Los Angeles Existing Buildings Energy & Water Efficiency (EBEWE)

Who's covered

If you own a privately held commercial, multifamily, mixed-use, or standalone parking building of 20,000 square feet or more anywhere in the City of Los Angeles, EBEWE applies to you. That's the headline rule, but three details trip up otherwise-careful owners every year.

Exactly 20,000 sq ft is covered, not exempt. The ordinance text is inconsistent -- one section says "greater than 20,000," another says "20,000 or more" -- but LADBS's own published guidance resolves it: a building of exactly 20,000 sq ft is in scope. Don't read the ordinance's looser phrasing as a loophole.

City-owned buildings are covered at a much lower 7,500 sq ft threshold. That's irrelevant if you're a private owner, but it matters if your portfolio includes a public-private lease arrangement -- ask which side of the line the building sits on. (LADBS's own A/RCx FAQ also references a separate 15,000 sq ft exception for smaller city-owned buildings in a different context; the exact interplay between the two municipal figures isn't fully reconciled in LADBS's public materials, so treat any city-owned building near either line as a "call LADBS" case rather than guessing.)

Gross floor area is not what ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager thinks it is. EBEWE uses the California Building Code's GFA definition, not ESPM's -- and the CBC definition counts covered parking that's physically part of the building. A surface lot doesn't count. A parking structure attached to (or under) your building does, and can be the difference between a 19,800 sq ft building that's exempt and a 20,400 sq ft building that isn't. Standalone parking structures that independently clear 20,000 sq ft get their own LADBS Building ID and file separately -- they are explicitly not exempt just because they're "only" a garage.

Coverage extends to condominiums (the HOA benchmarks and files on the building's behalf) and to buildings that get their electric or water service from a neighboring city like Beverly Hills or West Hollywood -- receiving utilities from outside LA does not opt you out.

Vacancy alone is never an exemption. LADBS grants a benchmark exemption only when one of four conditions holds for the entire calendar year: no certificate of occupancy (or temporary CofO) at all; the whole building unoccupied for renovation; a demolition permit issued with work started before the due date; or no energy/water service of any kind. Every exemption must be re-requested annually -- last year's exemption does not carry forward.

Beyond vacancy, LADBS recognizes a short, specific exemption list: residential hotels, buildings leased to federal entities, buildings leased for sound-stage/production/post-production use (requires a lease-backed request at least 30 days before the deadline), and healthcare facilities under HCAI/OSHPD jurisdiction (requires an email request with your HCAI facility and building IDs). Following the January 2025 wildfires, LADBS also added disaster provisions: a yellow-tagged building is exempted for the compliance cycle that occurred at or around the disaster, while a red-tagged building is removed from the EBEWE list entirely and isn't restored until at least 12 months after it's certified fully rebuilt.

One more scope wrinkle worth flagging even though it rarely changes an owner's obligation: an EBEWE exemption does not automatically exempt a building from California's separate AB 802 program. If your building is 50,000 sq ft or larger, an EBEWE exemption can still leave a state filing on the table -- see the FAQ below and our AB 802 guide for the full chain.

Key dates

June 1, every year, for the prior calendar year. The report due June 1, 2026 covers January through December 2025 usage. There's no size-based cohort schedule for benchmarking the way there is for A/RCx (below) -- every covered building files on the same June 1 date every year.

The compliance cycle actually starts six months earlier than the deadline:

• December 1 -- LADBS mails that year's Notice to Comply (NTC), which carries your LADBS Building ID (Box 2) and the postal code LADBS expects to see on your submission (Box 1).
• January 15 -- February 15 -- the ESPM submission (data-request) link activates. LADBS deliberately delays it because December utility data isn't final from LADWP or SoCalGas until mid-to-late February; submitting before the link opens isn't possible, and submitting with estimated December data isn't allowed.
• By March 1 -- LADBS's own recommended cutoff to request LADWP and SoCalGas web-services enrollment for the year you're about to benchmark, since enrollment processing runs 4-6 weeks. Miss this and you're racing the June 1 deadline against a utility-data backlog of your own making.
• June 1 -- the report is due. An ESPM confirmation email is not the same as being marked compliant -- it takes LADBS 5-10 business days after submission to post a date in the "Benchmarked" column of the compliance portal.

