Inside Burj Khalifa: What Is in the Tower, Floor by Floor

TL;DR: Inside Burj Khalifa are a hotel, homes, offices and four visitor levels. The Armani Hotel Dubai fills the lower floors, about 900 private apartments sit on floors 20 to 108, offices fill most floors above, At.mosphere restaurant is on 122, and the observation decks are on 124, 125, 148 and 152 to 154. Visitors with a ticket see the ground-floor exhibition, a lift and the decks; the homes and offices are private.

What is Burj Khalifa used for?

Burj Khalifa is a mixed-use tower: a hotel, homes, offices and a tourist attraction in one building. Wikipedia describes it as the centrepiece of Downtown Dubai, a development planned around the tower, The Dubai Mall and Burj Lake. The idea, it notes, was to help Dubai’s economy move from oil towards services and tourism.

The tower was first planned as all-residential. It opened on 4 January 2010 with much of the inside unfinished, and became fully operational on 23 January 2011, when its last major facility opened. That was At.mosphere, the restaurant on level 122, which opened that day.

What is on each floor?

Each band of floors has one main use. This is the stack, from Wikipedia unless noted:

Floors	What is there
Lower floors, below 39	Armani Hotel Dubai: 160 rooms and suites plus 144 Armani Residences
20 to 108	900 private apartments
43 and 76	Sky lobbies with swimming pools; an outdoor pool on 76
Most floors above 108	Corporate offices and suites
122	At.mosphere restaurant, 442 m up
123	Sky lobby
124 and 125	At the Top observation deck, 452 m on 124
148	At the Top SKY, 555 m
152 to 154	The Lounge, 585 m
Spire	Maintenance levels and communications equipment

The building counts 163 floors: 154 usable and 9 maintenance levels in the spire, with 2 basement levels below. The MICHELIN Guide places most hotel rooms on the tower’s lower floors and the Signature Suites and Armani Suite on floors 38 and 39. Refuge floors, pressurised and air-conditioned, come every 13 floors for emergencies.

Moving people around takes 57 elevators and 8 escalators. The Burj Khalifa elevators guide covers them, and how many floors does Burj Khalifa have has the full count.

Which parts can visitors enter?

With a ticket, you enter the ground-level visitor areas and the deck levels on your ticket; the homes and offices are private. The visitor entrance is in The Dubai Mall.

What each ticket opens:

• Levels 124 and 125, from $51 (AED 189): the indoor deck, an open-air terrace on 124, telescopes, and level 125 above. 4.3 on 92,917 reviews of that ticket on GetYourGuide.
• SKY level 148, from $109 (AED 399): a lounge with snacks and hot drinks, an outdoor terrace on 148, then levels 124 and 125. Its listing says no more than 50 people are on the deck at a time. 4.6 on 24,553 reviews.
• The Lounge, level 152, from $209 (AED 769): a lounge with drinks and canapés and an outdoor terrace. 4.6 on 2,819 reviews.

Two listings also mention a ground-floor exhibition on how the tower was built. Without a deck ticket, you can still book a table at At.mosphere on 122, or eat at the Armani Hotel. The Burj Club, a restaurant on the tower’s 3rd floor that overlooks the fountain, comes with a deck ticket for a 3-course meal from $90 (AED 332). Prices use 1 USD = 3.6725 AED. The restaurants in Burj Khalifa page lists the options.

What does the interior look like?

The public interiors are modern and spare, with art in the lobbies and Arabic patterns on the deck levels. Wikipedia reports that the architects announced more than 1,000 pieces of art for the interiors in 2009, and that the residential lobby displays work by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Giorgio Armani designed the hotel and the Armani Residences, using his own Armani/Casa furniture.

On the deck, the listings describe level 125 with a Mashrabiya design, the carved lattice screen found in traditional Arabic buildings. Level 124 has an open-air terrace and telescopes. Wikipedia notes the 124 deck has an augmented-reality telescope that shows the view live or as saved images from other times of day.

The tower’s shape guides the inside too. Wikipedia says the Y-shaped, three-wing floor plan was chosen to make the most of the hotel and residential space, and the central core holds all the lifts, with emergency stairs in each wing. To see the deck levels yourself, start with the levels 124 and 125 ticket, or read what to do at the top of Burj Khalifa first.