the cost of fitting out a GP practice, specialist rooms or an allied health clinic in Australia, including consult rooms, infection control finishes and accreditation requirements.
Each room needs a basin, joinery, medical grade flooring, data and privacy rated walls.
A sterilising room built to AS/NZS 4187 needs a one way dirty to clean workflow, separate hand basin, dedicated ventilation and a validated autoclave with data logging. Retrofitting the workflow after the walls are up is the most common reason a practice fails accreditation on first inspection.
Converting retail or office to medical is a change of use in every Australian state, which means a development application rather than a simple fitout certificate. Budget eight to twenty weeks for approval and expect council to ask about parking ratios, which are the number one reason medical conversions get refused.
Practices seeking RACGP accreditation must meet the Standards for General Practices on privacy, hand hygiene, sterilisation and record security. Design against the standard from day one, because most of the failures are physical (a consult room wall that transmits conversation, a basin in the wrong place) and expensive to fix retrospectively.
Every consult room is roughly a fixed cost regardless of clinic size. Adding a sixth room to a five room practice costs about the same as adding the second, so model your revenue per room carefully. An underused room is dead capital that carries rent, cleaning and depreciation.
💰 Ways to save
- Look hard for a former medical tenancy before you consider converting retail. An existing clinic already carries the plumbing to every consult room, medical grade vinyl with coved skirtings, compliant HVAC, a sterilising room and, critically, an approved medical use on the planning certificate. Reusing one commonly halves the fitout cost and removes the single biggest schedule risk, which is a change of use development application.
- Standardise your consult rooms rather than customising each one. Identical room dimensions, identical joinery, identical basin and power positions and identical door swings let the joiner batch manufacture and let the electrician and plumber repeat a set out instead of reading a new drawing five times. On a five to eight room practice this typically saves $15,000 to $30,000 and shortens the trade programme by one to two weeks.
- Buy your medical equipment separately from the builder's contract. Autoclaves, examination couches, ECGs, vaccine fridges and imaging equipment are all available directly from medical suppliers, frequently with finance attached, and a fitout contractor supplying them will typically add 10 to 20 percent margin. Keep the builder responsible for the services, the floor loading and the exhaust, and buy the boxes yourself.
- Ask the landlord for a longer lease in exchange for a bigger fitout contribution. Medical is a sticky, high credit quality tenancy that landlords actively want, because clinics rarely relocate once patients know the address. A seven or ten year term with options is worth real money to a landlord's valuation, and it is often the lever that converts a token incentive into a contribution covering a meaningful share of your build.
or from $3,835/week over 5 years , indicative finance
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## What a medical fitout costs per square metre in 2026
Pricing reviewed: June 2026.
Pricing reviewed June 2026. Indicative Australian costs, not a quote.
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Understanding medical fitout costs in Australia
What a medical fitout costs per square metre in 2026
Medical fitouts sit well above office rates because of the services density, the infection control finishes and the regulatory overlay. As a 2026 Australian benchmark, a functional general practice fitout in an existing medical tenancy runs about $1,800 to $2,400 per square metre. A typical accredited general practice built into a converted retail or office shell sits at roughly $2,600 to $3,400 per square metre. Specialist rooms, clinics with procedure rooms, and anything adjacent to a day surgery run $3,800 to $5,500 per square metre. A standard five to six room GP practice of around 200 square metres therefore lands between $550,000 and $750,000 for the base build, before equipment, furniture, IT and professional fees. Sydney and Melbourne sit at the top of the range, and regional projects carry a premium of 10 to 20 percent once specialist subcontractors have to travel.
Why consult rooms drive the number, not floor area
Floor area is a rough proxy, but the real cost driver in a clinic is the count of serviced rooms. Every consult room needs its own hand basin with hot and cold water and a waste connection, joinery with a work surface and storage, medical grade sheet vinyl with coved skirtings and welded joints, privacy rated wall construction, at least two data outlets, a nurse call point and dedicated lighting. In 2026 that repeated package costs roughly $9,000 to $16,000 per room on top of the base shell works. Circulation, waiting and staff areas by contrast are comparatively cheap per square metre. A clinic with eight small rooms in 200 square metres will cost materially more than a clinic with four larger rooms in the same footprint, which is why per square metre benchmarks alone will mislead you.
Infection control finishes and what the standards actually require
The finishes schedule in a medical fitout is not a design choice, it is a compliance requirement. Floors need to be impervious, slip resistant and coved up the wall so there is no crevice at the junction, which means welded sheet vinyl rather than tiles or vinyl planks. Wall surfaces in clinical areas must be smooth, washable and able to tolerate hospital grade disinfectant, so a standard low sheen paint on plasterboard is often replaced with a semi gloss or a hygienic wall panel behind basins. Joinery needs sealed edges and no exposed particleboard. Basins must be hands free or lever operated with the correct clearance for hand hygiene, and their position matters for accreditation. These finishes typically cost 40 to 90 percent more than the residential or commercial equivalent, and substituting a cheaper product is the fastest way to fail an accreditation survey.
