At the end of 2025, 10,400 m² less office space was vacant in the Basel region than a year earlier. The availability rate thus fell from 6.4% to 5.9%. Despite some lettings, the availability rate in the Basel city centre remains high at 7.0%. The St. Johann and Kleinbasel West submarkets also exhibit an above-average office space supply at 7.3% and 9.6%, respectively. 

Office letting in Basel remains challenging, though some noteworthy deals were concluded last year. The American-Chinese oncology company BeOne Medicines, which previously operated under the name BeiGene and employs 11,000 staff worldwide, had been based in Basel since 2015 and has now relocated its corporate headquarters from the Cayman Islands to the city where three countries meet. Software provider Genedata also significantly expanded its footprint and is now located in the Elsässertor. The Basel-Stadt presidial department occupies three floors in the renovated main post office. IT service provider Bechtle is consolidating its previous office sites in Pratteln and Basel in the Grosspeter Tower. Dental company Straumann, however, is moving out of the city to Arlesheim.

After the dynamic years 2020 to 2023, during which over 200,000 m² of new office space was built to completion, there has since been little construction activity. However, this should not obscure the fact that firstly, around 87,000 m² of new workspace has been built on the main campus of the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area in Allschwil since 2022, most recently the HORTUS building with its anchor tenants Swiss Aviation Software and Becton Dickinson. By 2030, another 58,000 m² of office and laboratory space is to be built in the ALL, HOPE and SCALE properties.

Secondly, the Swiss Post and the Swiss Federal Railways company are planning a new development (Nauentor) with the potential for over 50,000 m² of office space to replace the current postal operations building adjacent to Basel’s main train station. Roche also has announced the construction of its third tower, and Lonza and the Bank for International Settlements are also projecting new high-rises on their sites.

Basel’s transformation areas extend over an area of 13 hectares, including, for example, Dreispitz Nord, Wolf, Rosenthal Mitte, Kleinhüningen-Klybeck, and Klybeckplus. The great urban development potential that this unlocks is likely to keep office vacancy rates in the Basel region at above-average levels in the long term.