GIFT City Master Plan: Area, Phases, Land Use & Targets

Planning horizon and total area

The GIFT City Master Plan governs land use across 886 acres (359 ha) on the banks of the Sabarmati River between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, administered by Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited (GIFTCL). Within this notified area, the total area for the development of GIFT is 359 hectares (886 acres) out of which the SEZ (Special Economic Zone) constitutes 106 hectares (261 acres), with the remainder classified as Domestic Tariff Area (DTA).

The project has since moved into an expansion stage. As of April 2026, GIFT City is set to expand by more than 15 per cent, with plans to add 161 acres to its existing 1,065-acre area, taking the total development footprint to over 1,220 acres. According to the CEO, around 31 hectares of land on the Sabarmati riverbank will be added through reclamation as part of the larger riverfront development, which "is on the river bank and will entail a different master planning." A draft of the revised master plan is expected to be submitted to the Government of Gujarat within the next four months of that April 2026 report.

This is a scaled-back version of an earlier idea. This marks a shift from the larger expansion proposal floated in 2023, when authorities had considered increasing GIFT City's footprint by around 2,300 acres — a plan that would have taken the total area to roughly 3,365 acres by absorbing four surrounding villages in Gandhinagar district, but did not move ahead in its original form. Policy makers later opted for a more gradual development strategy, with greater emphasis on orderly expansion and infrastructure readiness within the existing framework before taking on a much larger territorial increase.

Planned vs. developed built-up area (BUA)

The master plan's core metric is built-up area (BUA), not just land. GIFT City is being developed in phases over 886 acres with a planned built-up area of 62 million square feet.

As of April 2026, actual delivery remains a fraction of this target: out of the total planned development of 62 million square feet, around 6 million square feet has already been completed, while another 29.1 million square feet has been allotted and is expected to be finished by mid-2028. Separately, Wikipedia's summary of Phase-I allotment notes that around 780,000 square metres (8.4 million sq ft) of built-up area has already been allotted from the 1,200,000 square metres (13 million sq ft) available for commercial, residential and social use in that initial tranche. Read together, these figures show a project roughly one-tenth built out against its full 62-million-sq-ft ambition, with a large allotted pipeline still under construction.

Land-use split (share of built-up area)

The master plan allocates built-up area — not raw land — across three uses. GIFT City is a 359-hectare (886-acre) integrated project that creates 62 million square feet of built-up area, including 67% commercial space, 22% residential space and 11% community space. A more granular breakdown from one planning-data source puts this at approximately 42 million sq ft for commercial use, 14 million sq ft for residential use, and 6 million sq ft for social infrastructure, distributed across the SEZ and DTA zones and developed in phases by GIFTCL and private developers.

Zones: SEZ vs DTA

Land within the notified area is split regulatory-wise into two main zones. The SEZ covers 261 acres and is exclusively for IFSC financial services regulated by IFSCA, with operations in foreign currency, while the DTA covers 625 acres and supports domestic businesses, IT firms, and residential development under standard Indian regulations in INR. GIFT City is the first SEZ in India to receive dual-use approval from the SEZ Board of Approvals and the Government of Gujarat, meaning non-IFSC entities can now legally occupy and buy premises in the SEZ zone, removing the earlier restriction that confined SEZ space only to IFSC-registered financial institutions.

Phasing

Historical project documentation describes a multi-phase build-out, though timelines have shifted repeatedly since the project's 2007 launch. Early ambitions were larger than what was eventually built: in its first phase to be complete by 2010, GIFT was to be developed on a land area of 500 acres, with a built-up area potential of up to 75 million sq. ft., with the next phase envisaged for the development of townships around the city. Actual delivery lagged well behind this schedule.

A later project summary describes the realised phasing as: being developed in phases over 886 acres with a planned built-up area of 62 million square feet, where Phase 1 involved 11.2 million square feet and saw some buildings completed and occupied, while Phase 2 plans for 20 million square feet and is ongoing. Of the Phase 1 allocation, about 3.4 million square feet is fully developed and operational, 2.3 million square feet is under construction and 5.5 million square feet is under planning. One retrospective assessment noted that only about 20% of the planned development is complete after over 10 years, underlining how far actual construction has trailed the original master-plan schedule.

The current expansion phase (2026) is distinct from the original BUA phasing and concerns additional land: the +161-acre riverfront/government-land addition described above, with a revised master plan due for submission to the state government.

Population and employment targets

Employment and population targets have been revised down sharply from the project's early aspirations. In a 2013 interview, GIFT City's then managing director projected that by 2020, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad would convert into international cities with development of GIFT City which would provide around 0.2 to 0.3 million jobs which in turn would generate around 0.9 million population in and around it — a target that was not met on that timeline.

Actual, current figures (as of early-to-mid 2026) are far more modest. By 2026, GIFT City hosts 500+ operational entities and supports 20,000–25,000 jobs, with rapid growth expected. On resident population, the city is host to a population of 15,000 to 20,000 residents and has over 5,000 residential buildings that are already occupied (figures reported in 2025). The long-term policy framing positions GIFT City as part of India's flagship Viksit Bharat 2047 project, with an ambition to compete with Dubai and Singapore as a global financial centre by 2047, rather than a fixed near-term population or jobs number.

Planner and design consultants

The original master plan was designed by a Chinese firm known for shaping modern Shanghai. The concept of GIFT City was ideated in 2007 and its planning was awarded to East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI), which is credited with the planning of much of modern-day Shanghai. Design and construction delivery has involved several other firms: Design and Architecture — East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI) and Fairwood Consultants India; Construction — IL&FS, AECOM India, L&T Infrastructure Engineering, CBRE India. Gujarat-based planning firm HCP Design, Planning and Management has separately been engaged for a "Revised Masterplan and Development Plan for GIFT City, Gandhinagar," as listed among its urbanism projects.

Where to find official plan documents

Investors and residents should verify current zoning, FAR/FSI, and land-use rules directly against primary regulatory documents rather than third-party summaries:

• GIFT Area Development Control Regulations (GDCR) — the sanctioned regulatory document governing setbacks, FAR, parking and permissible uses, published by GIFTCL/Government of Gujarat, Ministry of Urban Development, available on the official GIFT Gujarat downloads portal (api.giftgujarat.in).
• GIFT City official website downloads section — giftgujarat.in/downloads — for brochures and city information.
• Gujarat Urban Development Company Limited (GUDC) project page — gudc.gujarat.gov.in — the state-owned parent entity's official project description.
• Urban Development & Urban Housing Department, Government of Gujarat — udd.gujarat.gov.in — for the state government's project listing.

Note: zoning and boundary information found in third-party summaries is indicative; users should verify details with Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Co. directly, especially given the ongoing 2026 master-plan revision.