Cat A vs Cat B Fit-Out: Who Pays for What

Cat A is the landlord's base finish — a blank, serviced but unusable floor with ceiling, lighting, basic HVAC and raised floor. Cat B is the tenant's build on top of it: the layout, cabins, meeting rooms, branding and everything that makes the space specific to one occupier.

By Dhruv Agarwal · · 2 min read

Why it matters on a fit-out project

This is where fit-out budgets go wrong before design even starts. A tenant sees a completed Cat A floor — ceiling in, lights on, air conditioning running — and reasonably assumes most of the work is done.

It is not. Cat A is deliberately generic, and Cat B frequently involves undoing part of it. Understanding the split early is what stops a budget being set against the wrong scope.

What sits in each

ElementCat A (landlord)Cat B (tenant)
Raised access floorUsually provided, bareFloor finish, boxes, outlets
CeilingGrid and tiles, open planCut, adapted or replaced for the layout
LightingUniform general lightingZoned, feature and task lighting
HVACDistribution to the floorRebalanced and rerouted to the layout
Fire systemsSprinklers, detection, open planRelocated to suit rooms and cabins
PartitionsNoneAll cabins, meeting rooms, glazing
Power / dataBasic distribution, incomingSmall power, containment, AV, IT
FinishesSealed floor, painted coreCarpet, wall finishes, joinery, branding
FurnitureNoneAll

Common mistakes

  • Budgeting Cat B on a Cat A impression. The floor looks finished, so the scope gets underestimated by exactly the value of everything above.
  • Not scheduling Cat A in the lease. "Warm shell" means different things to different landlords. It should be an annexed schedule, not a term.
  • Ignoring what Cat B undoes. Sprinkler relocation, ceiling adaptation and HVAC rebalancing are real line items in every cabinised layout.
  • Fixing the layout before compliance is checked. Adding rooms changes escape routes, travel distance and occupancy under NBC 2016 Part 4 — cheap to solve on a drawing, expensive after ceilings close.
  • Comparing quotes across different scopes. One contractor pricing Cat B only against another pricing Cat A adaptation plus Cat B is not a comparison.

Standards referenced

Occupancy, exits and travel distance — all of which move when a Cat A floor is subdivided into a Cat B layout — are governed by NBC 2016, Part 4.

Standards referenced

  • NBC 2016, Part 4 — Fire and life safety — occupancy (Bureau of Indian Standards)

Frequently asked

In Indian practice the terms overlap and are used loosely. Bare shell is a structural floor with no services — you build everything. Warm shell adds core services brought to the floor. Cat A roughly corresponds to a completed warm shell with ceiling, lighting and HVAC distribution in place. Because usage varies by landlord, the lease must schedule exactly what is provided rather than rely on the label.

Because Cat A is built for an unknown occupier, and Cat B rearranges the floor. A landlord's ceiling grid and sprinkler layout assume open plan; the moment you add cabins and meeting rooms, ceilings are cut, sprinklers relocated and diffusers moved. On some floors it is genuinely cheaper to negotiate a Cat A reduction and build once.

Often yes, and it is worth asking. A Cat A inducement or shell-condition handover with a rent adjustment can be better value than accepting a finish you will partly demolish. It depends on the landlord's leasing strategy, but tenants who never ask never find out.

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