BEPS Deadlines in DC and Maryland: Owner's Guide

BEPS deadlines in DC and Maryland are now operating realities, not future policy talk. If you own or manage commercial buildings in the District, anywhere in Maryland, or specifically in Montgomery County, there is a decent chance at least one building in your portfolio is already inside a compliance cycle with a date attached — and in DC, the first compliance period ends December 31, 2026, which makes this the year the math gets unavoidable.

BEPS stands for Building Energy Performance Standards: laws that set a minimum energy performance level for existing buildings and require underperformers to improve by a deadline or pay. This is a different animal from benchmarking, which only requires reporting your numbers. BEPS grades the numbers, and the DMV happens to host three separate programs — DC’s under the Clean Energy DC Omnibus Act, Maryland’s under the Climate Solutions Now Act, and Montgomery County’s own county-level BEPS — each with its own thresholds, cycles, and paperwork.

One caveat up front, because this is compliance content: the summaries below reflect the programs as of October 2026, and regulators continue to refine regulations, deadlines, and thresholds. Verify current requirements against the official sources before making decisions — the DC Department of Energy and Environment BEPS helpdesk (opens in a new tab) and the Maryland Department of the Environment BEPS page (opens in a new tab) are the authorities, along with Montgomery County DEP (opens in a new tab) for the county program.

What is a building energy performance standard?

A BEPS is a legally enforceable minimum energy or emissions performance level for existing buildings, with a multi-year compliance cycle to meet it and financial consequences for falling short. Unlike benchmarking laws, which require disclosure, a BEPS requires improvement: buildings below the standard must cut energy use or emissions by the end of the cycle.

The policy logic is local and concrete. Buildings are the largest emissions source in a dense city like the District, so cities and states regulate them the way they regulate everything else that emits.

Buildings were the main source of the District of Columbia’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, at 68 percent of the citywide total, ahead of transportation (24 percent) and waste (8 percent). — DC Department of Energy and Environment, Greenhouse Gas Inventories (opens in a new tab)

The mechanics differ by program, but the pattern is shared: a square-footage threshold defines covered buildings, benchmarking data (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager) determines who is above or below the standard, buildings below the line choose a compliance pathway, and in DC the threshold ratchets down over successive cycles to pull in smaller buildings.

Who is covered by DC BEPS, and what are the deadlines?

DC BEPS currently covers privately owned buildings of 50,000 square feet and up (and District-owned buildings at 10,000), with the threshold dropping to 25,000 square feet for BEPS Period 2, which begins January 1, 2029, and to 10,000 square feet in 2035. Both dates come from a one-year delay in the District’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Support Act, per the DC CFO’s fiscal impact statement (opens in a new tab); the online DC Code still showed 2028 and 2034 as of October 2026. Under D.C. Code § 8-1772.21 (opens in a new tab), standards are set by property type and can be no lower than the District median ENERGY STAR score for that type, and buildings scoring below their standard must complete a compliance pathway within the compliance cycle: six years for Period 1, five years for later periods.

The dates that matter, per DOEE’s BEPS timeline (opens in a new tab):

• First compliance period: 2021 through December 31, 2026. Covered buildings that scored below the standard in the 2021 evaluation must have completed their pathway by the end of 2026 — under the performance pathway, a reduction of more than 20% in normalized site energy use intensity in 2026 compared with the 2018–2019 average, or the prescriptive or alternative equivalents. End-of-cycle reporting is due May 3, 2027.
• BEPS Period 2: begins January 1, 2029, the date by which DOEE must set new standards, and coverage expands to private buildings of 25,000 square feet and up. For Period 1, DOEE evaluated buildings on their 2019 benchmarking data, so owners of buildings in the 25,000–50,000 range should treat the next few reporting years as baseline-shaping and confirm with DOEE which year it will use.
• Annual benchmarking continues throughout — it’s the data layer the standards are applied to, filed through Portfolio Manager by May 1 each year for private buildings of 10,000 square feet or more, under the District’s benchmarking law (opens in a new tab).

DC’s pathways give real flexibility: the performance pathway (measured energy reduction), the prescriptive pathway (defined actions like audits and implemented measures), the standard target pathway for high-performing property types, and alternative compliance pathway options for buildings that meet specific criteria, all set out in DOEE’s BEPS Guidebook v1.2 (opens in a new tab) (August 2026). Separately, DOEE can grant a delay of up to three years for circumstances such as financial distress, a change of ownership, major renovation, or pending demolition, and can exempt a building from the cycle for demolition, financial distress, or low occupancy in either of the two years before the cycle. The wrong move is choosing none of them and discovering the penalty schedule instead.

