Building Energy Benchmarking

Required Buildings & Deadlines

What is a Covered Building?

 A building covered under the Benchmarking Law is “any nonresidential building, or any group of buildings that have the same property identification number” that meet the square footage thresholds for the respective groups

Special Cases:

• Multiple Buildings that Share a PIN/Tax ID: If you have a complex of buildings that share a property identification number (your Parcel ID or Tax ID), and their square footage adds up to the thresholds listed, they are considered covered under this law (e.g., office campus with two buildings that are 30,000 square feet each and share a Tax ID).
• A Building on Multiple Parcels: If you have a building that meets the thresholds, regardless of how many parcels or tax IDs or owners, the building is also considered covered under this law (e.g., shopping mall).

Building Groups and Deadlines:

There are three groups required to benchmark annually under the Benchmarking Law in Montgomery County.  

Covered Buildings List

DEP developed a preliminary Covered Buildings List to raise awareness about the Benchmarking Law (last updated April 2018). This list was created with current Maryland tax assessment records and the CoStar commercial building database.

• Private Covered Buildings Inventory  (provided by DEP) (MS Excel, 11 KB)
• Important Information about the Covered Buildings Inventory ( PDF, 358 KB)

Note: This inventory is an approximation, meant to raise awareness about the law and help identify the buildings covered by the law.  Each building owner will need to confirm their own building square footage to determine coverage under the law.

Compliance is dependent upon the building owner’s record of their building square footage and the square footage on the parcel in total, regardless of the information on this inventory. This inventory will be used only as a tool by DEP, and should be considered the same by building owners and other stakeholders.

Need help figuring out your tax parcel?

Use the online GIS map created from current Maryland tax assessment records to locate the parcel that your building sits on, and see what other buildings share your parcel. Reminder: if your building shares a parcel with other buildings and collectively add up to 50,000 square feet and greater, you'll need to report benchmarking data to DEP.

Montgomery County Building ID

To be sure your building is counted as compliant by DEP, you will need to provide an additional ID number special to Montgomery County. Your building’s Montgomery County Building ID is your 8-digit Parcel Identification Number/Tax  ID. The Parcel ID number is located in the upper right corner of your property tax bill. It would be the same as your account number. You can also locate this number online by visiting the  Department of Finance’s Real Property Tax Account Information website.

Enter this MBID number in Portfolio Manager (Under the Details tab, select “Montgomery County (MD) Building ID” from the “Standard IDs” drop-down menu, and enter your MBID.

Special cases:

• If you have multiple buildings on your parcel, you’ll create your MBID by using the 8-digit Parcel Identification Number/Tax ID number and adding an underscore and lower case letters beginning with “a”  (e.g., 01234567­_a, 01234567_b).
• If you have a building on multiple parcels, you can list each 8-digit Parcel Identification Number/Tax ID number as your MBIDs, separating each with a comma.

Exemptions and Waivers

Buildings exempt from the law include any County building, Group 1 covered building or Group 2 covered building with more than 10% of total gross square footage which is used for:

• Public assembly in a building without walls,

• Warehousing,

• Self storage, or

• A use classified as manufacturing and industrial or transportation communication, and utilities.

Waivers can be applied for in the cases where the building:

• Is in financial distress, defined as the building is subject of a tax lien sale or public auction due to property tax arrearages; is controlled by a court appointed receiver; or was recently acquired by a deed in lieu of foreclosure;

• Had average physical occupancy of less than 50% throughout the calendar year for which benchmarking is required; or

• Is new construction and received its certificate of use and occupancy during the calendar year for which benchmarking is required.

If your commercial buildings would like to request an exemption or waiver, building owners must submit a Building Exemption/Waiver Application to DEP no later than May 1 of each deadline year. 

Note: Use one form per building. Submit any relevant supporting documentation along with this application to justify the exemption/waiver. Exemptions and waivers must be reviewed and approved by DEP.

About Reporting and Disclosure

DEP requests information to fulfill the Benchmarking Law’s reporting requirements and provide helpful information to guide benchmarking and energy efficiency program and policy planning. As such, DEP collects a broader set of data than is disclosed. However, DEP will only disclose the list of metrics listed in the glossery of terms. The collected data will be used to provide aggregate metrics and portfolio-wide benchmarks for reporting purposes. 

The Benchmarking Law requires the County to make reported benchmarking information readily available to the public. The first year's data of each reporting group will not be disclosed. Disclosure will begin the 2nd year of each building group's reporting. Disclosed data can be downloaded in the Disclosed Data and Reports section below.

Annual Reports

• 2020 Annual Report (pdf, 1.7MB)
• 2019 Annual Report (pdf, 1MB)
• 2017 Annual Report (pdf, 383KB)
• 2016 Annual Report (pdf, 794KB)
• 2015 Annual Report (pdf, 308KB)

Disclosed Data

• Glossary of terms used in the disclosed data sets (PDF, 155 KB)
• 2020 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for All Covered Buildings (.xls)
• 2019 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for All Covered Buildings (.xls)
• 2018 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for All Covered Buildings (.xls)
• 2017 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for All Covered Buildings (.xls)
• 2016 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for County and Group 1 Buildings (.xls)
• 2015 Disclosed Benchmarking Data for County Buildings (.xls)

GIS map of the County’s benchmarked buildings and key metrics