The cost of fitting out an office from China breaks into a small number of structural categories — workstations and seating, storage and cabinetry, reception and meeting room furniture, lighting, and flooring/ceiling finishes — and the share each one takes of the total budget shifts depending on whether the project is an open-plan corporate floor, an executive suite, or a co-working fit-out. This breakdown sets out the cost structure so a project owner can sanity-check a quotation against where the budget is actually going, without publishing absolute price figures that vary by project scope and destination.
What Are the Structural Cost Categories in an Office Fit-Out?
- Workstations and task seating: for open-plan corporate floors, this is typically the single largest line item — desking systems, task chairs and ergonomic seating scale directly with headcount.
- Storage and cabinetry: filing cabinets, lockers, joinery and built-in storage — often underestimated at the concept stage and then added back in during detailed design.
- Reception and meeting room furniture: a smaller unit count than workstations but frequently a higher per-unit spec (feature reception desk, executive boardroom table), so its share of budget is disproportionate to its share of floor area.
- Lighting: task and ambient lighting, often specified separately from the base building’s shell lighting, particularly for LEED/WELL-certified or open-plan projects with specific lux-level requirements.
- Soft seating and breakout furniture: lounge and collaboration area furniture — a growing share of the budget as more corporate fit-outs shift floor area from individual desks to shared collaboration space.
How Does the Cost Mix Shift by Fit-Out Type?
| Fit-out type | Largest cost driver | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open-plan corporate floor | Workstations and task seating | Cost scales almost linearly with headcount; standardization across units keeps per-unit cost efficient |
| Executive suite / C-suite floor | Reception, boardroom and executive office furniture | Lower unit count but much higher per-unit specification, often custom millwork |
| Co-working / flexible workspace | Soft seating, breakout and communal furniture | Higher furniture-to-floor-area ratio than a standard corporate floor, with a wider mix of furniture types |
What Gets Added on Top of the Furniture Line Items?
- Freight and duty: the same landed-cost elements that apply to any China-sourced order — ocean freight, import duty and destination handling, on top of the factory price.
- Installation: office furniture installation, particularly for systems furniture and modular workstations, is typically contracted separately and can be a meaningful share of total project cost, not an incidental add-on.
- Project management and coordination: for larger corporate fit-outs, coordinating furniture delivery against the construction and IT/AV fit-out schedule is its own cost and risk factor, whether carried by the GC, an FF&E consultant, or a sourcing agent.
- Contingency stock: spare parts and matching-finish stock (particularly for systems furniture, where finish batches can vary between production runs) budgeted upfront rather than sourced at a rush premium after occupancy.
Budgeting an office fit-out sourced from China?
FBM Sourcing works with project owners, developers, main contractors and corporate tenants on office fit-out projects. Send us your furniture schedule or floor plan — our team will review it and get back to you with a cost breakdown.
What Should an Office Fit-Out RFQ Include to Get a Comparable Quotation?
- Headcount and floor plan with workstation count, meeting room count and sizes, and breakout/collaboration area square footage.
- Specification tier per zone — open-plan standard spec, executive tier, and reception/boardroom feature spec called out separately, since bundling them into one average spec makes quotations hard to compare.
- Finish and brand-standard requirements, particularly for corporate tenants with a global brand furniture standard that has to be matched or approved as equivalent.
- Delivery and installation sequencing against the construction and IT/AV fit-out schedule, since furniture delivered before the floor is ready to receive it creates its own storage and handling cost.
How FBM Sourcing Handles Office Fit-Out Procurement
FBM Sourcing manages the entire China procurement package for overseas office fit-out projects. We break the furniture schedule down by zone and specification tier, so the quotation shows where the budget is actually going rather than one blended number, and source workstations, storage, reception and soft seating from the factories that specialize in each category. Before shipment our own FBM Sourcing QC team inspects the goods at the factory — dimensions, finish consistency across the production run, and function — with photo and video records before shipment. All quotations, invoices and shipping documents are issued by FBM Sourcing — you deal with us, and we carry the responsibility. For suppliers you nominate, we charge a 5% commission; for products we source for you, we quote a direct price. We ship by full container, consolidating your full furniture schedule into full containers — never less-than-container-load.
If you are budgeting an office fit-out sourced from China, send us the headcount, floor plan and specification tiers by zone. Our team will review it and set out a cost breakdown — use the quote button above or WhatsApp +86 135 6007 5057.
