Vilnius’ office market is going through an important phase of change this year – with supply exceeding demand, the vacancy rate has reached an all-time high, causing developers to scale back. However, experts are reassuring that the commercial real estate market is entering a natural stage of maturity and the share of vacant office space in the capital should decrease this year.
Class A office development volumes are declining
In the first quarter of 2026, the vacancy rate of class A offices located in the central part of Vilnius city exceeded the long-unseen 13 percent mark. Perhaps the most significant contribution to this was the opening of one of the new offices on Konstitucijos Avenue, which added over 10 thousand sq. meters to the market supply, at which time the total area of class A offices in the capital reached 548 thousand sq. meters.
Giedrius Brūzgė, Director of the Asset Management Department at EIKA Development, states that the market predicted today’s situation last year, which is why most developers have made decisions to temporarily suspend their Class A office development plans.
“The beginning of the year did not bring any big surprises in the office market, as the inclusion of the office space opened on Konstitucijos Ave. in the vacancy statistics was just a formality. Although we did not reach an all-time record, the vacancy rate is currently really high, and the latest Vilnius Class A office projects have only been leased for about 50 percent so far.”
However, the current situation should not last long, as the volume of new development in the Class A segment is decreasing. The volume of projects under construction is currently limited, and no significant new projects are expected to be completed in the near future. This means that the market will have enough time to digest the accumulated vacancy, which should start to shrink this year,” says G. Brūzgė.
Cautious optimism in the Class B office market
A slightly different situation is observed in class B offices located further from the capital city center, which account for over 659 thousand sq. meters of area. Over the next two years, the market should be supplemented by more than 60 thousand sq. meters of new office space, but developers are not afraid of this.
“Developers in the class B segment are currently optimistic, but they have good reasons for this. Vacancy is not only stable, but has also decreased to 8 percent, and 57 percent of new offices currently under construction or just completed have already been leased. This is a better indicator than in class A,” the real estate expert says, assessing the situation.
Although the numbers don’t lie, according to G. Brūzgė, they may hide the real market situation, which is not always so positive. According to him, this year the stability of class B office vacancies was greatly helped by the activity of the public sector and educational institutions, not by private business.
“In the first quarter of this year, public sector representatives and educational institutions rented as much as 19 thousand sq. meters of space in the B-class segment, which accounted for more than two-thirds of the total occupied area of the market. If not for these transactions, this would have been one of the weaker quarters in the history of renting in terms of real business demand,” the interviewee claims.
Office surplus creates new opportunities
While both A and B class offices face their own challenges, the current situation also presents new opportunities. For example, in the first quarter of this year, excess office space was increasingly converted into other types of spaces.
“When supply exceeds demand, some business centers and office buildings are naturally left with a lot of vacant space that does not bring any value. Investors see opportunities in this and are increasingly acquiring such objects not for further office development, but for conversion,” says G. Brūzgė.
Summing up the Vilnius office market, the real estate expert adds that although this period is not the most favorable for developers and investors, the current situation simply embodies the market’s transition from a growth phase to a maturity stage, which will not last forever.
“High vacancy creates a favorable situation for tenants, who can choose from a wide range of offers, negotiate terms, and spend more time making decisions. But it is important to understand that this situation will not last long, because new supply, like vacancy, will decrease. As a result, the entire market should return to a more balanced level this year,” concludes the representative of EIKA Development.