How much does plasterboard cost per square metre?

A square metre is a unit of area, not a unit of price. What you pay for is the frame behind the board, the board specified, whatever goes inside the cavity, and the finish level the surface is handed over at. Two quotes can cover the same area and not describe the same job at all.

What is inside the square metre

• The frame. Metal studs, the spacing between them, and the noggins where a television bracket, wall unit or basin will land later. A noggin fitted before the board goes on costs minutes. Fitted afterwards it costs an opening.
• The board. Standard, moisture resistant, fire rated, impact resistant or acoustic, and one layer or two per face, which changes both behaviour and price.
• The cavity. Mineral wool or another insulation between studs. It is the cheapest thing to add during the work and the most expensive to add later.
• The finish. Taped and filled joints, skim, sanding. A long wall with light raking across it needs more filling and sanding than the same wall in a windowless hallway, because that is where any waviness shows.

Wall, ceiling or lining: three jobs, three rates

Type	Why the rate moves
New partition	Two faces per square metre of wall, upright frame, services routed inside
Suspended ceiling	Overhead work, hung frame, critical levelling, openings for lighting
Lining an existing wall	Truing up an uneven surface and remaking every detail the lining displaces
Acoustic partition	Double board, insulation, isolation details, and care with penetrations
Wet area	Moisture resistant board, plus the tanking under the tiles, which is a separate item

The local detail that decides board and insulation

Of 193,395 main residence dwellings in the Algarve, 38.1 per cent have no heating of any kind and only 5.1 per cent have central heating; the largest single category is a portable heater, at 32.1 per cent. Source: INE, Censos 2021, quadro Q303, Algarve scope.

Board and skim assume a dry, gently heated interior, and most houses here are heated in bursts in one room at a time. Condensation forms on whichever surface is coldest, which is why damp shows in a corner or on a window reveal rather than evenly across a wall. For a quote, that turns two optional lines into sensible ones: insulation in the cavity where the partition backs onto an external wall, and moisture resistant board where humidity collects. Both are cheap while the frame is open and expensive once it is closed.

Why no rate appears on this page

Because the numbers that come up in a search are of two kinds: the price of a board at a builders merchant, which is materials only, and job prices from other regions that rarely say which finish level they include. Either one pasted here would look helpful and would not be, because your rate depends on which of the three jobs above yours is and on the finish level it needs.

What can be done now is measure your job and quote it, at no cost. The service page for drywall and plastering in the Algarve covers what the work includes and how to ask.

What to send for a quote that holds up

1. Rough dimensions: length and ceiling height, or the ceiling area.
2. A photo of the space as it is today.
3. What the wall has to carry: nothing, a television, wall units, a worktop, a basin.
4. Whether services run inside it, meaning sockets, plumbing or air conditioning.
5. What the wall is for: dividing, sound, hiding pipework, or dropping a ceiling. The purpose changes the build more than the area does.

The question worth more than the rate

It is not what a square metre costs, it is what happens the day you want to hang something on it. A cheap quote is usually cheap inside: studs at wider centres, no noggins, a single layer of board, joints filled quickly. The wall looks the same at handover and different at the first drill. Ask the quote to state stud spacing, the number of board layers and where the noggins go, and you have two quotes that can honestly be compared.