Sterilising, clean utility and the workflow that determines your layout
If your practice performs any procedure requiring reprocessed instruments, you need a sterilising area designed to AS/NZS 4187 with a strict one directional flow from receiving and cleaning through to packaging, sterilising and sterile storage. That means benching in a specific sequence, a dedicated hand basin, a separate cleaning sink, mechanical exhaust, and a validated autoclave that records each cycle. A compliant sterilising room typically costs $35,000 to $65,000 including the autoclave, joinery and services. The workflow constrains the whole floor plan, because the room must sit adjacent to the treatment areas without being a thoroughfare, so it needs resolving in the very first sketch layout rather than being squeezed in later.
Ventilation, medical gas and services capacity
Clinics need more air changes than the base building typically provides, and consult rooms need individual control so a room can be isolated. Practices doing respiratory assessment or any aerosol generating procedure need dedicated exhaust rather than recirculated air. Expect $250 to $450 per square metre for the mechanical package alone in a conversion, and confirm early whether the base building can support additional condenser units on the roof and whether the landlord will allow the riser penetrations. If you are running medical gas, oxygen or suction, that is a separate certified installation with its own pipework standard, testing and documentation, and it is not something a general plumber can sign off. Electrical loads also rise, so a switchboard capacity check before lease signing is cheap insurance.
Approvals, parking and the timeline that catches people out
Converting retail or office space to a medical centre is a change of use under every Australian planning scheme, and it requires a development application rather than a simple building certificate. The most common refusal reason is car parking, because planning schemes typically require a higher parking ratio for medical than for retail or office, often expressed per consult room. Before you sign anything, ask a town planner to check the parking requirement against the site, because there is no design solution to a shortfall other than a variation argument or a cash contribution to council. Approval realistically takes eight to twenty weeks depending on the council. Add six to ten weeks of design and documentation and twelve to twenty weeks on site, and a medical fitout is commonly a nine to fourteen month project from first sketch to first patient. Signing a lease with rent commencing before that timeline is complete is the most expensive mistake in the category.
Building the full project budget
Construction cost is only part of what you will spend. Professional fees for an architect or medical fitout designer, a town planner, a building surveyor, a mechanical engineer and a project manager typically add 10 to 15 percent of the construction cost. Medical equipment, from examination couches and autoclaves through to vaccine fridges and diagnostic gear, commonly adds $80,000 to $250,000 for a general practice depending on scope. Practice management software, servers, workstations and secure messaging add another $30,000 to $60,000. Signage, furniture and the actual move add more again. Hold a 12 to 15 percent contingency, because opening an existing ceiling reliably finds something nobody drew.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a medical fitout cost per square metre in Australia in 2026?
Refitting an existing medical tenancy runs about $1,800 to $2,400 per square metre. Converting retail or office space into an accredited general practice sits at roughly $2,600 to $3,400 per square metre. Specialist rooms and procedure heavy clinics run $3,800 to $5,500. A five to six room GP practice of 200 square metres typically lands between $550,000 and $750,000 for the base build before equipment, IT and fees.
What does each consult room add to the cost?
Roughly $9,000 to $16,000 per room over and above the base shell works. Each room needs a hand basin with hot, cold and waste, joinery with a sealed work surface, welded medical grade vinyl with coved skirtings, privacy rated wall construction, at least two data outlets, a nurse call point and dedicated lighting and air conditioning control. Because the per room package is close to fixed, room count drives the budget more reliably than floor area.
Do I need council approval to convert a shop into a medical centre?
Yes. Converting retail or office space to a medical use is a change of use under every Australian planning scheme and needs a development application, typically eight to twenty weeks. The most common reason for refusal is car parking, because schemes generally require more spaces per consult room than for retail. Have a town planner check the parking ratio against the site before you sign a lease, since there is no design fix for a shortfall.
What does a compliant sterilising room cost?
About $35,000 to $65,000 including the validated autoclave, benching and services. AS/NZS 4187 requires a one directional flow from receiving and cleaning through packaging, sterilising and sterile storage, a dedicated hand basin separate from the cleaning sink, mechanical exhaust and cycle logging. The workflow constrains the whole floor plan, so it has to be resolved in the first sketch layout rather than retrofitted.
How much extra does a lead lined imaging room cost?
Around $80,000 to $130,000 all in. The lead lining itself is a modest part of it. The cost sits in the radiation shielding report from a medical physicist, structural verification of floor loading, the specialist door and viewing window, and state radiation licensing. The approval process typically takes six to twelve weeks and sits on the project critical path, so start it before construction rather than during.
How long does a medical fitout take?
Nine to fourteen months from first sketch to opening for a conversion. That breaks down as six to ten weeks of design and documentation, eight to twenty weeks for the change of use development application, four weeks to tender and award, and twelve to twenty weeks on site. Negotiate a rent free or reduced rent period covering the approval and construction window, because paying full rent on an empty tenancy for six months is a large avoidable cost.
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