NYC Local Law 84 / 133 Benchmarking

Who's covered

New York City's Administrative Code defines a covered building for LL84 (as amended by Local Law 133 of 2016) as any of four things: (i) a building that exceeds 25,000 gross square feet, (ii) two or more buildings on the same tax lot that together exceed 100,000 gross square feet, (iii) two or more condominium buildings governed by the same board of managers that together exceed 100,000 gross square feet, or (iv) a "city building" (a separate, lower-threshold category for city-owned or city-energy-billed properties over 10,000 sq ft). "Exceeds" means exactly 25,000 sq ft is not covered -- you need to clear it, not just meet it.

Three exceptions are worth knowing before you assume a building is covered:

One-, two-, and three-family homes are entirely out of scope. The Admin Code excludes "real property classified as class one pursuant to subdivision 1 of section 1802 of the real property tax law" -- that's NYC's property-tax term for most one-to-three-family houses. If your only NYC holding is a townhouse or a small house, LL84 was never going to apply to you regardless of square footage.

Small "garden style" residential buildings are exempt, with a specific certification. Real property of no more than three stories, made up of a series of attached, detached, or semi-detached dwellings where each individual unit owner holds their own HVAC and hot water system (no shared system serving more than two units), is excluded -- but only once a registered design professional certifies that fact to DOB. This is a narrower, more specific carve-out than the Class One exemption above; it's aimed at townhouse-row and similar low-rise ownership structures where a single shared HVAC plant doesn't exist.

City buildings get their own, lower 10,000 sq ft threshold (with narrow exceptions for buildings in the tenant interim lease program and small HPD-administered buildings of 25,000 sq ft or less). That's irrelevant to a private owner directly, but worth knowing if your building sits in a public-private arrangement.

LL84 is the benchmarking layer of a larger NYC sustainability-law stack. The same broad population of large buildings is also potentially subject to Local Law 87 (a decennial energy audit and retro-commissioning requirement for buildings 50,000 sq ft and up, filed in the year matching your tax block's last digit), Local Law 33/95 (an annual A-through-F energy efficiency grade label, generated from your LL84 benchmarking data, that must be printed and displayed near public entrances), and Local Law 97 (annual greenhouse-gas emissions caps -- covered in detail below, since it's the single most common point of confusion for owners). None of LL87 or LL33/95 are covered as their own guide on this platform today; LL97 is, because its filing mechanics and penalty structure are different enough from LL84's that conflating the two is the single most common and costly mistake an owner can make.

Key dates

May 1, every year, for the prior calendar year's energy and water data, submitted through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (ESPM). NYC's Department of Finance publishes an annual Covered Buildings List keyed to your building's BBL (Borough-Block-Lot) and BIN (Building Identification Number) -- your submission has to carry the right identifiers to match DOB's records, not just show up in ESPM.

As of roughly 2025, NYC moved from a plain ESPM data-request flow to a Share Request model: you share your property with DOB's ESPM account directly, and DOB recommends doing this at least 15 business days before May 1 so there's time to process it ahead of the deadline. Waiting until April 30 to share is cutting it closer than the mechanics of the system actually allow for.

If May 1 passes without a compliant report, LL84 doesn't just have one hard deadline -- it runs on a quarterly cycle: the next chance to file before a further penalty accrues is August 1, then November 1, then February 1 of the following year. Each missed quarterly checkpoint adds another penalty (see below), so filing late in June is a meaningfully better outcome than filing late in October.

Separately, if your building also carries an LL33/LL95 energy efficiency grade, that label is published to your property's DOB NOW Public Portal profile on October 1 and has to be printed and displayed near each public entrance within 30 days after October 1 -- effectively an October 31 deadline distinct from the May 1 benchmarking date.

Penalties

The baseline penalty is $500 per violation, capped at $2,000 per year. DOB may issue a Notice of Violation to any Covered Buildings List property that hasn't submitted a fully compliant report by May 1; miss the next quarterly checkpoint (August 1) and a second $500 violation can issue; miss November 1 and February 1 and the pattern continues, up to the $2,000/year ceiling. This is confirmed both in the ordinance's civil-penalty structure and in DOB's own published fee (Title 1 RCNY § 103-06(l)).

A late, sloppy filing can be worse than no filing at all -- DOB can reject inaccurate submissions outright. The ordinance text is direct about this: "If, upon audit of a benchmarking report, the department finds that information submitted to the benchmarking tool was substantially inaccurate or incomplete, the department may reject the purported benchmarking and the owner shall be liable for a violation... as if no benchmarking had been performed." In other words, rushing a report full of guessed or garbage data to beat a deadline doesn't protect you if DOB's audit later disqualifies it -- you're treated as if you never filed.

