GCC Restaurant and Cafe Benchmarks 2026: Rent, Staff, Fees and Tax in Eight Cities

By Ralph Homer, founder of Praxis Model · 33 years and more than 300 restaurant projects · Updated October 18, 2026

In short. Outside the UAE, prime mall space for a Gulf restaurant costs about USD 700 per square metre a year: Riyadh, Doha, Jeddah and Manama all sit between USD 670 and 710 on the latest published figures. Abu Dhabi costs about twice that, and Dubai's best malls more than four times. Whatever the city, keep rent at 12 to 15 percent of sales. Below are the numbers that decide a restaurant or cafe budget in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama and Muscat, each with its source and its date.

Next step. Planning a restaurant or cafe in the Gulf? See our fixed-price studies for Dubai and the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the other GCC markets, from USD 3,999, or test a site with the free break-even calculator.

Every figure on this page comes from a government portal, a law or decision, a company filing, a property research house or a reputable report of one of them, and every one is dated. Where nobody publishes a number, we say so rather than fill the gap. Local currencies are converted to US dollars at the fixed pegs: AED 3.6725, SAR 3.75, QAR 3.64, BHD 0.376 and OMR 0.3845 to the dollar, and KWD 0.30815, the Central Bank of Kuwait rate of 18 October 2026.

The benchmarks in fifteen lines

What restaurant space costs, in US dollars

Research houses measure different things: line stores or whole malls, prime or average, a month or a year, square feet or square metres. We convert everything to US dollars per square metre a year and name the basket and the date beside each figure, because a 2024 Bahrain number and a 2026 Riyadh number are not the same kind of fact.

Read across the prime rows and a pattern appears: Riyadh, Doha, Jeddah and Manama all sit at about USD 670 to 710 per square metre a year. Abu Dhabi costs about twice that, and Dubai's Tier 1 malls more than four times. The Jeddah and Bahrain figures are older than the others, and Bahrain's malls have emptied since, so treat them as ceilings rather than quotes.

Kuwait publishes no mall rent series. Kuwait Finance House tracks street units, and its ground-floor rents sit above every non-UAE mall figure in the table, which tells you how expensive a busy Salmiya or Kuwait City frontage is. KFH does not print "per month" on its table; Kuwaiti rents are quoted monthly and the report's own sale prices only make sense on that basis, so we read it that way. In Muscat no research house publishes a retail rent per square metre, so any figure you see quoted without a source is a guess.

A research-house average is not your rent. Restaurant units are larger than line stores and often pay less per square metre, while a corner unit with a terrace pays more. The figure that matters is the one you are quoted, divided by the sales the site can carry.

How full the malls are, and where rent cannot rise

Bahrain's malls are about a third empty while Dubai's are about 98 percent full, and that gap is a tenant's negotiating power. In Doha, ValuStrat reported rising vacancies in hotel food and beverage space in Q2 2026 and landlords offering longer grace periods. In Muscat, Mall of Oman and Oman Avenues Mall keep high occupancy, and landlords now offer hybrid leases of base rent plus a share of turnover.

What one expat hire costs in government fees

The headline government charges for one foreign worker, before salary, housing, medical cover, recruitment or air fares. The totals are our arithmetic on the published fees, and the periods differ, so read each row as written.

The Saudi levy alone costs nearly three times Bahrain's full 2026 permit, visa and health fees for the same worker. A Saudi team of 15 with 10 expats carries roughly SAR 100,000 a year in levies and iqama renewals before anyone is paid. In Bahrain the bill keeps climbing every January until 2029, so a five-year model that holds 2026 fees flat understates it.

Wage floors and nationalisation rules

Licence and approval fees

Licence fees are the small line. In every market we work in, the money that runs out before opening is rent and salaries paid while approvals are pending, which is why a Dubai restaurant takes six months or more from lease to opening and a Saudi one six to twelve.

Delivery: the rules by market

Kuwait is the one Gulf market where a delivery commission has a legal ceiling. Elsewhere, Gulf platforms take 15 to 35 percent of an order before VAT on their fees and card processing, and the rate is negotiable: one published Dubai group deal priced talabat at 5.3 percent plus AED 8.40 an order. The volume keeps growing. Saudi delivery apps handled 408 million orders in 2025, against 228 million in 2023, and the Riyadh region alone placed about 44 percent of them.

Tax on the bill and on the drinks

Sources: PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries (2026), the Oman Tax Authority, QNA, Gulf News, the UAE Ministry of Finance, KPMG and EY, listed below.

Visitors and hotel occupancy

The regional conflict of 2026 hit hotels far harder than malls. A concept that leans on hotel guests needs conservative covers this year; one that serves residents has held up better.

