NYC Local Law 97 · Covered Buildings
Is your NYC building over its Local Law 97 cap? See what it could cost.
Enter your address and we'll pull your coverage status, emissions limit, and estimated penalty exposure straight from NYC's public records. No signup to check — results in seconds.
Based on NYC's public Covered Buildings List and LL84 Benchmarking data.
Built on public data
NYC Covered Buildings List
·
PLUTO property records
·
LL84 benchmarking disclosures
·
DOB LL97 rules
The Law, Plainly
Local Law 97 caps how much carbon your building can emit.
Passed as part of NYC's Climate Mobilization Act, LL97 sets a shrinking annual limit on greenhouse-gas emissions for large buildings. Go over it, and you owe a penalty for every ton above the line. Most owners' first question is simple: am I even covered?
25,000
Square Feet
Most single buildings above this size are covered. Two or more on one tax lot exceeding 50,000 sq ft combined are too.
~50,000
buildings covered
Roughly 50,000 properties fall under LL97 — together responsible for a large share of the city's building emissions.
2024
First Compliance Year
The 2024–2029 limits are in effect now. Annual emissions reports are due May 1 of the following year.
How the penalties work
Three ways LL97 costs money.
$268
/ ton
Going over your cap
$268 for every metric ton of CO₂e above your annual limit. This is the big one — and it recurs every year you're over.
$0.50
/ sq ft / mo
Not filing
Miss the annual report and you owe $0.50 per square foot, per month. On an 85,000 sq ft building that's over $500K a year — for a paperwork failure.
$500K
/ ton
Filing a false statement
Knowingly submitting a false report carries penalties up to $500,000. Accurate data isn't optional — it's the whole filing.
Why 2026 matters
2026 is the first year this actually bites.
The compliance period started in 2024, but DOB's rules give owners a grace path for 2024 and 2025 if they show a good faith effort. 2026 is the first year most owners over their cap will actually be assessed penalties. The runway is shorter than it looks.
2024–2025
Going over your cap
Show a good faith effort and early penalties can be avoided.
2026
Penalties assessed
First year over-cap exceedances start costing real money.
2030
Caps tighten sharply
Limits drop ~40%. Many compliant buildings go over.
Good Faith Effort — your grace path
For 2024 and 2025, owners who can't yet meet their cap may avoid penalties by documenting a good faith effort. It generally means filing your benchmarking and LL97 reports on time and showing real, ongoing steps toward compliance — like a decarbonization or capital plan.
It isn't automatic, and it doesn't last forever. The documentation trail is what protects you — which is exactly the kind of thing that slips when it lives in email and spreadsheets.
The 2030 cliff
Example: 1240 Ocean Pkwy
In 2030 the limits drop about 40%. A building that clears its 2024 cap can land well over the 2030 line without changing a thing.
2024–2029 cap
576 tCO₂e
2030–2034 cap
348 tCO₂e
Est. emissions
742 tCO₂e
Over both caps without changes
Where Viaduct helps
Software won't cut your emissions. It keeps you from paying for avoidable mistakes.
Cutting carbon takes retrofits — new boilers, controls, envelope work. Viaduct handles the compliance work around them: accurate, on time, and defensible, so a filing error or a missed deadline never turns into a penalty you didn't have to pay.
File clean, on time
Every report validated before it goes out — so you avoid non-filing penalties and the errors that trigger them.
Protect Good Faith status
Keep the documentation trail DOB looks for in one place, so your grace path holds up if it's ever questioned.
Stop wrangling utility data
Pull and reconcile meter data automatically instead of chasing spreadsheets across accounts every reporting cycle.
See the whole portfolio
Know which buildings hit the 2030 cliff first, so capital planning follows the real exposure — not a guess.
What Viaduct won't do: promise to erase your penalty. If you're over your cap, the fix is fewer emissions. Viaduct makes the compliance work around that accurate, on time, and defensible.
Two Ways In
One building or five hundred.
A single building
Check it above, get the ungated result, and pull the full report to your inbox. Know your status, your limit, and your exposure in a few minutes.
Check my building
Managing a portfolio?
Run every building at once and see total exposure, filing status, and which properties hit the 2030 cliff first. We'll walk you through your portfolio, building by building.
Book a walkthrough
Not covered — or not yet
Own buildings elsewhere, or under the threshold today?
If you own buildings in Boston (BERDO) or Washington, DC (BEPS), similar emissions caps already apply. And NYC thresholds tighten over time — a building just under the line today may be covered tomorrow. We'll tell you when a program starts to affect your buildings.
Get alerts when a program affects your buildings
Questions owners ask
LL97, answered plainly.
Am I subject to Local Law 97?
If your building is over 25,000 square feet, it's almost certainly covered. Two or more buildings on a single tax lot exceeding 50,000 square feet combined are also covered, as are many condos. A handful of building types — including some rent-regulated and city buildings — follow a different track under Article 321.
How is my emissions limit calculated?
NYC assigns an emissions-intensity coefficient to each occupancy type, then multiplies it by your square footage. For multifamily (R-2), the 2024–2029 coefficient is 0.00675 tCO₂e per square foot — so an 85,400 sq ft building lands at roughly 576 metric tons a year.
What is the penalty if I go over?
$268 for every metric ton of CO₂e above your annual limit, every year you're over. Separately, failing to file the annual report costs $0.50 per square foot per month, and a knowingly false statement can run up to $500,000.
What actually happens in 2026?
The first compliance period began in 2024, but DOB's rules give owners a grace path for 2024 and 2025 if they show a good faith effort. 2026 is the first year most owners over their cap will actually be assessed penalties.
Does this replace ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®?
That's up to you. You can benchmark in Viaduct or Portfolio Manager®. Either way, Viaduct pulls the data together, checks it, and keeps your LL97 filings accurate and on time around it.
Where does your estimate come from?
Public NYC data — the Covered Buildings List, PLUTO property records, and LL84 benchmarking disclosures — run through standard LL97 coefficients. It's a directional estimate for planning, not a professional compliance assessment.