Good market dynamics, but hardly any major lettings
In the first half of 2026, the Stuttgart office market was unable to match the performance of the previous year. With take-up of 68,300 m², the letting result is a third lower than in the first half of 2025. The five- and ten-year averages were also missed by a similar magnitude.
The decline was mainly due to the low number of larger leases. Only three deals made it over the 2,500 m² mark. In the previous year, seven deals were counted in this category, including two above 10,000 m². The largest lease in the first half of 2026 came from an IT company, which leased an area of almost 7,000 m². Two out of three leases fell into the category of less than 500 m².
“If you look at the number of leases, market activity was even slightly higher than in the previous year with 104 deals in the first half of the year. This underlines that the demand is there and that the market is working,” analyzes Georg Charlier, Branch Manager JLL Stuttgart. High-quality space continues to be most in demand in the Vaihingen-Möhringen and City submarkets. Together, they account for almost half of the total turnover. The most active sectors are IT (25 percent) and business-related services (eleven percent).
Almost no new space is currently coming onto the market in Stuttgart. In the first half of the year, only 700 m² were added to the market – in the previous year it was 21,900 m². There is currently 52,100 m² of office space under construction, spread over the Vaihingen-Möhringen (22,300 m²), City (17,600 m²) and Feuerbach (12,200 m²) submarkets.
At 5.8 percent, the vacancy rate has remained relatively constant across the entire market area. Away from the central locations, however, Charlier is registering an expansion in the supply of space. “In peripheral locations, we are seeing a significant supply overhang in some cases, with vacancy rates of between ten and 15 percent – this is something new for Stuttgart. There is no demand for buildings with C-quality in third locations. The owners of these properties have to think about conversions.”
For the rest of the year, Charlier expects the market momentum to continue with one or two major contracts. “There are at least two handfuls of land applications between 2,500 and 5,000 m² and more in the pipeline. There is a lot of movement in the market.” Overall, it forecasts take-up of around 175,000 m² for 2026. The prime rent is likely to rise moderately from the current 37 euros/m² to 38 euros/m² by the end of the year.