Separately, every covered building owes a Phase II Audit/Retro-Commissioning (A/RCx) cycle once every five years, due December 1, keyed to the last digit of your LADBS Building ID (not the AIN, and not the ESPM Property ID):

• Building ID ends in 0 or 1: 2021 → 2026 → 2031
• Building ID ends in 2 or 3: 2022 → 2027 → 2032
• Building ID ends in 4 or 5: 2023 → 2028 → 2033
• Building ID ends in 6 or 7: 2024 → 2029 → 2034
• Building ID ends in 8 or 9: 2025 → 2030 → 2035

(Each cycle repeats every five years; the bolded year is the next upcoming compliance date for that cohort as of this writing.)

If your Building ID ends in 0 or 1, December 1, 2026 is your next A/RCx date -- LADBS has confirmed this explicitly, since the 2021 and 2022 cohorts were tolled during COVID and then reissued with catch-up dates of September 7 or October 7, 2023. Every cohort after that runs on the untouched five-year schedule above.

Penalties

LADBS's own FAQ is direct about this: the non-compliance fee is $202 per violation, cited under Sec. 91.9712 of the ordinance. (Worth flagging honestly: a separate codification pass of the LAMC lists the currently-published non-compliance-fee section as 91.9709, with 91.9712 covering severability -- but LADBS's own FAQ, both for benchmarking and for A/RCx, cites 91.9712 for the fee itself, so that's the citation reflected here and in our records.)

The $202 is just the starting number. Per LAMC Sec. 98.0411(c), quoted directly in LADBS's FAQ:

"if this invoice is NOT PAID within 30 days of the date of the invoice, an additional 250% late charge/collection fee will be imposed and assignment to a collection agency may be made. After 60 DAYS of NO PAYMENT, interest will accrue at the rate of 12% annually (compounded monthly or portion of a month) until this invoice and any additional charges that have accrued since this invoice was issued have been paid."

That 250% late charge means an unpaid $202 invoice becomes roughly $707 after 30 days, before interest even starts accruing. And critically: paying the fee does not cure non-compliance. The building stays on LADBS's non-compliant list, remains subject to further legal action like any other Municipal Code violation, and its status is posted publicly -- with LADBS noting it may in the future be recorded against the property as an open violation. Some consultant marketing describes this as a "$202/day" fee; that per-day framing isn't what LADBS's own FAQ says (it describes a per-violation fee that can be re-invoiced for continued non-compliance), so treat the "$202/day" claim you may see elsewhere as unconfirmed against LADBS's own materials.

Step-by-step: how to comply

Compliance is three separate, all-required actions -- an LADBS registration, a fee payment, and an ESPM submission -- not just "filling out a form in Portfolio Manager." Here's the honest split of what we automate for you and what only you (the owner) can provide:

1. Find your LADBS Building ID. It's on Box 2 of your December Notice to Comply, or look it up directly at dbs.lacity.gov/ebewe if you've misplaced the notice. We track your Building ID once you give it to us and flag if LADBS has more than one on file for your address -- but the initial ID has to come from you or from LADBS's own lookup tool.
2. Register the building and pay the annual fee. LADBS charges $61.00 per building, per year, plus a surcharge of 6% of that fee or $1, whichever is greater -- about $64.66 total. This is a government fee, not ours: we pass it through to you at cost, itemized separately from our own service fee, and handle the registration transaction itself so you're not logging into a second city portal to do it.
3. Get your utility data flowing automatically. Enroll in LADWP Web Services (electric + water, up to 5 years of history, 4-6 week processing) and SoCalGas Web Services (gas, up to 2 years of history) so usage uploads straight into ESPM instead of you chasing PDFs. We manage this enrollment and the ESPM property setup, including stamping the correct "Los Angeles Building ID" Standard ID and confirming your postal code matches Box 1 of the Notice exactly -- an ID/zip mismatch is LADBS's single most common reason a submission silently fails. What we can't do without you: authorize the enrollment in the first place, since LADWP requires the account holder (or documented agent authorization) to request it, and tenant consent forms if fewer than 5 tenants are individually metered.
4. Enter (or confirm) all 12 months of energy, water, and solar data, then respond to LADBS's ESPM data request once it activates in mid-January to mid-February. We handle the data entry and submission mechanics once your utility feeds are live; you're the one who has to flag it if a tenant refuses consent (triggering the estimation-by-comparison fallback) or if the building was only partly occupied for the year (triggering monthly-average proration).
5. Confirm the "Benchmarked" status posts, not just an ESPM receipt. We poll LADBS's public compliance lookup for you and alert you if a submission that should have posted within 5-10 business days hasn't -- usually the ID/zip mismatch from step 3 -- so you're not finding out in November that June's filing never actually landed.

