Net absorption of Grade A office space in Beijing hits a new high in nearly three years in the second quarter

Beijing's office market is showing signs of stabilization. According to statistics from Colliers International, in the second quarter of 2026, the overall net absorption of Beijing's Grade A office market reached 146,000 square meters, hitting a new quarterly high in nearly three years; at the same time, the decline in the overall market average rent continued to narrow, with the average net effective rent in the second quarter falling to ¥208.2 per square meter per month, a month-on-month decrease of 2.1%, marking the smallest quarterly drop in nearly three years.

By the end of the second quarter, the vacancy rate of Grade A offices in Beijing had fallen back to 17.5%, down 1.6 percentage points from the end of last year. 

There are two main reasons driving the stabilization of the office market. First, the new demand driven by technology and innovation enterprises continues to be released, promoting space absorption in areas such as Zhongguancun and the CBD; second, there was no new supply in the core regional submarkets in the second quarter, placing the entire market in a low supply period.

Among different areas, the segments benefiting from the growing demand of technology and innovation enterprises have taken the lead in stabilizing. This quarter, Zhongguancun recorded a space absorption of about 40,000 square meters again. Among the 26 monitored Grade A office buildings in Zhongguancun, only 10 have a vacancy rate higher than 10%. By the end of the second quarter, the vacancy rate in Zhongguancun further dropped 1.1 percentage points month-on-month to 16.3%, having fallen by a total of about 6 percentage points from the peak of over 22% at the end of 2024.

The average rent in Zhongguancun has shown clear bottoming signals: only 5 of the 26 Grade A buildings saw a month-on-month rent decline, and the month-on-month drop in the market average rent narrowed to 0.9%.

The CBD area has also benefited from the dividends of technological innovation. After three consecutive years of negative net absorption, the CBD achieved a net absorption of nearly 44,000 square meters this quarter, mainly driven by the relocation of headquarters of leading hard technology enterprises to the core area of the CBD.

Colliers International judges that more submarkets with high industry prosperity are expected to further benefit from the rapidly releasing new demand, and the structural market trend on the demand side will continue throughout the second half of the year. However, the market supply will increase rapidly in the second half of the year.

From the second half of the year to 2027, the market will enter a high-supply cycle of about 18 months, during which the new supply will be close to 1.5 million square meters. Among this, the core market will welcome over 700,000 square meters of new supply in the second half of this year, with about 600,000 square meters concentrated in the eastern market. The pressure on the office market in eastern Beijing will increase, and the competition for high-quality tenants will continue.