Finishing a new-build apartment: what it costs from skim coat to turnkey (2026)

Finishing a new 65 m² two-room apartment that was handed over with skim-coated walls and a screeded floor costs €7,585.26 for labour on our price list – about €117 per m². The figure covers the walls and ceilings, the floors, a bathroom with a concealed shower and a wall-hung toilet, the doors, the second fix, the final clean and the waste removal. Materials are not included.

If the developer handed the apartment over with bare plaster – no skim coat, a rough screed and fewer electrical points – labour for the same apartment comes to €12,421.70, about €191 per m². The €4,836.44 difference in labour comes from the stage of completion, so check it before you compare quotes.

The order of the work is in our article renovating a new-build home: from shell finish to turnkey, and how we work on new homes is on our new-build apartment renovation page. This article is about the price: the calculation line by line and what it leaves out. Prices are as of October 2026 and may change; the current ones are in our price list.

Three stages of completion – three different bills

The stage of completion is stated in the contract with the seller or in an annex to it. Check it against the apartment when you accept it – it decides how much work is left after the developer.

• ‘Bare brick’ – the walls are bare brickwork, the floor has no screed or only a rough one, and the wiring and plumbing may only reach the consumer unit and the riser. Here, plaster, screed and cable and pipe runs are added to the finishing, and the bill comes closer to a major renovation – see ‘If the walls are bare brick’ below.
• ‘Skim coat and screed’ – the walls and ceilings are skim coated, the floor is screeded, and the cables and pipes reach the places for the switches, sockets and sanitaryware. This is where scenario A starts. If the walls are only plastered, with no skim coat, the bill follows scenario B.
• ‘Turnkey’ from the developer – the paint, floors, bathroom and doors are done, and any work is your choice: a different colour, more points, a different floor. ‘Painting walls – primer, minor repairs and 2 coats of paint’ is €11.15 per m² for labour, and ‘Electrical installation per point’ €32.21 for labour.

Before

After

Scenario A: from skim coat to turnkey – €7,585.26 for labour

The example is a new 65 m² two-room apartment: a living room with a kitchenette, a bedroom, a hallway and a 5 m² bathroom with the toilet. The developer handed it over with skim-coated walls and ceilings, a screeded floor, and the electrical and water points in place. The laminate is in the living room and bedroom, the tiles in the hallway and kitchenette. The bathroom is tiled up to the ceiling – 22 m² of wall tiles and 5 m² of floor tiles – with a concealed shower, a linear drain and a shower screen, a wall-hung toilet and a vanity unit.

The rooms: walls, ceilings, floors, doors and second fix

The walls and ceilings come to €1,449.50 + €724.75 = €2,174.25 for labour. The package at €11.15 per m² for labour is for a skim coat with small defects – scratches, small holes, marks around the window frames. If the developer’s skim coat has ripples, cracks or visible joints, the walls need one more coat: ‘Primer before skim coat, 1 coat of skim, sanding, dust removal, primer before paint, 2 coats of paint’ is €17.18 per m² for labour. For 130 m² of walls, that is 130 × (€17.18 − €11.15) = €783.90 more for labour. Which is needed becomes clear at the site visit.

The floors come to €279.20 + €193.05 + €966.40 = €1,438.65 for labour. Laminate and tiles go straight onto the screed if it is flat; if it is rippled, self-levelling screed is poured on top – that is part of scenario B. ‘Laying three-layer parquet’ instead of laminate is €14.50 per m² for labour: for 40 m², €580.00 instead of €279.20.

The doors, second fix, cleaning and waste removal come to €390.00 + €210.00 + €171.76 + €84.36 + €110.00 = €966.12 for labour. In scenario A, the cables already reach the back boxes, but there are no switches or sockets yet – what is left is the second fix. A point that is not where the furniture will be is moved: ‘Moving an electrical point’ is €32.21 for labour, the same as a new one. There is one waste trip – there is nothing to demolish in a new home.

The bathroom

The bathroom is the largest part of the bill: €3,006.24 of the €7,585.26 for labour. More than two-thirds of it goes on tiling and waterproofing: €58.96 + €150.32 + €128.88 + €1,739.34 = €2,077.50 for labour. How waterproofing is done and tested is explained in our article on bathroom waterproofing.

A concealed shower is two labour items: the in-wall body goes into the wall before it is tiled (€241.59), and the installation comes after tiling (€107.37). A wall-hung toilet is the same: the frame in the wall with its cladding (€187.90) and the toilet itself (€59.05), also for labour.

A niche in the shower, like the one in the bathroom in the photos, is extra work: ‘Building plasterboard niches’ is €140.00 and ‘Lining a niche with tiles’ €107.37 for labour. If the shower or basin is going somewhere else, the water outlets are moved: ‘Moving the shower supply points’ is €107.37 and a ‘Plumbing alteration’ €240.31 for labour.

For comparison: a complete bathroom renovation costs €4,000–9,000 including labour and construction materials, and for an old bathroom that also covers the strip-out and preparing the old walls. The breakdown is in our article bathroom renovation: labour costs task by task.

In total, scenario A is €4,579.02 for the rooms and €3,006.24 for the bathroom, or €7,585.26 for labour – €7,585.26 ÷ 65 ≈ €117 per m².

Scenario B: from bare plaster to turnkey – €12,421.70 for labour

Here, the walls and ceilings are only plastered, with no skim coat, the floor has a rough, rippled screed, and there are not enough electrical points – in the example, we add 10 more, for the kitchen, the TV and the bedside lights. The rest is as in scenario A.

