Building Energy Benchmarking and Performance Standard Requirements by Jurisdiction
Which US cities and states require commercial buildings to report annual energy consumption, the square footage threshold above which reporting is mandatory, the annual reporting deadline, whether emissions reduction targets or performance standards apply, penalty amounts for noncompliance, and the governing ordinance citation. Over 50 jurisdictions have adopted requirements as of 2026, with new ones every year.
The data
| jurisdiction | jurisdiction level | ordinance citation | sq ft threshold | covered building types | reporting deadline | reporting platform | performance standard | penalty noncompliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boston | city | Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) | 20,000 | non-residential buildings 20,000 sq ft or larger; residential buildings with 15 or more units | May 15 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | Annual emissions standards decreasing over time, with all buildings expected to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 | Not specified on program page |
| California | state | Assembly Bill 802 | 50,000 | commercial and multifamily residential | June 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | No — benchmarking and disclosure only | Not specified on program page |
| Colorado | state | HB21-1286: Energy Performance For Buildings | 50,000 | most commercial buildings | November 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | 7% reduction by 2026 and 20% by 2030, compared to 2021 levels | Late reports and fees are subject to penalties |
| Maryland | state | Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022 | 35,000 | commercial and multifamily | June 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | Net-zero emissions by 2045; building performance standards in the 2030s | Not specified on program page |
| Minneapolis | city | Minneapolis Code of Ordinances Chapter 47, Section 47.190 (2013 ordinance) | 50,000 | Commercial and multifamily residential buildings 50,000 square feet or more | June 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | No — benchmarking and disclosure only | $200 fine, doubling each time the deadline is missed; unpaid fines added to property taxes |
| New York City | city | NYC Local Law 84 of 2009, as amended by Local Law 133 of 2016 | Per Covered Buildings List (see NYC Administrative Code §28-309.2) | buildings on the Covered Buildings List, excluding garden-style apartments (not more than three stories, individually-owned HVAC) | May 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | Energy efficiency grading required under Local Law 33 of 2018 and Local Law 95 of 2019 | $500 per violation, up to $2,000 per year; $1,250 for failure to display energy efficiency rating label |
| San Francisco | city | Existing Buildings Energy Performance Ordinance (San Francisco Environment Code) | 10,000 (non-residential); 50,000 (multifamily residential) | Non-residential buildings with 10,000 square feet or more; multifamily residential buildings with 50,000 sq ft or more | May 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | Largest commercial buildings must obtain 100% renewable electricity (phased by building size through 2030) | Not specified on program page |
| Seattle | city | Seattle Municipal Code 22.920 | 20,000 | Non-residential and multifamily buildings greater than 20,000 square feet | June 1 | ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager | No — benchmarking and disclosure only | $4,000 for buildings 50,000 SF or greater; $2,000 for buildings 20,000–49,999 SF |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 8 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- boston.govhttps://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/building-energy-reporting-and-disclosure-ordinance
- energy.ca.govhttps://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-benchmarking-program
- energyoffice.colorado.govhttps://energyoffice.colorado.gov/bpc
- mde.maryland.govhttps://mde.maryland.gov/programs/air/ClimateChange/Clean-Buildings/Pages/BEPS.aspx
- minneapolismn.govhttps://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/environmental-programs/energy-benchmarking/
- nyc.govhttps://www.nyc.gov/site/buildings/codes/benchmarking.page
- sfenvironment.orghttps://www.sfenvironment.org/node/3967?repaired
- seattle.govhttps://www.seattle.gov/environment/climate-change/building-energy/energy-benchmarking
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup building-energy-benchmarking-requirements jurisdiction=Boston
npx -y refsource lookup building-energy-benchmarking-requirements jurisdiction=BostonSet your AI assistant up to use this
Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.
{
"mcpServers": {
"referencesource": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
}
}
}Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project
Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:
When a question needs "Building Energy Benchmarking and Performance Standard Requirements by Jurisdiction", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `building-energy-benchmarking-requirements`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.