Kastrati Group in Tirana: Which Company Actually Signs Your Contract

If you are buying an apartment in Tirana from Kastrati Group, the name on your contract will not be Kastrati Group. It cannot be, because the entity that develops and builds is a different registered company from the one that currently carries the group name, which is different again from the entity that carried it before October 2019. Albania's commercial register makes all of this visible. Most buyers never look.

This is not unusual and it is not a warning sign in itself. Large groups routinely build through project companies. But it means that any promise, guarantee or reputation attached to the words "Kastrati Group" is only enforceable against whichever legal person actually signed, and buyers should know which one that is before they pay a deposit.

The entity that builds

Development and construction sit in Kastrati Construction sh.p.k., registered number L61723012R. It was registered on 18 May 2016 under the name DownTown 1 and renamed on 28 July 2018. Its registered seat is on Rruga Skerdilajd Llagami in Tirana, its share capital is 181,400,000 lekë, and its administrator is Viron Hamzai, appointed in February 2018. Since November 2025 it has been wholly owned by Jonuz Kastrati sh.p.k.

Two related companies hold the assets rather than build them. Kastrati Residences sh.p.k., number L91315035G, has capital of 2,200,453,600 lekë. Kastrati Hotels & Tower sh.p.k., number L82106038D, trading as MAK Albania Hotel, has capital of 2,184,746,764 lekë. Both are 80 percent owned by Jonuz Kastrati sh.p.k. and 20 percent by Fulmer Holding sh.p.k., whose sole owner is Musa Kastrati. The older MAK Albania sh.p.k., number J61821059A, registered back in 1994, is the legacy landholding company.

Above them sits Jonuz Kastrati sh.p.k., and above that "KASTRATI" sh.p.k., number M21612025K, whose sole partner is Shefqet Kastrati. The register records Shefqet Kastrati, born 1961, as ultimate beneficial owner across the group. He is named as founder and president on the company's own website, and Hilton's press release describing its Tirana project quotes him under that title.

One detail deserves emphasis for anyone searching older records. The company that was called Kastrati Group until 10 October 2019 is now named Kastrati Energy Trade sh.a., number K21711502V. Any statement of the form "Kastrati Group did X" before that date refers to that entity, not to the small company registered in December 2024 that carries the name today.

What has actually been built

Downtown One on Boulevard Bajram Curri is the group's completed flagship and the tallest building in Albania. The National Territorial Council granted the development permit by decision number 6 of 14 April 2017, naming DT1 sh.p.k. as developer. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat records it as completed in 2025 at 140 metres and 37 storeys above ground, with MVRDV as design architect, DEA Studio as architect of record, Arup on structure and Kastrati Construction as main contractor. MVRDV announced the topping out in June 2021 and expected completion in 2024. The developer's own sales material gives 144 metres and said the building would be fully functional in 2022. Those figures have not been reconciled anywhere.

The hotels are a different story, and the gap between announcement and opening is the single most concrete thing a buyer can take from this record.

Hyatt announced a Hyatt Regency Tirana with Kastrati Hotels & Tower on 6 December 2018, 151 rooms, then expected to open in late 2019. Hilton announced a Hilton Tirana with Kastrati Residences on 2 February 2021, 174 rooms including 18 suites, then expected to open at the end of 2023. As of the group's own current website, the Hyatt is described as expected to open in 2026 and the Hilton is still written in the future tense. Citizens.al reported in October 2025 that neither hotel had opened and that the promised deadlines had passed by several years.

Kastrati Construction also holds a development permit for a residential complex at Farkë in Tirana, granted by National Territorial Council decision number 10 of 17 December 2024. Its filed accounts show turnover rising from 126.7 million lekë in 2018 to 4,279 million lekë in 2024, with pre-tax profit of 150.8 million lekë in 2024 and a loss of 116.1 million in 2022.

Two projects the company lists, Lake Park Central and Turdiu Center, have no independent documentation I could find giving location, size or status, so nothing is claimed about them here beyond the fact that Kastrati Construction lists them.

The permit reporting

Citizens.al, an Albanian investigative outlet, published two pieces in 2025 examining the permits behind the former Sheraton site at Sheshi Italia, and its findings should be reported as its findings.

In July 2025 it reported that a development permit for the expansion was granted on 8 November 2019, and that a second permit on 10 June 2021 increased above-ground construction area from 69,665 to 108,827 square metres and raised allowed intensity from 2.32 to 3.6. It reported satellite imagery showing a crane on the site in October 2019, a month before the first development permit. In October 2025 it reported that Tirana Municipality issued the building permits in July 2021 and June 2022, after works had begun, and that the Territory Protection Inspectorate told it there had been no complaint or criminal report regarding the project. Citizens.al stated that Tirana Municipality, the Kastrati company and the architecture studios did not respond to its requests for comment, and that it had received no response from the group by publication.

Separately, Voice of America's Albanian service reported on 11 March 2023 that the Special Court against Corruption and Organised Crime had granted a prosecution request to sequester a naval property at Limion in Sarandë, leased in July 2020 by government decision to a joint venture of Concord Investment and Kastrati Group acting through Marina Bay Saranda. The reported reasoning concerned harm to naval readiness, and the investigation followed a complaint by a former deputy naval commander about whether the lease required presidential approval. That reporting concerns the legality of the state's leasing decision. It does not report charges against Kastrati Group or any individual, and none should be inferred.

On the competition side, the Albanian Competition Authority authorised Kastrati's acquisition of control over MAK Albania by decision number 494 of 24 January 2018, finding no indication that the transaction would restrict competition.

I found no tax case, no public procurement finding and no court judgment against the Kastrati property companies. That reflects what searching turned up and not what exists.

The practical checks

Ask which registered company is selling and check its number against the National Business Centre. Ask for the building permit, its date, and whether works began before or after it. Ask whether the specific block has a completion certificate rather than a marketing launch date. And treat an announced hotel operator as a branding agreement rather than evidence of a delivery timetable, because on this site two international operators have been announced and neither hotel has opened.

Announced and completed projects for Albanian developers can be compared on Bektu, including the Kastrati Group company page.

More on the market: real estate developers in Tirana and Albania and what the law allows foreign buyers in Albania.