Lettable Area under MF-GIF — the 2023 gif Guideline

The problem: construction standard versus lease

Anyone letting space needs a figure that appears in the lease and that the rent refers to. DIN 277 does not provide that figure — nor is it intended to. The standard describes a building in construction terms and divides every area into categories. More on our DIN 277 page.

What it leaves open: which of those areas does the tenant pay for? A stairwell serving two units is circulation area in construction terms. Whether it is apportioned between both tenants is a contractual question, not a technical one. That is where the gif guideline comes in.

What MF-GIF is — and what has changed

The guideline for calculating the lettable area of buildings (MF-GIF) is published by the Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung (gif e. V.). It continues the earlier 2017 version, which in turn builds on some 25 years of gif guidelines for letting.

Two points matter particularly in practice:

• It is not limited to commercial space. The title speaks of buildings, not commercial space. It covers every type of use — office, hotel, retail, logistics — and expressly includes mixed-use buildings. It is applicable to residential use, though the Living Space Ordinance is the market standard there. See living space under the WoFlV.
• It stands independently of DIN 277. The explicit reference to the standard has been dropped; the guideline has its own set of area definitions and takes its bearings from the DIN definitions without being bound by them. An existing DIN 277 calculation can serve as a basis.

The system in outline

The guideline first separates what counts as lettable area at all, then divides the remainder according to who uses it:

The lettable area of a unit is therefore its exclusive area plus its share of the common areas. It is always smaller than the gross floor area under DIN 277, because some of the areas recorded there are not lettable area.

Full area, but typified

A core principle of the guideline is that lettable areas are always stated at their full size — even where their use is restricted. There is no fractional weighting of the kind the Living Space Ordinance applies to balconies or low rooms.

Instead, areas with restricted use are flagged: whether they are covered but not enclosed on all sides at full height, whether they are not covered at all, or whether the clear room height is below 1.50 metres. The area therefore stays visible, and the parties can price it differently in the lease. This separation of stating the area from valuing it is the essential difference from the WoFlV.

Why this matters for the rent

Apportioning common areas is no marginal detail. Depending on the building type it accounts for a noticeable share of the invoiced area — considerably more in an office building with a generous entrance hall and several stairwells than in a warehouse unit with its own access. Two calculations of the same property, one to DIN 277 and one as lettable area per gif, therefore routinely produce different figures without either being wrong.

For the lease this means: an area figure without a stated basis of calculation is worth little. If a dispute arises later, the first question is not how it was measured, but to what.

Legal status

MF-GIF is not a legal norm. It is a trade association guideline and takes effect only where the parties agree to apply it. It is also intended to be used as a whole: anyone departing from it in a particular case should say so, rather than invoking the guideline in general terms.

One note on our own position: unlike statutes and regulations, which are free of copyright under § 5 UrhG, the guideline is protected — as DIN standards are. We can explain its system and calculate in accordance with it, but we cannot reproduce the wording. The binding text is available from gif.

Frequently asked questions