TL;DR
Washington's Clean Buildings Performance Standard is now enforceable. The largest buildings (over 220,000 sq ft) passed their first compliance deadline on June 1, 2026. Mid-size buildings are next, with 90,000–220,000 sq ft due June 1, 2027 and 50,000–90,000 sq ft due June 1, 2028. Compliance means benchmarking, an ASHRAE Level 2 audit, a documented energy management and O&M program (which must be running a full year before your deadline), and meeting your building's Energy Use Intensity target. Penalties are real: up to $5,000 plus $1 per square foot per year, accruing daily. But early adopters can still claim up to $2.00 per square foot in incentives, and as of March 2026, $59M of the $75M pool remained. The right move was last year. The next-best move is now.
Who has to comply
The Clean Buildings Performance Standard came out of HB 1257 in 2019 and was expanded by HB 1390 in 2022. It splits Washington's commercial building stock into two tiers.
Tier 1 covers non-residential buildings over 50,000 square feet: office, retail, hotel, hospital, school, warehouse, and most other commercial uses. Tier 1 is where the real deadlines and the real penalties live.
Tier 2covers non-residential buildings between 20,001 and 49,999 square feet, plus multifamily buildings over 20,000 square feet. Tier 2 obligations are lighter (primarily benchmarking and an O&M program) and they kick in later.
A handful of building types are exempt: agricultural structures, religious worship spaces, certain manufacturing and industrial process buildings, and a few others. These exemptions are narrower than they sound. If you think your building qualifies, confirm it in writing with the Department of Commerce before you stop the compliance work.
The Tier 1 deadlines
Compliance is staggered by building size. The Tier 1 deadlines are:
- June 1, 2026: buildings over 220,000 sq ft
- June 1, 2027: buildings 90,001 to 220,000 sq ft
- June 1, 2028: buildings 50,001 to 90,000 sq ft
After the first compliance report, every covered Tier 1 building has to recertify on a five-year cycle.
If you own a building over 220,000 sq ft, your first deadline has already passed. If you missed it, penalties are now accruing and the priority is getting compliant quickly to stop the clock. If you're in the 90,001–220,000 bracket your deadline is June 1, 2027, and if you're 50,001–90,000 sq ft it's June 1, 2028, which sounds generous until you start scheduling site visits, audits, and capital improvements, and remember the O&M program has to be running a full year before the deadline.
What compliance actually requires
Three things, in roughly this order:
1. Benchmark the building in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. This needs at least twelve months of complete energy data. If you haven't started, you're already behind on the data window. Most buildings I work with also discover that their utility records have gaps that take weeks to clean up: missing months, account splits, sub-metering inconsistencies. Start there.
2. Meet your EUI target.Energy Use Intensity is measured in kBtu per square foot per year. Commerce has published target EUIs by building type. If your benchmarked EUI is at or below your target, you're compliant on the energy-performance side. If you're above it, you either reduce consumption to hit the target, or you document why you can't and follow the alternate compliance path.
3. Implement an Energy Management Plan and an O&M program, both documented and demonstrably in use. These aren't paperwork exercises. The state expects evidence they're actually running: training logs, equipment schedules, work orders. A plan that exists only in a binder is not a compliant plan.
For most Tier 1 buildings, the practical path to hitting EUI targets runs through an ASHRAE Level 2 energy audit. The audit identifies the energy conservation measures with the best payback for your specific building, quantifies expected savings, and produces the documentation Commerce will accept.
What it costs to miss the deadline
The CBPS penalty structure:
- Up to $5,000 plus $1.00 per square foot of gross floor area per year, accrued daily
- Accrual is capped at 18 months of penalty
- A reduced path: file a noncompliance mitigation plan and the assessment drops to 30% of $5,000 plus $0.20 per square foot per year
For a 100,000 sq ft building, the full penalty runs about $105,000 a year ($5,000 + $100,000), accruing daily and capped at 18 months, roughly $157,000 of exposure before the cap. File a mitigation plan and that drops to about $21,500 a year ($1,500 + $20,000). Either way, the penalty is designed to cost more than compliance, and for most buildings it does.
There's also a softer cost. Tenants and lenders are starting to ask about CBPS status. Class A office leases in Seattle increasingly include energy-performance riders. Lenders refinancing commercial paper want to see a compliance plan. Non-compliance is moving from regulatory risk to underwriting risk.
The early adopter incentive
Washington built a real financial reward into the program for buildings that get ahead of their deadline: a base incentive of $2.00 per square foot of conditioned floor area (parking and unconditioned space excluded), plus $0.05 per kBtuof energy saved beyond 15 EUI above your target. The state says it can cover up to half the cost of the measures your audit identifies. It's paid as an Energy Performance Standard Incentive (EPSI), administered through the building's electric utility.
Two catches on eligibility. Your building has to be at least 15 EUI above its target to qualify, and it has to reach full compliance. And the incentive runs on its own application windows, which are not the same as the compliance deadlines. The window for buildings over 220,000 sq ft has closed, and the window for 90,001–220,000 sq ft closed June 1, 2026. The remaining open window is for 50,001–90,000 sq ft buildings, closing June 1, 2027.
The money is real and still there: as of March 2026, $59 million of the $75 million pool remained, with about $16M reserved against approved applications. But it's first-come, first-served, and once it's drawn down the program closes. Early adoption is the only path where the state helps pay you to comply. After your window, the same work costs the same money, minus the incentive.
What to do this quarter
If you own a Tier 1 building and you haven't started, here's the realistic 90-day plan:
This month. Confirm covered/exempt status, pull twelve months of utility data, and set up Portfolio Manager. Even before the audit, accurate benchmarking tells you where the building actually stands relative to its EUI target.
Next month. Engage a qualified energy auditor for ASHRAE Level 2. Auditor availability is the bottleneck for everyone. The closer to a June deadline, the harder it gets to schedule a site visit, especially in the spring before each compliance date.
Quarter end.Have an Energy Management Plan and an O&M program drafted. These can be developed in parallel with the audit and don't depend on its findings.
When you're evaluating consultants, ask whether they stay through implementation or hand you a report and walk away. Most audit engagements end at the report. The savings (and the compliance) only show up after.
The bottom line
CBPS isn't going away, isn't being delayed (despite occasional rumors), and isn't being softened. The deadlines are real, the penalties are real, and the incentive is finite.
If you own a covered building in Washington and you're not already on a compliance path, the most expensive choice you can make is to wait another quarter. Every month of delay costs both auditor availability and incentive headroom.
Tell me about your building and I'll tell you what I'd do.
Got a covered building?
Walk me through it. No hard pitch, just an honest read on where you stand.