NYC Building Benchmarking FAQ
Coverage
Local Law 84 is New York City’s benchmarking law. It requires owners of large buildings to measure and report a full calendar year of energy and water use each year through the EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The City uses the data to issue energy grades, publish building performance and calculate Local Law 97 emissions.
A building must benchmark if it is on the City’s Covered Buildings List. That generally includes single buildings over 25,000 gross sq ft, two or more buildings on one tax lot over 100,000 sq ft combined, condo buildings under one board over 100,000 sq ft, and City-owned buildings meeting the same thresholds.
Search the DOB’s current Covered Buildings List by BBL (borough-block-lot) or address. The list is updated each year from Department of Finance records, so check annually — a renovation, lot merger or floor-area correction can add or remove your building. We’ll check it for you free.
Yes. Tax Class 1 properties (most one- to three-family homes), certified garden-style apartment complexes and certain affordable housing program buildings are generally excluded. If your building appears on the Covered Buildings List but you believe it’s exempt, you must request a correction from DOB rather than simply not filing.
Local Law 133 of 2016 expanded benchmarking from buildings over 50,000 sq ft to those over 25,000 sq ft. It isn’t a separate filing — those mid-size buildings simply follow Local Law 84. Today, every covered building files one LL84 benchmarking report.
Deadlines and penalties
May 1 every year, covering energy and water use for the previous calendar year (January–December). The 2027 filing, due May 1, 2027, covers 2026 data. Start collecting utility data in January; sharing with NYC at least two to three weeks before May 1 gives time for processing.
$500 for missing the May 1 deadline, plus $500 more at each quarterly checkpoint (August 1, November 1 and February 1) you’re still not compliant — up to $2,000 per year. Penalties stop only when DOB accepts a compliant filing, not when you submit.
Since December 15, 2025, benchmarking penalties are paid through DOB NOW: Safety, which requires an NYC.ID account. Outstanding penalties can block acceptance of new filings, so clear them before or alongside the next report.
LL84 benchmarking has no standing extension process — plan for May 1. (Local Law 97 emissions reports are different: owners could request an extension to August 29 for the 2026 filing.)
Filing
Create or update the property in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, enter 12 months of whole-building meter data, then share the property with NYC using the City’s reporting link. The submission is processed through the BEAM platform; save the confirmation. Entering data without sharing it does not count as filing.
Twelve months of whole-building energy use — electricity, natural gas, district steam and fuel oil — including separately metered tenant spaces, plus water use where applicable, verified gross floor area, property use types, and BBL/BIN identifiers matching Department of Finance records.
Yes. Tenants with separately metered spaces are required to give the owner their usage data on request. Many utilities also offer aggregated whole-building data, which avoids chasing individual tenants. Request it early — tenant data is the most common cause of late filings.
The building owner is legally responsible and receives any violation. Owners usually delegate the work to a property manager or benchmarking consultant, but the penalty still lands on the owner if the filing is late or rejected.
Grades and Local Law 97
Your LL33/95 energy efficiency grade (A–F) is based on the ENERGY STAR score from your LL84 filing. Grades are issued around October 1 and must be posted near each public entrance by October 31; failing to post carries a $1,250 penalty.
Not always. Wrong property type, missing meters or a floor-area error can drag the score down. Review your Portfolio Manager setup first; correcting data errors in next year’s filing can lift the grade without any equipment upgrades.
LL84 data is the starting point for Local Law 97. The energy you report converts into carbon emissions, which are compared with your building’s emissions limit. Errors in benchmarking carry into your LL97 numbers, so reconcile the two every year.
No. LL84 is an annual energy and water disclosure. The LL97 report is a separate annual filing, certified by a registered design professional, that calculates emissions against the limit and determines penalties of $268 per metric ton over the cap.