What Is Gross Leasable Area? GLA vs GFA, NLA and BUA
What is gross leasable area? GLA vs GFA, NLA and BUA defined, with real Gulf numbers: KAFD's 900,000 sqm of leasable office inside 3.2m sqm of GFA.
Gross leasable area (GLA) is the floor space a landlord can actually put on a lease: the area tenants occupy and pay for, excluding the core, plant rooms and shared circulation nobody rents. So what is gross leasable area in a Gulf filing? Usually one of four measures wearing the same units. King Abdullah Financial District spans over 900,000 sqm of office space inside 3.2 million sqm of total GFA (KAFD, 2026); treat those as interchangeable and every ratio built on them is wrong.
Key figures at a glance
| Metric | Value | Scope | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KAFD office space | 900,000+ sqm | Leasable office, Riyadh | 2026 | KAFD |
| KAFD total GFA | 3.2 million sqm | Same district, all uses | 2026 | KAFD |
| Riyad REIT net leasable area | 799,463 sqm | Fund-wide | Dec 2025 | Riyad REIT |
| Al Rajhi REIT Riyadh office | 9,162 sqm built-up | Single asset | Dec 2023 | Al Rajhi REIT |
| TECOM "leasing area" | 22.6m sq ft | Commercial + industrial blend | 31 Mar 2026 | TECOM Group |
What is gross leasable area, and what is it not?
Four measures circulate in Gulf filings: GFA the biggest, GLA and NLA the smallest, BUA alongside GFA.
Gross floor area (GFA) is the planner's number: total constructed floor area to the external walls, cores, plant and often parking included, the measure a plot ratio caps. KAFD's 3.2 million sqm headline is a GFA figure; the 900,000 sqm of office within it is the leasable slice.
Gross leasable area (GLA) is the landlord's number: the space a tenant can occupy under a lease, and the standard denominator for rents, occupancy and take-up.
Net leasable or net lettable area (NLA) is GLA's stricter sibling, excluding common areas more aggressively, though in Gulf practice the labels blur. Riyad REIT reports 799,463 sqm of "Net Leasable Area" (Riyad REIT, Dec 2025); Emirates REIT calls the same concept "Net Lettable Area" at 168,222 sqm (Emirates REIT, Dec 2025). The operative definition is each fund's measurement basis, not the label.
Built-up area (BUA) is the Gulf's everyday term, closer to GFA than to GLA: total constructed area, walls and services included. Al Rajhi REIT describes its Riyadh multi-tenant office by built-up area, 9,162 sqm (Al Rajhi REIT, Dec 2023), not by GLA; a table mixing BUA rows with NLA rows compares different quantities.
A worked example: KAFD, from GFA down to leased space
KAFD publishes the region's cleanest nested set of area figures: 1.6 million sqm of land, 3.2 million sqm of total GFA, and within that over 900,000 sqm of office space (KAFD, 2026), roughly 28% of built area (900,000 ÷ 3,200,000).
Now watch the denominator work. KAFD reported more than 580,000 sqm of office space leased by August 2025 (KAFD via Argaam). Against the 900,000 sqm office figure, that is about 64% committed, the number that matters for Riyadh's office market; against the 3.2 million GFA it is 18%, which would make a two-thirds-let flagship district look mostly empty. Same leased space, one wrong denominator.
Why the denominator moves a valuation
Per-square-metre metrics inherit whatever area basis sits under them. Al Rajhi REIT's Riyadh office cost SAR 72,178,814 against 9,162 sqm built-up, about SAR 7,878 per sqm (Al Rajhi REIT, Dec 2023); on a leasable denominator, always smaller, the same asset reads materially more expensive. The trap is systematic: an asset reported on BUA always looks cheaper than one reported on NLA, so screening REIT portfolios on undifferentiated "SAR per sqm" quietly misranks them. Some disclosed areas are not even office: TECOM Group's 22.6 million sq ft "leasing area" blends commercial and industrial space (TECOM, 31 Mar 2026), so it cannot serve as an office GLA for Dubai's office market.
The public record never gives you the conversion key: no Gulf regulator standardises area definitions in REIT disclosure, no fund publishes a GLA-to-BUA efficiency ratio, and total office GLA for Riyadh or Dubai exists only in private brokerage surveys. Omran normalises area bases before comparing anything and labels the basis on every figure, the same discipline we apply to Grade A classifications. Request an area-normalised dataset for your market.
FAQ
What is the difference between GLA and GFA? GFA is total constructed floor area including cores, plant and often parking; GLA is only the part a tenant can lease. KAFD shows the gap's scale: 900,000+ sqm of leasable office within 3.2 million sqm of GFA (KAFD, 2026).
What is the difference between GLA and NLA? NLA excludes common areas more strictly, but Gulf reporting treats the labels loosely: Riyad REIT says "Net Leasable Area", Emirates REIT "Net Lettable Area". The operative definition is the fund's own measurement basis.
What is BUA (built-up area) in Gulf real estate? BUA is the total constructed area, walls and services included, and the default measure in many Saudi filings. It sits close to GFA, not GLA, so it overstates lettable space.
How is gross leasable area calculated? Start from GFA and remove everything a lease cannot cover: structural core, lift shafts, plant rooms, shared lobbies and circulation. There is no Gulf-wide standard, so check the stated basis and never mix bases in one comparison.
Sources
- KAFD official site, land, GFA and office space figures: link
- KAFD via Argaam, 580,000+ sqm of office leased (Aug 2025): link
- Riyad REIT Fund, Annual Report 2025: link
- Emirates REIT, FY2025 Fact Sheet: link
- Al Rajhi REIT, Annual Report 2023: link
- TECOM Group, Investor Relations (leasing area to 31 Mar 2026): link