Utilities are the thinnest line in the public record. Abu Dhabi's ADDC publishes a flat commercial tariff of 20 fils (USD 0.054) per kWh for electricity and AED 7.84 (USD 2.13) per cubic metre for water, VAT included. For the other markets we price power and water from the landlord's and the utility's quotes for the unit itself.

The operating ratios we hold every study to

The rent rule comes from 33 years of opening restaurants and more than 300 projects. Above 20 percent, the restaurant works for the landlord. You can test any site against these ratios with the free restaurant break-even calculator.

What nobody publishes

• Muscat rents. No research house publishes a retail rent per square metre for Oman.
• Kuwait mall rents. Kuwait Finance House covers street units; no report gives a rent for The Avenues, 360 Mall or Al Kout.
• Restaurant rents by district, in any of the eight cities. Listings show what landlords ask, not what tenants sign.
• Fit-out cost per square metre for restaurants and cafes, in any GCC market.
• Delivery commission rates. The platforms publish no rate cards; outside Kuwait's cap, every figure comes from operators.
• Restaurant closure rates. No GCC authority publishes one. The best measured benchmark, H.G. Parsa's Ohio State study of 2,439 restaurants in Columbus, Ohio (1996 to 1999), found 26 percent closed in year one and 59 percent within three years.
• Restaurant nationalisation quotas in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, which are set activity by activity and not published for restaurants.

Where a number is missing, a feasibility study replaces it with the quote for your unit, your menu and your team. That is the work behind every Praxis study, which costs USD 3,999 for one location at our founding price and is delivered in seven days. See a full sample study.

How to cite this page

Frequently asked questions

How much does restaurant space cost in Dubai, Riyadh and Doha?

Dubai's Tier 1 malls rent at AED 1,000 to 1,100 per square foot a year, about USD 2,931 to 3,224 per square metre (Cushman & Wakefield Core, mid 2025). Riyadh's regional and super-regional malls average SAR 2,650 per square metre a year, about USD 707 (Knight Frank, H1 2026). Doha's prime mall line stores rent at QAR 205 per square metre a month, about USD 676 a year (Knight Frank, Q4 2025).

What percentage of sales should a restaurant's rent be in the Gulf?

12 to 15 percent of sales is the norm, and 20 percent is the ceiling, for a very prime site with the sales to match. Above that, the restaurant works for the landlord. That is Ralph Homer's rule from 33 years and more than 300 restaurant projects.

Which Gulf country caps delivery app commissions?

Kuwait. Since 9 July 2026, Ministerial Decision 109/2026 caps a platform's commission at 17 percent when it delivers and 10 percent when the restaurant delivers, and caps the customer delivery fee at KD 1. Qatar requires full disclosure of fees but sets no cap, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman set no cap either.

What is the VAT on a restaurant bill in each GCC country?

15 percent in Saudi Arabia, 10 percent in Bahrain, 5 percent in the UAE and Oman, and none in Qatar or Kuwait (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries and the Oman Tax Authority, 2026). Oman also adds a 4 percent tourism fee in tourist-area and franchised outlets.

How much does it cost to employ an expat restaurant worker in the Gulf?

In government fees alone, before salary and housing, about USD 2,560 a year in Saudi Arabia (the expat levy where expats outnumber Saudis), USD 918 in Bahrain in 2026, USD 909 in Kuwait in the first year and USD 302 in Qatar, by our arithmetic on the published fees. Oman charges OMR 201 to 301 per work permit, cut by 30 percent or doubled depending on Omanisation.

Do rents in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi still rise?

Not on most leases. Riyadh froze total rent for five years from 25 September 2025, commercial leases included, and Abu Dhabi capped increases at 0 percent from 2 June 2026. Law firms advise that ADGM areas in Abu Dhabi are outside the freeze, and Jeddah and Dubai have no freeze.

Can I use these figures in my article or report?

Yes. Cite "GCC Restaurant and Cafe Benchmarks 2026, Praxis Model, October 2026 edition" with a link to this page, and keep the source and date beside each figure.

How often is this page updated?

Every quarter, with the GCC Restaurant Reality Index; the next edition is due in January 2027. Rule changes are added as they happen.

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Praxis Model is a financial feasibility specialist for GCC hospitality. Figures are summarised from the official and published sources listed above as of 18 October 2026; each belongs to its publisher, and totals marked as our arithmetic are calculations on the published fees. US dollar amounts are converted at the fixed pegs of AED 3.6725, SAR 3.75, QAR 3.64, BHD 0.376 and OMR 0.3845, and at KWD 0.30815, the Central Bank of Kuwait rate of 18 October 2026 (the dinar is pegged to a basket, so its rate moves slightly). This page is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice, and every figure is checked again for each study. Client work is confidential: we never name or show a client’s concept, numbers or location.