NYC Local Law 87 Energy Audit & Retro-Commissioning

Local Law 87 requires owners of large New York City buildings to complete a professional energy audit and retro-commissioning of their building systems once every ten years and file the results with the Department of Buildings by December 31 of their assigned compliance year. The NYC Local Law 87 energy audit and retro-commissioning requirement applies to buildings over 50,000 gross square feet, and the specific compliance year is set by the last digit of the building’s tax block number. Missing the deadline triggers escalating penalties, and the Department will not accept a late filing until those penalties are paid.

Which Buildings Are Covered

LL87 uses the term “covered building.” A property qualifies if any of the following apply, based on Department of Finance records:

A single building exceeding 50,000 gross square feet.
Two or more buildings on the same tax lot that together exceed 100,000 gross square feet.
Two or more condominium buildings governed by the same board of managers that together exceed 100,000 gross square feet.¹

The square footage is the whole building as recorded by Finance, whether the space is commercial, residential, or common area. One important exclusion: Class 1 properties under New York’s real property tax law — one-, two-, and three-family homes that are not condominiums — are not covered even if they somehow exceed the threshold.¹

For mixed-use buildings, the retro-commissioning testing is scaled by area type: all major equipment in common areas must be tested, at least 20% of equipment in owner-occupied non-common areas, and at least 10% of equipment in accessible tenant spaces.²

When Your Building Must File

Every covered building files an Energy Efficiency Report (EER) once every ten years. The compliance year is set by the last digit of the tax block number. A building whose block number ends in 6 is due in 2026, then 2036, then 2046, and so on. The report itself is due by December 31 of the assigned year.³

That deadline arrives faster than most owners expect. The audit takes weeks. Retro-commissioning corrections can take months. And during peak compliance years, when every building with the same block-number ending is looking for the same qualified professionals, scheduling gets tight. Starting roughly 18 months before the December 31 deadline is a reasonable buffer.

What the Audit and Retro-Commissioning Cover

LL87 has two working parts. The audit identifies where energy is being wasted. Retro-commissioning makes existing systems run the way they are supposed to.

The Energy Audit

The audit must meet the scope of an ASHRAE Level II audit and follow the outline in ASHRAE Standard 211-2018 or a later edition. It examines every base building system: the envelope, HVAC, conveying systems like elevators, domestic hot water, and electrical and lighting. The auditor identifies specific energy conservation measures with an estimated cost, energy savings, and payback period for each.⁴

Retro-Commissioning

Retro-commissioning evaluates whether each building system is installed correctly, working as intended, and meeting the owner’s current operating needs.³ That includes checking HVAC setpoints, sensor calibration, control sequences, lighting controls, and domestic hot water settings, among other things.

Corrections That Must Be Made Before You Can File

This is where many owners get caught. Deficiencies uncovered during retro-commissioning must be corrected before the EER can be filed, and the rules spell out an extensive required-correction list.⁵

On the operational side, that means recalibrating HVAC sensors, restoring control sequences, correcting ventilation rates, eliminating simultaneous heating and cooling, fixing economizer controls, adjusting lighting levels and controls, and correcting hot water temperature settings. Systems with automatic reset functions, parallel equipment that is not load-balanced, and improperly sized major equipment all must be brought into proper operation.⁵

On the physical side, HVAC coils and ducts must be cleaned, malfunctioning steam traps replaced or rebuilt, motors and pumps in poor condition repaired, exposed hot and chilled water pipes three inches or larger insulated, boilers tuned, damaged weatherstripping corrected, and water leaks repaired. The building must also have written protocols for filter replacement, steam trap testing, and resolving conditions that led to manual overrides.⁵

The audit’s Energy Conservation Measures are different. Those are recommendations for capital improvements, listed with payback estimates for the owner’s consideration, not automatic obligations the way retro-commissioning corrections are.

Who Can Sign the Report

The energy auditor must be a registered design professional — a New York State licensed professional engineer or registered architect — who holds, or directly supervises someone who holds, an accepted energy certification such as Certified Energy Manager, Certified Energy Auditor, ASHRAE’s Building Energy Assessment Professional, or Energy Management Professional. For multifamily residential audits, a Building Performance Institute Multifamily Building Analyst also qualifies.⁶

The retro-commissioning agent must be a registered design professional, a certified Refrigerating System Operating Engineer, or a licensed High Pressure Boiler Operating Engineer, and must hold (or supervise someone who holds) one of roughly ten recognized commissioning certifications from organizations such as the Building Commissioning Association, ASHRAE, AABC Commissioning Group, or NEBB.⁶

Neither professional can be on the building’s staff. The registered design professional applies their New York State seal to the certification forms — EERC1 for the audit and EERC2 for retro-commissioning — that accompany the report.⁷

Exemptions, Deferrals, and Extensions

Some covered buildings can reduce or delay what they file.