A/RCx years (see the schedule above) add one more step: arranging a California-licensed architect or civil, electrical, mechanical, or structural engineer to perform or verify the energy and water audit/retro-commissioning work, then upload their wet-ink-signed Declaration of Completion (or Exemption) and pay the $183 + $10.98 surcharge registration fee. That licensed-professional sign-off is not something any software platform can substitute for -- it has to be a real, license-verified person attesting to the work.

What we handle

Benchmarking-only filings are exactly the kind of repetitive, deadline-driven, form-and-fee work software should own. Run the compliance checker below to confirm EBEWE actually applies to your specific building (thresholds and GFA quirks like the parking-area rule above make this less obvious than it sounds), then join the waitlist -- we're onboarding LA buildings first, given how much of this ordinance's complexity is unique to the city's two-system (ESPM + LADBS portal) design. What stays yours: authorizing utility data releases, deciding whether to pursue an exemption, and signing off on anything that requires your own licensed professional, like A/RCx.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find my LA Building ID?

It's printed on Box 2 of your annual Notice to Comply and on any Non-Compliance Invoice LADBS sends you. If you've never received a notice, or you're not sure which of several IDs applies to a multi-building site, use the "Find your Building ID" tool at dbs.lacity.gov/ebewe, or email ladbs.ebewe@lacity.org with the building address -- don't guess, since LADBS matches your submission on Building ID plus zip code, and a wrong ID means your filing silently fails.

Why does EBEWE require water benchmarking when most US ordinances only ask for energy?

It's a deliberate LA-specific design choice. You must report indoor water usage, outdoor water usage, and total water usage, alongside electric, gas, and any on-site solar generation, for the whole building for all 12 months. LADWP provides water data through the same web-services enrollment as electric data, so it's one enrollment covering both -- but if your water comes from a separate irrigation meter or a different provider, that usage has to be captured separately.

Does filing EBEWE also satisfy California's AB 802 requirement?

Yes, if you're in LA. The CEC maintains a list of "Exempted Local Benchmarking Ordinance" jurisdictions, and Los Angeles is one of the seven cities on it. A building that complies with EBEWE does not need to separately file with the CEC under AB 802. The relationship only runs one direction, though: filing with the CEC does not satisfy EBEWE, and getting an EBEWE exemption does not automatically exempt a 50,000+ sq ft building from AB 802 -- LADBS's own FAQ explicitly tells owners in that position to contact the CEC. See our AB 802 guide for the full mechanics.

What exemptions exist, and does being vacant count?

Vacancy alone never qualifies. Real benchmark exemptions require no certificate of occupancy for the whole year, whole-building renovation vacancy for the whole year, a demolition permit issued with work started before the due date, or zero energy/water service for the whole year -- plus the narrower sound-stage, federal-lease, HCAI/OSHPD, and 2025-wildfire-damage categories. Whichever applies, it has to be re-requested every single year; there's no standing exemption.

How does the A/RCx audit cycle relate to annual benchmarking -- are they the same thing?

No, and this catches people out. Benchmarking (Phase I) is the annual June 1 report of usage data. A/RCx (Phase II) is a once-every-five-years requirement to have a licensed professional perform or verify an energy and water audit/retro-commissioning, due December 1 on the schedule above. Getting a benchmarking exemption does not get you an A/RCx exemption, and vice versa -- LADBS's FAQ says so explicitly. There's also a practical trap: if you never benchmark in ESPM, you can't earn the ENERGY STAR Certification that several A/RCx exemption paths depend on, so skipping Phase I can end up costing you a Phase II shortcut.

What actually happens if I file late or not at all?

LADBS issues a $202 non-compliance fee per violation, and can re-invoice it for continued non-compliance. If that invoice sits unpaid for 30 days, a 250% late charge/collection fee is added -- pushing a $202 fee to roughly $707 -- and after 60 days unpaid, 12% annual interest starts compounding monthly. None of that actually clears your compliance status: the building stays on LADBS's non-compliant list, subject to further legal action, with its status posted publicly. Filing late is always better than not filing.

My building shares a meter with another building I own. How do I benchmark them?

You'll choose between setting up an ESPM "campus" (useful if you want a shot at an ENERGY STAR Certification spanning both buildings) or individual properties, and between prorating usage across the buildings or getting sub-meters installed. Prorating is allowed but disqualifies the property from ENERGY STAR Certification. Whichever setup you choose, every covered building still needs its own submission carrying its own Building ID and zip code -- LADBS can't recognize a combined filing that doesn't map to individual Building IDs.