Friday, 14 August 2026
Bucharest’s office market is becoming increasingly divided between modern buildings in established business districts and older or peripheral stock, with limited availability in the most sought-after locations supporting rental growth despite relatively restrained leasing activity.
More than 100,000 sqm of office space was leased in the Romanian capital during the first half of 2026, slightly below the corresponding period of 2025, according to Colliers. However, the shortage of suitable space in central locations is allowing owners of stronger assets to increase rents and gain greater leverage in negotiations.
Asking rents for existing offices in the Central Business District and other central locations reached around €18 per sqm per month at the end of June, compared with approximately €16 a year earlier, representing an increase of close to 12%. Across Bucharest as a whole, rental growth was considerably more moderate at around 3%.
The pressure is also becoming visible in the development pipeline. Offices currently under construction are being marketed at rents around 10–15% above levels normally associated with their respective submarkets.
Victor Coșconel, Partner and Head of Leasing, Office & Industrial Agencies at Colliers, said the combination of relatively modest transaction volumes and rising rents reflects a shortage of the type of accommodation that companies actually want.
Businesses continue to prioritise efficient, modern offices with good transport connections and central locations, while the number of buildings capable of satisfying those requirements has been declining.
This imbalance is particularly visible in vacancy figures. Bucharest’s overall vacancy rate increased from 11.75% at the end of 2025 to 12.25% by mid-2026, but much of the additional available space is concentrated outside the strongest office districts.
Vacancy in the Central Business District remains at approximately 4%, with the highest rents reaching €24 per sqm per month, up from €22 at the end of 2025. Floreasca-Barbu Văcărescu has vacancy of around 5%, while Pipera stands at approximately 40%.
The figures illustrate why the headline vacancy rate increasingly provides an incomplete picture of occupier choice. Large amounts of technically available office space do not necessarily compete directly with newer buildings in locations preferred by major corporate tenants.
Supply remains one of the most important constraints. Bucharest recorded no new office completions during the first half of 2026, following a full year without deliveries in 2025.
Development activity is beginning to restart, with slightly more than 50,000 sqm expected to complete during 2026 and almost 300,000 sqm currently under construction for delivery over the coming years.
Even this pipeline remains substantially below previous development cycles, when annual completions could exceed 200,000 sqm.
A further complication for occupiers is that portions of upcoming developments are already involved in pre-leasing discussions. Colliers therefore expects the availability of larger blocks of high-quality space to remain constrained at least through 2027.
Coșconel said companies with leases expiring during the next two years should begin evaluating their options early, as delaying decisions could leave occupiers with fewer alternatives and potentially higher costs.
There are nevertheless some signs of improvement on the demand side.
Transactions representing genuinely additional occupancy increased slightly during the first half, while Colliers reports enquiries from companies considering new leases and from businesses entering Romania, including Western European service centres seeking several thousand square metres.
Technology companies are also becoming somewhat more active following the recent slowdown. IT&C represented approximately 31% of Bucharest leasing during the first half of 2026. That compares with around 20% during 2025, although the sector remains considerably less dominant than in 2019, when it generated more than half of leasing activity.
Demand is consequently becoming more diversified. Financial services, energy, construction, professional services and consumer-goods businesses each accounted for approximately 8–9% of first-half leasing.
Changing workplace policies could provide another source of demand. Colliers observes that many businesses outside the technology sector increased required office attendance from one or two days a week to three during 2025, with some employers now considering four-day attendance policies. Technology companies generally continue to operate more flexible hybrid models.
The competition between newer and older offices is also moving beyond headline rent.
Service charges in modern Bucharest offices typically stand at approximately €3.50–€4 per sqm per month, according to Colliers, compared with more than €5 in some older properties.
Greater energy efficiency and more effective building management can therefore partially compensate occupiers for higher base rents. This is increasing pressure on owners of ageing buildings to invest in refurbishment, energy performance and repositioning if they want to remain competitive.
The trend is particularly important as tenants become more selective about the overall cost and performance of their workplaces rather than simply comparing nominal rents.
Similar conditions are developing across the major Central and Eastern European office markets.
Colliers’ ExCEEding Borders Office 2026 analysis covering Bucharest, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and Sofia puts their combined modern office stock at approximately 22.1 million sqm at the end of 2025, with leasing activity of around 2.6 million sqm.
Only slightly more than 200,000 sqm of new offices was completed across the six capitals during 2025, according to the report. Around 300,000 sqm is expected in 2026, still considerably below levels associated with previous development cycles.
The shortage is contributing to upward pressure on prime rents across the region while reinforcing the divide between the strongest buildings and less competitive stock.
For Bucharest, Colliers expects overall leasing during 2026 to remain broadly comparable with last year. The more important change may instead be occurring within the composition of the market: companies are concentrating demand on a smaller pool of efficient, centrally located offices at the same time as development remains restrained.
That combination is creating a market in which an overall vacancy rate above 12% can coexist with shortages in the locations most sought after by occupiers. For owners of prime buildings, this is strengthening pricing power; for landlords of older properties, it increases the urgency of investment and repositioning.