Who is covered by Maryland BEPS, and what are the deadlines?

Maryland’s BEPS, created by the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022, covers commercial and multifamily buildings of 35,000 square feet and larger across the state outside Montgomery County (excluding parking garage area), with limited exemptions such as manufacturing, agricultural, K-12 school, hospital, and federally owned buildings, according to MDE’s BEPS program overview (opens in a new tab). The program is administered by the Maryland Department of the Environment, and its structure is emissions-based rather than ENERGY STAR-score-based: covered buildings must reduce net direct greenhouse gas emissions on a trajectory to net-zero direct emissions by 2040, with interim standards starting in 2030.

The working timeline as MDE has structured it:

• Benchmarking and data reporting began in 2025, with covered buildings reporting energy use and emissions data to MDE through Portfolio Manager by June 1 each year. The data must be third-party verified in 2026 and every five years after (for 2026, MDE accepted reports submitted by June 30 as timely — check MDE for any extension in later years).
• Interim performance standards take effect in 2030 and tighten in 2035, capping each building’s direct (on-site fossil fuel) emissions per square foot at a level set for its property type in the BEPS regulation, COMAR 26.28 (opens in a new tab).
• Net-zero direct emissions by 2040 is the endpoint, which in practice means a long-run electrification plan for gas-fired heating, water heating, and other combustion equipment in covered buildings.

Because Maryland’s standard targets direct emissions, the strategic implication is different from DC’s: efficiency alone helps, but the 2040 endpoint is about replacing combustion equipment at end of life with electric alternatives. Owners with boilers and gas RTUs in covered Maryland buildings should be aligning equipment replacement cycles with that trajectory now, since a boiler installed in 2028 would be only 12 years old when the 2040 final standard of zero net direct emissions applies. MDE also intends to adopt a site energy use intensity (EUI) standard in 2027, so plan for an efficiency target as well. And the regulation lets owners pay an alternative compliance fee for emissions above the standard: $230 per metric ton of CO2e for 2030 (in 2020 dollars, adjusted for inflation), rising $4 a year. Confirm current numbers with MDE.

What about Montgomery County’s BEPS?

Montgomery County runs its own, earlier-moving BEPS, covering buildings down to 25,000 square feet — a lower threshold than Maryland’s statewide 35,000. Enacted as Bill 16-21 in 2022, the county program is administered by the Department of Environmental Protection, phases in by building group, and sets interim and final site-EUI-based performance standards by property type. Per DEP’s covered buildings and deadlines page (opens in a new tab), county-owned buildings and non-residential buildings of 50,000 square feet and up are evaluated on calendar year 2028 for the interim standard and 2033 for the final one; non-residential buildings of 25,000 to 50,000 square feet and multifamily buildings of 250,000 and up follow in 2030 and 2035, and multifamily buildings of 25,000 to 250,000 square feet in 2031 and 2036.

If you own in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Rockville, or Gaithersburg, the operational takeaway is that the county program is the one you answer to. Under 2025 state legislation effective October 1, 2025, MDE says buildings in Montgomery County are no longer required to take part in the statewide BEPS. The county uses energy use intensity (EUI) targets rather than the state’s direct-emissions limits, covered buildings benchmark and report to DEP by June 1 each year, and buildings between 25,000 and 35,000 square feet are covered locally even though they fall below the state threshold. Confirm your building group and deadlines on the county DEP BEPS page linked above.

What are the penalties for missing BEPS deadlines?

Real money, structured as alternative compliance payments or fines. In DC, a building that fails its pathway owes an alternative compliance payment of up to $10 per square foot of gross floor area, capped at $7.5 million per building and reduced in proportion to the progress made toward the pathway target, per the Guidebook’s enforcement chapter. On a 100,000-square-foot building that makes no progress, that maximum is $1 million. DOEE can also issue civil infraction fines, such as $1,000 for failing to select a pathway. Maryland charges the per-ton alternative compliance fee described above for emissions over the standard, and Montgomery County treats a missed benchmarking report, standard, or improvement plan as a Class A civil violation: a $500 fine, and $750 for later citations, according to DEP’s BEPS enforcement page (opens in a new tab).

