Energy benchmarking · Compliance
How many of Chicago's large buildings actually report their energy use?
Chicago's benchmarking law covers buildings of 50,000 square feet and up. Most report. Here is how many do not, according to the City's report and to the City's own data, kept apart.
By BUILDINGChicago editors. Published September 17, 2026. Data: City of Chicago, reporting year 2023, retrieved September 17, 2026.
Short answer: about four in five. The City's 2022-2023 benchmarking report puts the 2023 reporting rate at 82% of covered properties by count, and 78% by square footage. In the City's public dataset for 2023, 542 rows are marked Not Submitted, and they are not spread evenly: in Douglas and South Shore close to half of the covered rows did not report.
The rule, and what not reporting costs
Per the City's energy benchmarking page, covered buildings must "Submit their energy usage by June 1 every year" and verify their data every three years. The report feeds the Chicago Energy Rating, the zero-to-four-star placard that must be posted in the building; one to four stars follow the building's ENERGY STAR score or its energy use per square foot, and a building that does not report is assigned zero stars. The City's rating system FAQ sets the fine at "$100 for the first day of the violation and up to $25 for each day the violation continues," and says an owner "could be fined up to (but no more than) $9,200 per year for each building out of compliance."
What the City reports
These figures are quoted from the City's 2022-2023 Chicago Energy Benchmarking Report (Department of Environment, PDF). We did not compute them.
The report breaks the 2,915 into 2,689 covered properties and 226 covered properties that received temporary exemptions, and notes 38 properties that reported voluntarily. It gives the earlier rates too: 83% in 2022 (89% by square footage) and 87% in 2021. So by count the rate has slipped two years running, and in 2023 the square-footage rate fell below the count rate, which suggests larger buildings were among those missing. (The report's executive summary uses a different 2023 count, "reports from 2,724 properties"; we quote the compliance summary's figures above.)
What the City's dataset shows
The public Chicago Energy Benchmarking dataset lists 3,438 rows for 2023, each with a reporting status. These figures are our own count from a download made September 17, 2026, and they are not the same measure as the City's report.
Our 82.7% lands close to the City's 82%, but it is a different calculation: the dataset has no exemption category for 2023 and is not the Covered Buildings List the report counts against, so we do not treat either figure as a check on the other. Reporting is also not the same as receiving a rating: 22 Submitted rows carry zero stars and 41 have no rating at all, which the City's rating page allows for ("Properties that report their energy use by the annual deadline might still receive a zero star rating").
Who the non-reporters are
The dataset records little about buildings that did not report: none of the 542 Not Submitted rows has a floor area. Their property-type field is mostly a broad label rather than a detailed type: 280 are "Residential," 83 "Commercial," 54 are blank, and the rest are scattered across specific types (19 Office, 15 Other - Recreation, 14 K-12 School, 13 Multifamily Housing). Residential buildings are the clear majority of the gap.
Where they are
Non-reporting share of each community area's Submitted plus Not Submitted rows, for the 16 areas with at least 40 such rows.
- Douglas 31 of 6448.4%
- South Shore 27 of 6144.3%
- Kenwood 13 of 5125.5%
- West Town 20 of 9521.1%
- Uptown 23 of 11120.7%
- Lake View 36 of 19018.9%
- Edgewater 19 of 10518.1%
- Rogers Park 11 of 7414.9%
- Near South Side 14 of 9514.7%
- Logan Square 7 of 5113.7%
- Near West Side 35 of 27112.9%
- West Ridge 5 of 4012.5%
- Loop 41 of 34112.0%
- Lincoln Park 16 of 14011.4%
- Hyde Park 10 of 1039.7%
- Near North Side 47 of 5259.0%
Not Submitted rows as a share of Submitted plus Not Submitted rows, 2023. Source: City of Chicago Energy Benchmarking dataset, our computation.
Douglas (31 of 64) and South Shore (27 of 61) stand far apart from the rest; Kenwood follows at about one in four. The downtown areas with the most covered buildings report best: the Loop at 12.0% missing and Near North Side at 9.0%. Douglas and South Shore are also near the bottom on ratings among buildings that did report, which is why our neighborhood ratings flag Douglas and South Shore as thin samples.
Non-reporting rows by year
| Data year | Rows marked Not Submitted |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 420 |
| 2019 | 1,080 |
| 2020 | 485 |
| 2021 | 608 |
| 2022 | 732 |
| 2023 | 542 |
Count of dataset rows with reporting status Not Submitted, by data year, queried September 17, 2026. The dataset's status labels change between years (for example "Submitted Data" in 2020 and 2022, "Exempt" through 2022, "Not Covered 2024" in 2023), so these counts are not rates and do not map one to one onto the City's published reporting rates.
What comes next
The City's benchmarking page says that in December 2025 the Department of Environment relaunched the program on a new platform, and that a draft rules update has been released for comment. Reporting-year 2024 and later data were not yet in the public dataset when we pulled it.
Method. City figures are quoted from the 2022-2023 Chicago Energy Benchmarking Report. Dataset figures come from every 2023 row of the Chicago Energy Benchmarking dataset, downloaded September 17, 2026 (3,438 rows; rows last updated by the City February 5, 2025), and counted by reporting status. Area shares use the community_area field. The two sources are never combined in one figure on this page.