The difference from scenario A is €12,421.70 − €7,585.26 = €4,836.44 for labour. Of that, €3,629.60 + €1,465.75 − €2,174.25 = €2,921.10 of labour is for skim coating the walls and ceilings, €84.60 + €1,200.00 + €198.64 = €1,483.24 for the screeds, €322.10 for the new points and €110.00 for the second trip. Per square metre, scenario B is €12,421.70 ÷ 65 ≈ €191 for labour.

If the walls are bare brick

If the walls are bare brick, plaster goes on before the skim coat: ‘Gypsum plaster, up to 2 cm’ is €9.66 and ‘Lime-cement plaster’ €21.47 per m² for labour. For the 130 m² of walls in the rooms, that is €1,255.80 or €2,791.10 for labour. If pipes run across the floor and there is no screed yet, the new one has to be thicker: ‘Floor screed up to 5 cm’ is €26.84 per m² for labour. At that point, the work is closer to a turnkey major renovation than to finishing.

The two scenarios and the €180–330 per m² guide

A complete apartment renovation – with removals, new wiring and plumbing and every layer redone – usually costs €180–330 per m² for labour, and for 65 m² €11,700–21,450 for labour, excluding materials. What moves the price within this range is covered in our article how much an apartment renovation costs in 2026, and the complete renovation itself on our apartment renovation page.

Scenario A is below this range: the developer has already done the wiring and plumbing, the plaster, the skim coat and the screed, and there is nothing to demolish. Scenario B is at the bottom of the range – the walls and floors are done almost from scratch, but without removals or new cable and pipe runs.

The calculator prices a complete renovation – a turnkey apartment, every room – at €205, €245 or €280 per m² for labour, depending on the level, in Sofia, and shows a range from 0.88 to 1.18 times the calculated figure. For a new home, it also counts work the developer has already done, so a task-by-task calculation is more accurate – unless you are moving walls and adding new cable and pipe runs and suspended ceilings.

What the finishing price does not include

Both calculations are for labour only, and only for the tasks listed; the individual finishing works in Sofia have their own, more detailed pages. Left out of the calculations are:

• Materials. Construction materials – primers, skim coat, adhesives, waterproofing, screeds – appear in our quote on a separate line. You choose and buy the tiles, sanitaryware and taps yourself, and the laminate, skirting boards and doors are agreed in the quote.
• The kitchen and built-in wardrobes – who supplies and installs them is also agreed in the quote. A tiled splashback is ‘Tiling and grouting, walls’ – €48.32 per m² for labour.
• Suspended ceilings. ‘Installing a suspended plasterboard ceiling’ is €18.79 and ‘Installing a two-level suspended plasterboard ceiling with concealed lighting’ €37.58 per m² for labour; there is more in our article on suspended ceilings with LED lighting.
• Layout changes. ‘Building a partition wall – plasterboard’ is €26.84 per m² for labour, without the skim coat and paint. A load-bearing wall is not touched without a structural engineer’s assessment.
• Chases for the new electrical points – €6.98 per lin. m in brick and €12.00 in concrete, for labour.
• Defects in the building – cracks, damp, outlets that do not work. They are easier to get the developer to put right if they are recorded in the handover report.

How to work out the cost for your new apartment

The calculation is easy to adapt. You need:

1. The stage of completion from the contract – it tells you whether you start from scenario A, from scenario B or from bare brick.
2. Walls – the perimeter of each room multiplied by the ceiling height, minus the windows and doors; the bathroom separately.
3. Ceilings – the floor area of the rooms.
4. Floor – the area for each type of flooring: laminate or parquet, tiles.
5. Skirting boards – the perimeter of the rooms, minus the doorways.
6. Bathroom – the tiled area (the floor plus the tiled walls, minus the doorway) and what it will have: a concealed shower or a bath, a wall-hung toilet, a vanity unit.
7. The number of doors, switches and sockets, and light fittings.

Multiply the quantities by the prices in the tables and add them up. If you would like a guide without measuring, send a few photos of the rooms through our photo estimate. The exact figure is in the written quote after the free site visit.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to renovate a new apartment?

On our price list, a new 65 m² two-room apartment comes to €7,585.26 for labour from skim coat to turnkey (about €117 per m²) and €12,421.70 for labour from bare plaster to turnkey (about €191 per m²). Materials are not included. The exact price for your home is in the written quote after the free site visit.

Are materials included in the price?

No. The task prices and both calculations are for labour. Construction materials appear in the quote on a separate line, and you buy the tiles, sanitaryware and taps yourself.

When is the best time to start?

Once you have accepted the apartment from the developer and the defects are recorded in the handover report. Before the first stage, decide where the kitchen, furniture and lighting will go – a point moved after skim coating is paid for twice. How the work runs from handover to turnkey is described on our page on renovating a new-build apartment to turnkey.

How long does finishing take?

It depends on the floor area and the scope; the stage-by-stage schedule is in the quote. Scenario B takes longer, because the skim coat and screed dry according to the manufacturer’s instructions before work continues.

What is the warranty?

The warranty is in writing: 24 months for the renovation and 72 months for the plumbing and electrical installations.

If you would like a calculation like this for your new home, book a free site visit or call +359 888 802 618. The quote is in writing, with the tasks, quantities and prices, and we reply to enquiries within 24 hours. For contracts signed by 31 December 2026, the whole quote – labour and the materials we supply – is 10% off.