The quieter penalties matter too: DOEE publishes benchmarking results and BEPS status, lender ESG questionnaires can ask about BEPS status and compliance plans, and a building carrying unresolved BEPS exposure is a harder sale and a harder refinance. Compliance status is becoming part of the asset’s paper, the same way an open code violation is.

What should owners do this year?

Establish coverage, know your number, and get a pathway on paper — in that order, this quarter rather than this cycle’s final year. For DC buildings in the first compliance period, 2026 is the final year; work not already underway needs to be scoped immediately, and buildings that cannot physically comply in time should be talking to DOEE about a delay of compliance rather than defaulting into penalties. Per DOEE’s end-of-cycle reminders (opens in a new tab), the deadline to request a delay or exemption is April 1, 2027, and pathway changes and alternative compliance pathway applications close December 31, 2026.

A practical sequence:

1. Coverage check. List every building against the three programs’ thresholds: 50,000 (DC now, 25,000 from 2029), 35,000 (Maryland, outside Montgomery County), 25,000 (Montgomery County). Include buildings that will be pulled in by the next threshold drop.
2. Data audit. Confirm Portfolio Manager is accurate — floor area, property type, all meters. Misclassified property type or missing tenant meters can put you on the wrong side of a standard erroneously, in either direction.
3. Gap analysis. Compare each covered building’s score or emissions against its applicable standard and quantify the distance.
4. Pathway selection and project scoping. For buildings below the line, an energy audit and retro-commissioning scope typically anchors the plan — the same measures with the strongest standalone ROI are usually the compliance measures. For Maryland buildings, overlay equipment replacement timing against the 2030/2040 emissions trajectory.
5. Calendar and ownership. Filing dates, evaluation dates, and cycle deadlines go on a compliance calendar with a named owner, alongside your other regulatory obligations.

This is the core of our energy management practice for DMV portfolios: benchmarking hygiene, gap analysis, and the audit-to-implementation work that turns a BEPS deadline into a funded project plan instead of a penalty. And once more for the record: regulations move — verify current thresholds, dates, and payment rates on the DOEE and MDE pages linked above before you commit budget.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between benchmarking and BEPS?

Benchmarking requires you to measure and report your building’s energy use, typically through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager; BEPS uses that data to enforce a minimum performance level. Benchmarking noncompliance is a paperwork fine, while BEPS noncompliance means your building underperformed the standard and owes either improvement or substantial alternative compliance payments.

My DC building is 30,000 square feet. Am I covered?

Not in BEPS Period 1, but you will be in Period 2, which begins January 1, 2029, when DC’s threshold for private buildings drops from 50,000 to 25,000 square feet. You already have to benchmark by May 1 each year, and that benchmarking data is what DOEE evaluates against the standards, so improvements made now both reduce operating costs and improve your standing when the evaluation comes. Verify the current cycle rules with DOEE.

Does Maryland BEPS apply outside Montgomery County?

Yes — the state program under the Climate Solutions Now Act covers buildings of 35,000 square feet and up statewide, including Baltimore, Prince George’s County, and everywhere else, with limited exemptions. Montgomery County is the exception: since October 1, 2025, buildings there no longer have to take part in the statewide program and follow the county’s own BEPS instead, which reaches down to 25,000 square feet. Check MDE and county DEP guidance for your building.

Can I just pay the penalty instead of doing the work?

In DC, paying is a poor trade: the alternative compliance payment can reach $10 per square foot (capped at $7.5 million per building, per DOEE), it buys no improvement, and you still own an underperforming building facing the next cycle. In Maryland, MDE treats paying the alternative compliance fee as full compliance, but the fee is owed for every ton over the standard, every year. Delays, exemptions, and alternative compliance options for genuinely constrained buildings (demolition, low occupancy, financial distress) are a different, legitimate route that the regulator must approve.

What compliance pathway should most buildings choose?

There is no default answer, and DOEE notes that no pathway guarantees success. The performance pathway gives the most flexibility but judges compliance on a measured result (for DC’s Period 1, a reduction of more than 20% in site energy use intensity); the prescriptive pathway lowers risk because compliance rests on completing defined actions; alternative compliance fits edge cases. Choose based on an energy audit, not a guess.