Last updated: June 9, 2026. By Will Tygart. Written for the property managers and facility managers who coordinate LL97 filings — every fee, portal, and gotcha below links to a primary source.
Filing a Local Law 97 report takes three separate city systems used in a fixed order — pay the fee in DOB NOW: Safety, stage your energy data in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, then file in BEAM — and because the systems sync overnight, the whole sequence physically cannot be completed in one day. That is not an exaggeration; it is the Department of Buildings’ own guidance. As DOB’s assistant commissioner for sustainability put it: “You cannot complete a report in one day and you need to plan for that” (Habitat, March 2025).
Here is the full walkthrough — who does what, in what order, with which fees — written for the person actually coordinating it.
Before you touch a portal: the five things to line up
- Confirm your building is on the Covered Buildings List. The current-year CBL is published on DOB’s LL97 page; coverage follows Department of Finance records (>25,000 gsf single building; 50,000 gsf tax-lot or condo-board aggregates). Disputes are filed as a ticket in BEAM — not by email, not by phone.
- Book your Registered Design Professional now. Only a NY-licensed PE or RA can certify and submit an Article 320 report. RDP calendars compress brutally in May and June; the engineer, not the portal, is the real bottleneck.
- Gather your identifiers: BBL (borough-block-lot) and BIN numbers, plus the ESPM property ID. Reports and fees are keyed to these.
- Align the email addresses. The owner, the property manager, and the energy consultant must use consistent email addresses across all three systems — mismatched emails are the most common reason a filing stalls with no error message.
- Check your ESPM property type. “Other” and “Mixed Use” property types are prohibited for LL97 reporting. If your building is typed that way in Portfolio Manager, fix it before anything else — the report cannot file against it.
Step 1 — DOB NOW: Safety: pay first, or nothing unlocks
All LL97 fees are paid in DOB NOW: Safety, and BEAM will not accept your report until the payment clears — which happens in the overnight sync, not instantly. The fee schedule (1 RCNY 101-03):
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Simple annual emissions report | $210 |
| Complex annual emissions report | $615 |
| Extension request | $60 |
| Good-faith-efforts report | $950 |
| Article 321 mediated resolution report | $800 |
Practical translation: if your deadline is June 30, the last safe day to pay is June 29 — and treating June 26 as the real deadline is what a coordinator who has done this before actually does.
Step 2 — ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager: where the numbers live
Your building’s energy consumption — electricity, gas, steam, fuel oil — flows from ESPM, the same system used for LL84 benchmarking (due the same May 1). Three coordinator notes:
- Find your ESPM Data Administrator early. Buildings change managers and consultants; the person who holds administrative rights over the ESPM record is frequently someone who left two years ago. Recovering access takes days you may not have.
- Whole-building data means tenant data. If tenants are separately metered, their consumption still counts against the building’s number — the annual tenant-data chase should start in January, not May.
- LL84 and LL97 feed from the same trough. Upload once, comply twice: current LL84 benchmarking is also a legal prerequisite for LL97 good-faith-efforts penalty mitigation.
Step 3 — BEAM: where the report actually files
The BEAM portal (launched March 3, 2025) is where the RDP certifies and submits the report — and where everything else LL97 happens too, as numbered tickets: extension requests, Covered Buildings List disputes, penalty-mitigation claims, and deductions. Two things to know:
- BEAM unlocks only after your DOB NOW payment has cleared overnight. Pay Monday, file Tuesday at the earliest.
- The RDP submits; you prepare. A smooth filing is one where the engineer logs in to a record with clean ESPM data, matching emails, and a cleared fee — and spends their billable hour certifying instead of troubleshooting.
The complete sequence, as a checklist
| When | Action | System | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Start tenant energy data collection; verify ESPM access and property type | ESPM | PM / consultant |
| February | Book the RDP; confirm CBL status; align emails across systems | — | PM |
| March–April | Complete ESPM data for the calendar year; run LL84 benchmarking | ESPM | Consultant |
| April | Pay the LL97 filing fee | DOB NOW: Safety | PM |
| By May 1 | RDP certifies and submits the report | BEAM | RDP |
| If late: by June 30 | File within grace, or pay $60 and apply for extension to Aug 29 | BEAM + DOB NOW | PM |
If something goes wrong
- Building should not be on the CBL (sold, demolished, under threshold)? File the CBL dispute ticket in BEAM with DOF documentation — do not simply skip filing; the $0.50/sqft/month non-filing penalty attaches to the listed property until the list changes.
- Over the cap? File anyway — filing and penalty exposure are separate questions — then pursue good-faith-efforts mitigation (1 RCNY 103-14(i)(2)) or, after a documented disaster, the penalty-zero provision (103-14(i)(1)).
- Missed June 30 with no extension? File as fast as possible: penalties accrue monthly and retroactively to May 1, so every month of delay on a 60,000 sq ft building is another $30,000.
What this means for each seat at the table
| If you are the… | Your part of the filing is… |
|---|---|
| Owner | Authorize fees early and sign off on the RDP engagement in Q1, not Q2. The cheapest LL97 program is the one that never touches the penalty schedule. |
| Facility / property manager | You are the integration layer: CBL status, identifiers, email consistency, ESPM access, tenant data, fee payment, and the RDP’s calendar. The portals don’t talk to each other — you are the API. |
| Tenant | Your meter data is part of the building’s filing. Answering the energy-data request in February instead of April is the single most helpful thing you can do — and increasingly, leases require it. |
Frequently asked questions
How do I file a Local Law 97 report?
In three systems, in order: pay the filing fee in DOB NOW: Safety ($210 simple / $615 complex), stage the building’s energy data in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, then have a Registered Design Professional certify and submit the report in the BEAM portal. The systems sync overnight, so the sequence takes a minimum of two days.
What is the BEAM portal?
BEAM (nyc.beam-portal.org) is DOB’s LL97 filing system, launched March 3, 2025. Reports, extension requests, Covered Buildings List disputes, and penalty-mitigation claims are all submitted there as numbered tickets.
Why won’t BEAM accept my report?
The two most common causes: the DOB NOW fee payment has not cleared the overnight sync yet, or the email addresses on the BEAM, DOB NOW, and ESPM records do not match. A prohibited ESPM property type (“Other” or “Mixed Use”) will also block the filing.
Can I file the LL97 report myself?
No. An Article 320 report must be certified and submitted by a Registered Design Professional — a NY-licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect. The property manager prepares and coordinates; the RDP files.
How much does it cost to file?
$210 for a simple annual report, $615 for a complex one, $60 for an extension application, $950 for a good-faith-efforts report — all paid in DOB NOW: Safety, all per 1 RCNY 101-03. The RDP’s professional fee is separate and market-rate.
Do LL84 and LL97 use the same data?
Largely yes — both draw on the building’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager record, and both are due May 1. Keeping LL84 benchmarking current is also a legal prerequisite for LL97 good-faith-efforts penalty mitigation.