The restaurant break-even calculator for Dubai and the GCC

How break-even works

Every sale pays two bills. The first moves with the till: the food on the plate and the app’s cut of each delivery order. What is left is the contribution margin.

The margin pays the second bill, the one that arrives on the first of the month whether the room was full or empty. Rent. Payroll. Utilities, marketing, maintenance, the licence renewal.

Break-even is the level of sales where the margin covers that second bill exactly. Divide the fixed costs by the margin ratio and you have the sales you need. Divide again by the average spend and the trading days, and you have covers a day. That last number is the one to take to the site on a Tuesday night in August, and count.

Worked through: the Dubai casual dining preset

Fixed costs come to AED 220,000. Divide by 0.6375 and break-even is AED 345,098 a month: 96 covers a day against a forecast of 117. The cushion is 18.1% of sales. Rent sits at 13.1%, inside the norm.

Cut sales by 15% and the room still clears AED 8,238 a month: a pass, but the narrow kind a lender reads twice. The opening bill of AED 2,384,000, three months of fixed costs in reserve included, comes back in 50 months at steady state, and in 59 once the opening ramp is counted. That is just past the 3 to 4 years published for casual dining. Change one number on the left and watch which line moves first.

What each benchmark means

Rent as a share of sales

Rent at 12 to 15% of sales is the norm. Up to 20% is the maximum, and only a very prime site with the sales to match earns it. Above 20%, the restaurant works for the landlord. That is my rule, from 33 years and more than 300 restaurant projects across the Gulf. 12

Food and beverage cost

About 28 to 35% of sales. Below the band, check the recipe costing before you believe it. Above it, every extra point comes straight off the margin that pays the rent. 3

Payroll

With visas, housing and medical, Gulf payroll runs 28 to 35% of sales. Count yourself in it. A founder who pays everyone but himself drains the reserve anyway. 59

Delivery commission

Apps take 15 to 35% of each order, before VAT on their fees and card charges. On a delivery-heavy menu, that stack is your rent. 67

The 15% stress test

Investors ask whether the restaurant still breaks even with sales 15% below plan. If yours fails at 15%, the forecast is carrying the whole investment. 3

Working capital

Gulf rent is paid up front in cheques, suppliers want cash from a new account, and the apps settle weeks later. Hold three months of fixed costs in the build budget at the very least, and about six in hand. 19

Payback

Quick service 2 to 3 years, casual dining 3 to 4, fine dining 4 to 5. Three years is a good result; past five, rework the concept before it needs money. The calculator shows payback twice: at steady state, and with a published six-month opening ramp. 349

What this calculator cannot tell you

• It models one steady month. Dubai’s summer can halve volumes while rent and payroll stay fixed, and Ramadan moves the whole trading day. A study models the year month by month.
• It stops before tax, loan repayments and depreciation. Enter your spend before VAT. Card fees and VAT on app fees belong in everything else.
• The ramp follows one published shape: 40, 55, 70, 80 and 90% of plan over the first five months. Yours may be slower.
• Presets for Doha, Manama, Kuwait City and Muscat convert the Dubai figures at the peg. Rents and wages differ there. Use your own quotes.
• The two numbers that decide everything, covers and average spend, are guesses until someone stands on the site and counts. That is the honest limit of every calculator, this one included.

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Where every starting number comes from

Every default and every benchmark comes from a figure already published on praxismodel.io. Where none exists, the default says so and is set to be conservative. The small gold numbers beside each field point here.

1. How much it costs to open a restaurant in DubaiCapital bands by concept (quick service USD 200,000 to 400,000, casual dining USD 500,000 to 800,000, larger full-service USD 1 to 1.5 million), the line-by-line split of a USD 600,000 casual budget, and working capital of three months of fixed costs.
2. How much it costs to open a restaurant in Saudi ArabiaSaudi capital bands (quick service or specialty café SAR 1.1 to 2.5 million, casual dining SAR 2.5 to 5 million, flagship SAR 5 to 15 million), Jeddah 10 to 20% below Riyadh, prime rents of SAR 30,000 to 100,000 a month, fully loaded staff costs, and Saudi app commissions of 15 to 30%.
3. Restaurant business plan in Dubai and the GulfFood cost of 28 to 35%, aggregator commissions of 25 to 35% an order, around six months of working capital, payback (three years good, five common for quick service), and the test of surviving sales 15% below forecast.
4. Restaurant ROI and payback in Dubai and the GulfPayback rules of thumb: quick service 2 to 3 years, casual dining 3 to 4, fine dining 4 to 5; past five years, rework the concept. Net margins of 3 to 10% on average and 12 to 20% when well run.
5. How long until a restaurant in Dubai breaks evenPayroll of 28 to 35% of sales with visas and housing; a 2,000 sq ft Dubai unit at AED 160,000 to 800,000 a year; break-even typically between month 8 and month 14.
6. The GCC Restaurant Reality Index, October 2026Dubai diners spend about AED 51 an outing; delivery apps take 15 to 35% of an order; Kuwait caps commission at 17% when the app delivers and 10% when the restaurant does, from 9 July 2026.
7. What delivery apps really take from Gulf restaurantsTalabat bands by segment, dark kitchens at 25 to 30%; delivery carries more than a third of UAE restaurant sales.
8. Starting a cloud kitchen in DubaiYour own delivery-only unit at AED 80,000 to 200,000; average delivery orders of AED 90 to 150; a single brand topping out at AED 50,000 to 150,000 of sales a month.
9. How much working capital a Gulf restaurant needsSix months of operating costs in hand; the opening ramp of 40, 55, 70, 80, 90 and 100% of plan; the owner’s own salary belongs in the burn.
10. GCC restaurant statistics 2026VAT on a restaurant bill: 15% in Saudi Arabia, 10% in Bahrain, 5% in the UAE and Oman, none in Qatar or Kuwait; 14.4% of Saudi food service sales went through delivery apps in 2023.
11. Cloud kitchen vs restaurant vs cafeteria in the GulfSaudi shared kitchens at SAR 10,000 to 15,000 a month; a mid-size Saudi kitchen of your own at SAR 200,000 to 300,000.
12. Ralph Homer’s rent rule, October 2026Rent at 12 to 15% of sales is the norm; up to 20% is the maximum, and only on a very prime site; above 20% is unsustainable. From 33 years and more than 300 restaurant projects across the Gulf.

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Praxis Model is a financial feasibility specialist for GCC hospitality. This calculator is general information built on figures published on praxismodel.io as of October 2026. It is not financial advice for your venture, and restaurant investments can lose capital.