In 2026, a complete (turnkey) house in Pakistan costs roughly PKR 5,800 to 6,400 per square foot of covered area at a standard finish. Grey structure alone is about PKR 2,650 to 3,400 per square foot; finishing makes up the balance. Economy work can land below PKR 5,500, and premium finishing pushes the complete rate past PKR 8,000. One thing everyone gets wrong: these are covered-area rates, so you multiply them by the built area on every floor — not by your plot size.
Grey structure, finishing and complete — three different numbers
Grey structure is the bare skeleton: foundation, columns, slabs, brickwork, plaster and the boundary wall. It runs about PKR 2,650 to 3,400 per square foot and is a little under half of a finished house. Finishing — flooring, paint, doors and windows, kitchen, bathrooms, electrical and plumbing fittings — is the rest, and it is where the range explodes because it is all choices. Add them and a complete standard build sits near PKR 5,800 to 6,400 per square foot. When a contractor quotes you a single per-square-foot figure, always ask which of these three it is.
Why the per-square-foot number moves
Four things move it most. City: Lahore and Islamabad grey rates cluster around PKR 2,650 to 3,400, while material logistics nudge Karachi and smaller cities a little either way. Material grade: awal versus doem bricks, mill versus re-rolled steel, and cement brand each shift the grey number. Structure: plots of 10 marla and above usually move from load-bearing to an RCC frame, which adds steel and cost per foot. And finish tier: the jump from economy to premium tiles, sanitary and woodwork is the single biggest swing in the whole estimate.
Covered area is the multiplier, not plot size
A 5 marla plot is not 5 marla of construction. A 5 marla double-storey house carries roughly 1,975 square feet of covered area once you count both floors and the mumty; a 10 marla is around 3,150 and a 1 kanal about 4,700. So the sequence is always: work out covered area across all floors first, then apply the per-square-foot rate. Miss this and you can under-count a double-storey house by nearly half.
A worked example
Take a 5 marla double-storey in Lahore at about 1,975 square feet, standard finish. At roughly PKR 5,850 per square foot that is about PKR 1.06 to 1.25 crore complete, with grey structure making up around PKR 52 to 67 lakh of it. Change the city, the society, the number of bathrooms or the finish tier and the per-square-foot rate — and therefore the total — moves with it. That is exactly what the calculator does line by line.
Use a per-square-foot rate as a sanity check, never as a quote. The honest number for your build depends on your exact plot, city, storeys and finishes — run those through the construction cost calculator and you get an itemised figure with the quantity and rate written out on every line, instead of one blurry average.