Small buildings get a genuine safe harbor, but it has three conditions, all required. A covered building draws no civil penalty at all for a benchmarking violation if: (1) the building does not exceed 50,000 gross sq ft and isn't part of either 100,000-sq-ft aggregation group or a city building; (2) the owner requested benchmarking assistance from DOB or a designated agency at least 60 days before the report's due date; and (3) the owner corrects the violation within 60 days of the Notice of Violation. Miss any one of the three and the safe harbor doesn't apply -- this is not a blanket small-building exemption, it's a documented-diligence defense.

A separate $1,250 fine applies if a building that's required to display an LL33/LL95 energy efficiency grade label fails to post it by the October 31 deadline -- a distinct penalty from the $500 benchmarking fine, assessed under the same Title 1 RCNY § 103-06(l).

You can challenge a benchmarking violation you believe was issued in error, but the challenge form has to reach DOB within 30 days of the Notice of Violation's postmark, with substantiating documentation (proof you're not actually a covered building, proof of timely ESPM submission, proof of demolition/new-building status, an RDP certification for the small-residential exemption, or proof of the safe-harbor factors above).

Step-by-step: how to comply

1. Confirm covered-building status and find your BBL/BIN. Check the "One City Built to Last" compliance notice on your property tax bill, or look your building up on the Covered Buildings List by borough, block, and lot. We track your BBL/BIN once you give it to us and flag if DOF's records show anything inconsistent with what you've told us -- but the initial confirmation should come from your tax bill or DOF's own list.
2. Set the property's ESPM Standard ID to "NYC BBL" with the correct 10-digit BBL (and the associated BINs, for multi-building lots), then enter all 12 months of whole-building energy and water data for the prior calendar year. We handle the ESPM property setup and data entry mechanics once your utility feeds are live.
3. Share the property with DOB's ESPM account at least 15 business days before May 1. We manage this Share Request and confirm it's been accepted, so a delay in DOB's processing queue doesn't silently turn into a missed deadline on your end.
4. If you're a small building near the 50,000 sq ft line, consider requesting benchmarking assistance well ahead of time -- doing so at least 60 days before your due date is what preserves the safe harbor above if something later goes wrong. We flag buildings that look safe-harbor-eligible so you can decide whether to make that request; the request itself has to come from you as the owner.
5. Confirm the submission posts as compliant, not just submitted. We monitor the Covered Buildings List and DOB NOW for your building's status and alert you if a report that should have posted hasn't -- since an unprocessed or audit-rejected submission can silently leave you exposed to the exact "as if no benchmarking had been performed" outcome described above.

How this interacts with Local Law 97 (read this even if you think you already know)

This is the single most consequential relationship on this page, and it runs in both directions -- an owner who only reads the LL84 or only the LL97 guide is missing half of it.

Same deadline, different everything else. Both LL84 and LL97 reports are due on May 1 -- literally the same calendar date, not a "close but different" pair of dates people sometimes assume. But they're separate filings through separate systems: LL84 goes through an ESPM Share Request to DOB (no dedicated NYC portal of its own); LL97 goes through DOB's dedicated LL97 Reporting Portal, called BEAM (nyc.beam-portal.org), which draws on your ESPM energy data as an input but is a genuinely different filing action that has to happen on its own.

LL97's own multi-building aggregation threshold is lower than LL84's -- 50,000 sq ft, not 100,000 -- and that genuinely changes which buildings are covered. Both laws use the identical 25,000 sq ft threshold for a single standalone building. They diverge only in the combined-lot and condo-aggregation math: LL84 sweeps in a group of buildings on one tax lot (none individually over 25,000 sq ft) only if their combined area tops 100,000 sq ft; LL97 applies the same kind of sweep-in test at just 50,000 sq ft combined. Concretely: a tax lot with three condo buildings of 20,000 sq ft each -- 60,000 sq ft combined, none individually covered -- clears LL97's 50,000 sq ft aggregation trigger and is covered by LL97's emissions caps, while falling short of LL84's 100,000 sq ft aggregation trigger and is not independently covered by LL84 benchmarking. That's a real, product-relevant gap: a multi-building complex can owe an LL97 emissions report while owing no LL84 benchmarking report at all under the aggregation route. It's the opposite of what most owners assume ("if I don't have to benchmark, I definitely don't have emissions obligations") and worth flagging to any client managing a multi-building tax lot or condo portfolio near either line.

