The state of the warehouse market in Argentina
Premium rent in Greater Buenos Aires stands at USD 7.33 per square meter per month, up from the previous survey. In the City of Buenos Aires the same meter costs USD 14.52, and in the Triángulo San Eduardo, USD 8.23. Premium vacancy is 10.15%, with negative net absorption. All of these figures come from the CBRE survey for the second quarter of 2026, published by MDZ on July 20, 2026, and they are Argentine figures: they are not a regional average.
On the other side is building. Putting up an industrial facility costs between USD 180 and USD 430 per square meter, according to OneMake, June 2026, and to that you have to add the land, the construction schedule and the time the operation spends running across two sites.
The zone-by-zone detail has its own page; here the figure enters as context for the decision.
What that figure means for your operation
The striking part is not the price but the combination: there is vacancy — 10.15% of premium stock is free — and the value per meter still rose. A market with available supply that gets more expensive anyway is a market where the meter you already occupy is the cheapest one you will get, because the next one is paid at today's value and renegotiated at tomorrow's.
Moving is not the obvious way out either. Building starts at USD 180 per square meter, and between the land, the works and the move, months go by in which the operation runs worse, not better.
The other cost pushing in the same direction is labor. A warehouse operator costs the company around USD 965 per month, on the order of USD 11,580 a year, calculated on collective agreement CCT 40/89 for the logistics branch as of June 2026, at ARS 1,520 to the dollar and with social charges of 34.6% according to IARAF, February 2026. When a large share of that hour goes into walking to the goods rather than picking them, the cost of the meter and the cost of the hour add up to the same problem.
What gets verified about the building before installing
There is no minimum height and no floor threshold that decides whether a warehouse qualifies. What there is, is a list of things that get measured, in an order and with someone responsible for each.
Usable clear height, measured at several points against the lowest thing hanging from the roof — a sprinkler pipe, a cable tray, a light fitting — and not against the ridge. The engineering team measures it with instruments, during the survey and before the design.
Floor flatness along the equipment's travel path, and the permissible load of the slab. The flatness tolerance and the load are set by the manufacturer of the equipment chosen, not by STOKA, and a licensed professional verifies them with the measurement taken before installation.
The building's constraints: columns, doors, suspended installations and everything that rules out an alternative before it is drawn.
If a value does not work, the answer is not that it cannot be done there: it is a localized repair, a different load distribution, a different configuration or a different system. On the labor side, the sector's framework is collective agreement CCT 40/89 for the logistics branch.
Pending: the Argentine technical standard on storage, safety or fire protection that belongs here, with its number. Until we have it, this section says what gets verified and who verifies it, and does not cite a standard we cannot back.
What happens when importing equipment into Argentina
There are instruments in force and it is worth looking at them before closing a budget, because they change the final figure more than any price negotiation.
- Decreto 513/2025 lowered the tariff on a long list of lines, though none was freed entirely.
- The automated rail-guided stacker crane, classified under line NCM 8428.90.20, enters free of import duty under the Common External Tariff, a separate rule that predates the decree. For the rest of the equipment, the classification of each machine is confirmed by the importer’s customs broker.
- RIMI amortizes in two equal annual installments (RG Conjunta ARCA 5849/2026), requires an SME certificate and has a minimum investment that depends on the size of the company.
- Below that minimum, the applicable instrument is the general VAT refund for capital goods (Ley 23.349 and RG AFIP 5298/2022), which has no minimum amount.
- Kit 4.0 (Resolución 8/2026) co-finances part of the net value, and its beneficiary is the purchasing SME.
The tariff classification of each machine is confirmed by the importer’s customs broker, and the treatment of the investment is defined by your company’s tax adviser. The detail of each instrument is developed on its own page.
How we run projects in Argentina
The base is in Mendoza, and projects across the country are evaluated and executed from there. The evaluation starts remotely with the data of your warehouse, and the site visit is arranged when the project justifies it, telling you beforehand what will be verified during it.
What we will not give you is a time-to-site. The concrete scope of the support in your province is agreed in the proposal, with the owner and the scope in plain sight, and not before.
What you can solve today and what is worth automating later
With expensive space and expensive hours, what pays off first is almost always densifying and sorting out what you already have: removing stock that does not move, reassigning storage locations by turnover and standardizing the load unit. None of that requires buying equipment, and all of it shows up on the next rent invoice.
Automation comes in when the problem stops being about order and becomes about volume or pace: when there is no unused height left, when picking cannot keep up at peak, or when the operation depends on two or three people who know where everything is. On every project we show you what can be improved with what you already have and what would require automating.
Frequently asked questions
USD 7.33 per square meter per month, according to CBRE in its survey for the second quarter of 2026, published by MDZ on July 20, 2026. In the City of Buenos Aires the same meter costs USD 14.52. The zone-by-zone detail has its own page.
It depends on what is failing. If the weight is on disorder, reorganizing solves it without buying anything. If the problem is volume and there is unused clear height, densifying competes well: rented space is a cost that never ends, and the one you already pay for is the cheapest you will get.
It depends on the tariff line and on the instrument that fits your company. The stacker crane enters duty-free under the Common External Tariff, in line NCM 8428.90.20, and not under Decreto 513/2025. STOKA prepares the technical file and your accountant defines the treatment.
No. RIMI amortizes in two equal annual installments, under RG Conjunta ARCA 5849/2026, and requires an SME certificate. Full amortization in the first year belongs to RIGI, whose investment threshold sits far above a typical intralogistics project.
Across the whole country. The base is in Mendoza, and projects in any province are evaluated and executed from there. The evaluation starts remotely with the data of your warehouse and the visit is arranged when the project justifies it.
3 to 4 months, and that applies only to automation. For ordering, equipping and mechanizing, the timeline depends on the floor area and the number of storage locations: we give it to you closed after the survey.
The next step
Tell us how your warehouse is running: how many storage locations it has, what the real clear height is and where the operation gets stuck. We reply within 24 business hours.