Egypt New Administrative Capital: Timeline, Costs and the $60 Billion Question

Population becomes the test 2026

In early October ACUD chairman Khaled Abbas said about 30,000 people now live in the capital. He set targets of about 60,000 by the end of 2026 and 250,000 within three years, and said the Central Bank of Egypt would move in within months, followed by 18 banks. These are targets, not counts: in January 2024 only about 1,200 families had moved in.

On 7 October the National Authority for Tunnels signed a memorandum with South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem to study a hydrogen-powered tram network of 44 trainsets on a route of roughly 28 km. No cost or financing was disclosed. The same week, official data showed urban inflation at 13.9% in September, with transport prices up 24.3% year on year.

The Octagon opens Opens

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi inaugurated the State Strategic Command Headquarters, known as the Octagon, on 4 July. Egypt’s State Information Service called it the largest complex of its kind in the Middle East, linking the armed forces’ leadership with ministries, governorates and field commands. In his speech Sisi said attacks around Bab el-Mandeb had cost Egypt more than $10 billion in lost Suez Canal revenue.

An Asharq Al-Awsat report on 16 July summed up the paradox: the city hosted cabinet meetings, conferences and even a World Cup fan zone, but residential occupancy remained limited, with about 70% of first-phase land sold to developers.

The monorail carries passengers Opens

The driverless East Nile Monorail welcomed its first public passengers on 6 May 2026, running 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. over 16 stations from Marshal Tantawi in New Cairo to Justice City. The full line is 56.6 km with 22 stations to Nasr City, cost roughly $2.8 billion and can carry 600,000 passengers a day at full capacity. Fares run from EGP 20 to EGP 80.

On 19 May Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told ACUD to speed up the opening of the Arts and Culture City, the Olympic City, the Green River and commercial outlets, and stressed road and building maintenance – an admission that finished infrastructure was not yet a working city.

The Spine: a separate $27bn bet Plan

Talaat Moustafa Group unveiled The Spine, a 2.4 million square metre mixed-use city with 165 towers, planned with the National Bank of Egypt and a paid-up capital of EGP 69 billion. Its projected investment of EGP 1.4 trillion (about $27 billion) equals roughly 1% of Egypt’s GDP.

The Spine is not part of the New Administrative Capital. It sits beside TMG’s Madinaty and competes for the same buyers. Its price tag must not be added to, or confused with, the capital’s cost.

A new name, and maybe another Plan

ACUD announced that the city would be called ‘The New Capital’ in all official correspondence, dropping ‘Administrative’ to sell it as a place to live rather than an office park. In February 2026 a draft law was reported to propose a special-status province named Memphis, after Egypt’s ancient capital. It had not become law by October 2026.

Sisi sworn in at the new parliament Move

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took the oath for his third term before the House of Representatives in its new building in the capital. The ceremony formally marked the city as Egypt’s seat of government, nine years after it was announced and four years after the original 2020 target.

Africa’s tallest tower is finished Build

The Iconic Tower in the Central Business District, 393.8 metres and 77 storeys, was completed and listed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat as among the tallest buildings finished worldwide in 2024. It holds offices, branded apartments and a hotel. China State Construction Engineering Corporation built it and the surrounding CBD towers.

EGP 500 billion spent, the chairman says Cost

ACUD chairman Khaled Abbas told Reuters the company had spent EGP 500 billion on first-phase infrastructure and buildings and estimated the second phase’s infrastructure at EGP 250–300 billion. At early-2024 exchange rates EGP 500 billion was about $16 billion; before the 2022 devaluations it would have been about $32 billion.

About 48,000 employees commuted in daily, 100,000 housing units were finished, and about 1,200 families had moved in. On 14 January, handing over the first three CBD towers, Prime Minister Madbouly said financing was outside the state budget and ACUD’s profits had passed EGP 20 billion.

Ministries start work in the desert Move

After delays blamed on COVID-19, civil servants began working in the Government District, a long mall of ministry buildings around a central green. The OECD dates the district’s start to mid-2023; Reuters dates ministries’ operation from July 2023.

The move turned a construction site into an administrative centre, but most staff commuted from Cairo by bus and, from 2022, by light rail. A government that works there is not the same as a city that lives there.

The light rail arrives Opens

Sisi and China’s ambassador opened the first 70 km of the Cairo Light Rail Transit, an electric line from Adly Mansour station in eastern Cairo to the new capital and 10th of Ramadan City. It came from a $1.24 billion contract signed in August 2017 with China Railway Engineering Corporation and AVIC International.

The $58 billion headline Cost

Reporting in 2019 put the capital’s overall price at about $58 billion, the figure still repeated in news coverage in 2026. In May 2019 the independent outlet Mada Masr asked whether a project said to be ‘outside the state budget’ was also outside public accountability, since ACUD’s accounts went unpublished.

On 6 January, Coptic Christmas Eve, Sisi opened the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ, then the largest church in the Middle East, and the Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque on the same day, a statement of national unity built into the new city’s first finished landmarks.

The Central Business District rises Build

China State Construction Engineering Corporation, which had signed a memorandum on the capital in September 2015, began the Central Business District: some 20 office, residential and hotel towers led by the Iconic Tower. Chinese banks financed much of the package.

Desert, roads and a plan Build

A NASA satellite image from August 2017 shows little more than graded road rings and building pads on bare desert. Over the next seven years roads, utilities, the government district, the first residential districts and the Green River park would fill the frame.

ACUD is created Plan

The Administrative Capital for Urban Development company was set up to own and develop the land. According to the OECD, entities of the Ministry of Defence took 51% in return for contributing the land, and the New Urban Communities Authority took 49% for a EGP 20 billion injection.

The model: ACUD plans and services land, then sells or auctions plots to developers who build within set deadlines. It made the military the project’s senior partner and kept its accounts off the state budget.

A new capital is announced Plan

At an investment conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, the government unveiled plans for a new capital between Cairo and Suez, pitched with an Emirati-led developer, Capital City Partners, at around $45 billion. That partnership did not proceed, and the state and military took the lead instead.

The promise: ministries, parliament, a presidential palace, embassies, a business district, parks and housing for millions, relieving a Greater Cairo of about 20 million people.