No professional sign-off for LL84; a legally required one for LL97. LL84 benchmarking has no certification requirement -- you (or your agent) submit the data yourself. LL97's annual emissions report must be certified by a New York-registered design professional (PE or RA), filed under Article 320 for most private buildings or Article 321 for certain affordable housing and houses of worship. That professional sign-off is a hard requirement, not a best practice.

The penalties are shaped completely differently. LL84's penalty is a flat administrative fee that caps at $2,000 per year no matter how large the building is. LL97's penalty is $268 per metric ton of CO2e your building emits over its annual cap, with no such cap -- it scales with both your building's size and how far over the limit you are, and recurs every year you stay over. Being compliant with one law says nothing about your exposure under the other.

Filing one never substitutes for the other. A building covered by both laws must submit both reports, every year, through both systems. See our LL97 guide for the full mechanics of the emissions side, including the $0.50/sq ft/month late-filing exposure and the 60-day no-penalty filing window that LL84 has no equivalent of.

What we handle

LL84 is exactly the kind of annual, form-and-deadline compliance work software should own: no dollar-based emissions math, no mandatory professional certification, just accurate data entered and shared with DOB on time. Run the compliance checker below to confirm your building's exact covered status (the Class One and garden-style exemptions catch more owners than you'd expect), then join the waitlist. What stays yours: authorizing utility data access, deciding whether to request benchmarking assistance if you're safe-harbor-eligible, and getting an RDP's certification if your building qualifies for the small-residential exemption.

Frequently asked questions

Is LL84 the same thing as LL97?

No, and this is the most important fact on this page. LL84 is the annual benchmarking requirement (no professional certification, flat penalty capped at $2,000/year); LL97 is a separate annual greenhouse-gas emissions-cap filing (certified by a registered design professional, penalty of $268/ton of CO2e over the cap with no annual cap). Both are typically due the same day -- May 1 -- through entirely different systems. See the dedicated section above for the full relationship.

Do I need a licensed professional to sign off on my LL84 filing?

No. Unlike LL97 (which requires a registered design professional) or LL87 (which requires a registered design professional for the audit/retro-commissioning report), LL84 benchmarking can be submitted directly by the owner or an authorized agent -- the one exception is the small-residential "garden style" exemption itself, which does require an RDP's certification to DOB that a building qualifies for that specific carve-out.

My building is under 50,000 sq ft -- is there a way to avoid the $500 penalty if I'm late?

Possibly, but only if you act before you're late. The safe harbor requires requesting benchmarking assistance from DOB (or a designated agency) at least 60 days before your report is due, and then correcting the violation within 60 days of any Notice of Violation. If you wait until after May 1 to ask for help, you've already missed the condition that makes the safe harbor available.

What happens if DOB thinks my submitted data is wrong?

DOB can audit a benchmarking report and, if it finds the data "substantially inaccurate or incomplete," reject it outright -- at which point you're treated as if you never benchmarked at all, exposing you to the same $500/quarter penalty as a building that filed nothing. Accuracy on the way in matters as much as timeliness.

I own a two- or three-family house in NYC. Am I covered?

No. NYC Admin Code excludes "Class One" real property -- the property-tax classification covering most one-to-three-family homes -- from LL84's covered-building definition entirely, regardless of square footage. Small multi-unit buildings with individually owned HVAC systems (no more than three stories, no shared system serving more than two units) have a separate, narrower exemption that requires an RDP's certification.

What's this energy efficiency grade label I keep hearing about?

That's Local Law 33 (as amended by LL95), a related but distinct requirement layered on top of LL84 benchmarking data. Covered buildings get an A-through-F letter grade (or "N" if exempt/not covered, "F" if required data wasn't submitted) based on their ENERGY STAR score, published to the DOB NOW Public Portal each October 1 and required to be displayed near public entrances within 30 days. Failing to display it on time carries its own separate $1,250 fine.

How do the LL84 and LL97 deadlines actually relate -- do I file both on the same day?

Yes, in most years, both are due May 1. What differs is everything after that date: LL84 non-filers get a second chance at the next quarterly checkpoint (August 1, then November 1, then February 1) before further penalties stack up to a $2,000/year cap; LL97 non-filers get a 60-day no-penalty window built directly into the late-filing fee statute, after which a $0.50-per-square-foot, per-month penalty can apply on top of the separate over-the-cap emissions penalty. Treat them as twin deadlines on the same day, not a single combined filing.