NYC Building Energy Scores: How Apartment Buildings Rate

Large NYC apartment buildings sit right around the national middle on energy. In calendar year 2024, the 18,199 multifamily properties with an ENERGY STAR score had a median score of 68 out of 100, where 50 is the national median. But the spread is wide: 30% scored 85 or higher (an A under the city's grading rules) and 36% scored under 55 (a D). Buildings put up since 2010 use the least energy per square foot by a wide margin.

What this data is

Local Law 84 requires owners of large buildings to report their energy and water use to the city every year through the EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool. According to the Department of Buildings, the law covers a building over 25,000 gross square feet, two or more buildings on one tax lot that together exceed 100,000 gross square feet, similar condo groups under one board, and city buildings. Reports for the previous calendar year are due May 1. This report looks only at properties whose main use is listed as "Multifamily Housing", the Portfolio Manager property type for apartment buildings. One property can include more than one building or tax lot.

Two numbers matter most:

• ENERGY STAR score (1 to 100). EPA says the score compares a building with similar buildings nationwide, adjusting for weather and how the building is used. A 50 is median performance and 75 or higher marks a top performer.
• Site EUI (energy use intensity). The total energy used on site in a year divided by floor area, in thousands of BTUs per square foot. Lower is better. It is not adjusted for building type or weather.

The score also sets a building's energy efficiency letter grade. DOB's grading rules are A for 85 and up, B for 70 to 84, C for 55 to 69 and D below 55. An F goes to buildings that did not submit benchmarking data, and an N to buildings that are exempt or not covered by ENERGY STAR. For what owners must file, see our guide to Local Law 84 benchmarking and energy grades.

How the scores are spread out

The distribution leans toward the top. The 90–100 band holds more properties (4,135) than any other band, and 7,690 properties (42%) scored 75 or higher. There is also a long tail of poor performers: 1,328 properties scored under 10 and 5,820 (32%) scored below the national median of 50. About a third of multifamily properties in the 2024 data (8,414) have no score at all. The most common reasons recorded are that the property has no energy meters in Portfolio Manager or has too few residential units for EPA to score it.

Letter grades over three years

The mix has barely moved. The median score was 67 for 2022 and 68 for both 2023 and 2024, and the D range held at roughly 36% to 37% of scored properties each year. Median site EUI fell from 78.1 in 2022 to 71.5 in 2023 and was 71.7 in 2024. Part of that change may reflect weather and which properties reported each year: the number of multifamily rows rose from 19,739 to 26,613, so these are not the same buildings tracked over time. The grades here are computed from the published scores. They are not the grade on any building's door, which DOB issues from its own records.

By borough

The Bronx stands out. Its multifamily properties had the highest median site EUI (80.2) and the lowest median score among the big four boroughs (62), and 42% of scored Bronx properties fell in the D range. Brooklyn (68.9) and Manhattan (69.2) had the lowest medians. Queens had the highest median score (73). Staten Island has few covered apartment properties (161 with a score), so its figures move a lot from year to year. This data does not explain the gaps. Building age, size, heating fuel and how the building is metered all differ by borough.

By building age

Newer buildings use much less energy per square foot. Properties built in 2010 or later had a median site EUI of 48, about 38% lower than the 76.9 median for buildings from 1900 to 1929, the largest group in the data. They also had the highest median score (81). The ENERGY STAR score does not fall steadily with age, though. Buildings from 1970 to 2009 used less energy per square foot than prewar buildings but had lower median scores. EPA's score adjusts for factors that raw EUI does not, so the two measures can disagree. The small group built before 1900 (143 properties with an EUI) is too small to read much into.

What the data can and cannot tell you

Check a building

Look up an address on Roofy's NYC building lookup and read our 10-minute building check before you rent. Owners can estimate exposure to the city's emissions limits with the Local Law 97 fine estimator, read Local Law 97 compliance, and check when an energy audit is due with the Local Law 87 audit year checker. For the age of the city's housing stock, see how old NYC's buildings are.