A building whose first temporary certificate of occupancy is less than ten years old at the compliance deadline does not need to submit an EER or a deferral application for that cycle.⁸

A building that earned an EPA Energy Star label in at least two of the three years before its filing deadline is exempt from the audit portion. A LEED certification obtained within four years before the deadline also exempts the audit. The retro-commissioning exemption is narrower: the building must be certified under a LEED for Existing Buildings rating system within two years and must have earned both designated commissioning points for analysis and implementation. Certification under LEED v4.1 for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance does not qualify for the retro-commissioning exemption because that system lacks the required commissioning points.⁸

Owners who cannot meet the December 31 deadline have two paths. A deferral, filed on Form EER1, is available when the building’s systems already meet the current NYC Energy Conservation Code — either because the building is under ten years old with all base systems in code compliance, or because a substantial rehabilitation within the prior ten years brought systems up to the applicable energy code. An extension, filed on Form EER2, is available when an owner has made good-faith efforts but cannot finish on time for reasons other than financial hardship. Building-level financial hardship supports annual extensions. Both forms are signed, scanned, and emailed to LL87@buildings.nyc.gov.³

How to File and What It Costs

The finished EER combines the ASHRAE Level II audit report and the retro-commissioning report into a single filing, with signed and sealed EERC1 and EERC2 forms attached. The report is submitted by email to LL87@buildings.nyc.gov. The Department of Buildings confirms receipt and sends payment instructions.³

The city filing fee is $375 per building.³ That is separate from the professional cost of the work. Audits generally run between roughly $0.10 and $0.25 per square foot, so a 100,000-square-foot building might pay $10,000 to $25,000 for the audit alone. Retro-commissioning fees vary more, depending on building complexity and the condition of the systems. And any mandatory corrections found during retro-commissioning have to be paid for and completed before the report can be filed. For buildings with significant deferred maintenance, those repairs can be the largest number in the entire compliance effort.

Penalties for Missing the Deadline

A missed filing triggers a Class 2 Department of Buildings violation. The first year of non-compliance carries a $3,000 penalty. Each additional year adds $5,000, and the penalties are cumulative.⁹ A building three years late would owe $13,000 in penalties alone.

The Department will not accept an overdue Energy Efficiency Report until all accrued penalties are paid in full.⁹ Owners who know they will miss the December 31 deadline should file Form EER2 for an extension before that date rather than let the penalty clock start. After the penalties are paid and the report is accepted, the violation is formally cleared by submitting a Violation Removal Request Form (DOB-VLR) to the Department for review.¹⁰

Why the LL87 Audit Matters for Local Law 97

Local Law 97 sets greenhouse gas emissions limits on most buildings over 25,000 square feet, with limits already in effect since 2024 and significantly tighter limits starting in 2030. The city is targeting a 40% emissions reduction from the largest buildings by 2030, and buildings that exceed their cap face a penalty of $268 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent over the limit.¹¹¹²

The LL87 audit is where owners get a concrete roadmap for hitting those targets. It identifies which measures deliver the biggest emissions reductions and estimates costs and payback periods. The retro-commissioning corrections the law already requires often produce enough of an emissions drop to matter for LL97. Treating the audit as the first step in an LL97 strategy, rather than a separate compliance chore, generally pays back the professional fee many times over.

1
NYC.gov. Local Laws of the City of New York – Local Law 87 of 2009
2
NYC.gov. LL87-09 Rule Changes (Rule Amendments)
3
NYC Department of Buildings. LL87 Energy Audits and Retro Commissioning
4
NYC.gov. Local Law 87/09 Energy Audits and Retro-commissioning – Information Session
5
IGP NY. LOCAL LAWS of the City of New York – Energy Audit and Retro-Commissioning Law and Rules
6
NYC.gov. 1 RCNY 103-07
7
NYC.gov. Compliance Guidelines LL 87 2009
8
NYC Department of Buildings. General Local Law 87 Questions
9
NYC.gov. LL87 Energy Audits and Retro Commissioning Violations
10
New York City Department Of Buildings. Resolving Violations Fact Sheet
11
Buildings – NYC.gov. LL97 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction
12
NYC Rules. Calculation of Emission Limits for Buildings