MVR 178 million in govt. offices rent, most to embassies

The 2026 state budget has set aside MVR 178 million in rent for government offices.

As per the budget submitted to Parliament by the Finance Ministry on 30th October, yearly rental expenditures by the government have been increasing. The highest rent being paid is for the Maldives High Commission offices established in various countries.

The Finance Ministry's statistics show that there is a rental cost of MVR 53 million for the Foreign Ministry's buildings. There are 19 embassies outside of Maldives included in that statistic.

MVR 178 million in rent was spent last year on government offices, with MVR 178.3 million being set aside for next year's budget. Around 30 percent of the rental costs goes to embassies.

The budget also sets aside spending power in the operation of 97 offices for 32 state administrative offices. 46 private offices are being rented for 28 of the state offices in the Male' region. 32 offices are being rented for 9 state offices within the atolls. Offices being run in Male' see a rental cost of MVR 88 million, with offices being run in private offices at other islands seeing a rental cost of MVR 5 million.

List of the highest rent payments by administrative offices:

Maldives Immigration and the Audit Office are operating at the M. Star Cloud building.

The Finance Ministry has said that the various state administrative offices are renting from private buildings at a commercial rate. The ministry also said that there are big differences when taking the square feet of the buildings into account.

"While the average yearly rent for a square foot at rented out buildings is at MVR 400, the yearly rent for a square foot at 22 office buildings is much higher than that," as was stated in the budget book.

The budget book also states that MVR 64 million from the state budget is spent on 22 offices that have the highest rental costs. It goes on to say that this is a total of 73 percent of rented places in Male'. The other 24 offices have a rental expenditure of 27 percent.

The construction of office buildings via HDC has begun in order to lower rental expenditures. The Finance Ministry believes that this will bring about lower rental expenditures.