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Storefront registration and vacancy: Local Law 157

New York City's storefront registry (Local Law 157 of 2019): which owners register their ground- and second-floor storefronts with the Department of Finance each year, the vacancy filings, what DOF publishes, and how many storefronts stand empty.

Local Law 157 of 2019 (LL157) created New York City's storefront registry and its yearly storefront registration: every year, owners of buildings with shops at street level register each ground- and second-floor storefront with the Department of Finance (DOF) — where it is, whether it was occupied or vacant, and when its last lease ends. DOF publishes the results, so anyone can see how many storefronts in a building, a block or a neighbourhood stand empty.

A storefront, in the law, is a ground- or second-floor space that is, or could be, used for retail — a shop, a restaurant, a bank, a salon — rather than an office whose only street presence is a name plate; storefronts are what the registry counts. For a landlord the registry is one more filing each year; for a tenant, a buyer or a lender it is the City's only street-by-street count of empty shops, filed by the people who own them.

The laws

The Council passed Local Law 157 in July 2019, and it became law without the Mayor's signature in August 2019. It made the storefront registration part of the owner's yearly income and expense filing, the RPIE. Local Law 95 of 2022 added the twice-yearly vacancy filings and put the last lease's end date in the public data. A companion law of 2019, Local Law 152, has the Department of Small Business Services survey storefronts on the street in parts of the City. The Council record shows no vacant-storefront law since 2022; a proposed registry of vacant commercial space is still in committee.

Who registers

  • Owners of tax class 2 and class 4 property — apartment buildings and commercial buildings — with a ground- or second-floor storefront, even owners otherwise exempt from the RPIE.
  • Class 1 owners only when the property is in a commercial zone and the storefront was vacant or used by the owner during the year.

Vacant lots, buildings that cannot be occupied, and offices with only a name plate outside are left out.

The filings

A storefront owner's filings under Local Law 157The annual registration, each JuneFiled with the RPIE: every ground- andsecond-floor storefront and its status onDecember 31.August 15: vacant on June 30A supplemental filing for storefrontsempty at mid-year (classes 2 and 4).February 15: vacant on December 31A second supplemental filing forstorefronts empty at year's end.published by DOFOpen DataEach storefront's address, whether it wasvacant, and its last lease's end date.
The yearly registration and the two vacancy filings.
  • The annual registration, filed with the RPIE each June: every storefront, and whether it was vacant on December 31 of the year before.
  • The vacancy filings, added by Local Law 95 of 2022 for classes 2 and 4: by August 15, any storefront vacant on June 30; and by February 15, any storefront vacant on December 31.

Filing is online, through DOF's portal. Not filing is treated as not filing the RPIE, whose penalties rise with the property's assessed value — from $300 for the smallest properties to $100,000 for the largest, and up to 5% of the assessed value after three years in a row.

Storefront vacancy, in the registry, is what the owner reports: a storefront is vacant when no business occupies it on the date the filing asks about, and the count of storefronts vacant — of vacant storefronts — is the owners' own. A space under construction or renovation is not counted as vacant.

What DOF publishes

For each storefront DOF publishes the address and lot, whether it was vacant on December 31 and June 30, whether it was under construction, the business activity reported, and the end date of the last lease. Rents and floor areas are published only as averages for an area, and the owner's contact details never.

By BlockLot Intelligence's count of DOF's published filings, owners registered 62,128 storefronts for 2024, on 29,171 tax lots, and reported 5,388 of them — 8.7% — vacant on December 31. The share peaked at 11.3% for 2020.

Registered storefronts reported vacant on December 31
2019 (75,250 storefronts)9.2%2020 (75,540 storefronts)11.3%2021 (63,456 storefronts)10.4%2022 (64,092 storefronts)9.6%2023 (62,923 storefronts)8.8%2024 (62,128 storefronts)8.7%

Each reporting year's registrations under Local Law 157: the share of registered storefronts their owners reported vacant on December 31. The early and mid-year vacancy filings are not added in. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

These rates count every filing, class 1 included, and match the rates the Council's staff quoted from the same data — 9.6% for 2022. DOF's own figures count classes 2 and 4 only and run a few tenths of a point lower: 8.4% for 2024. The vacancy filings list only empty storefronts, so they have no total to divide by, and they are counted apart — 2,320 storefronts were reported vacant on the February filing for 2024, fewer than the annual registration's count, a gap the Council's staff read as under-reporting.

Owners also say what each storefront is used for. DOF's file prints that answer as filed through 2022, and not in a usable form after, so the mix below is 2022's.

What registered storefronts were used for, 2022
Retail29.9%Food services21.3%Other15.9%No business activity identified10.7%Miscellaneous other service6.9%Health care or social assistance6.3%Finance and insurance2.2%Everything else6.8%

The primary business activity owners gave for each storefront in the 2022 registrations, as a share of all of them. BlockLot Intelligence, computed October 11, 2026.

A worked example

A retail building on Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side, owned by a company, registered the same eight storefronts every year from 2019 to 2024. Its owner reported one vacant at the end of 2019, three at the end of 2020 and of 2021, two at the end of 2022 — and none at the end of 2023 or 2024. Read year by year, the registry shows the building's ground floor emptying in the pandemic and filling again.

Where you see this in BlockLot

On a building's page, the Storefront history card shows each year's registered storefronts, how many the owner reported vacant, and the vacancy rate, with a small trend line; the Businesses on record card sets the latest year beside the businesses BlockLot finds at the address. Area pages count storefronts and vacancy for every block, ZIP code and neighbourhood.

A building's storefronts and vacancy, year by year, as its owner filed them.
A building's storefronts and vacancy, year by year, as its owner filed them.
  1. Share of the storefronts reported vacant

Questions people ask

Who has to register storefronts? Owners of class 2 and class 4 property with a ground- or second-floor storefront, every year with the RPIE; class 1 owners only for a storefront in a commercial zone that was vacant or owner-used.

When are the filings due? The annual registration with the RPIE each June; the vacancy filings by August 15 (vacant on June 30) and February 15 (vacant on December 31).

What is the penalty for not registering? The same as for not filing the RPIE: from $300 for the smallest properties to $100,000 for the largest, rising after three years.

How many storefronts are vacant in New York City? By the owners' own filings, about one in eleven or twelve registered storefronts was vacant at the end of 2024; the share was highest at the end of 2020.

Is a storefront being renovated counted as vacant? No. The law does not count a space under construction or renovation as vacant.

Can I see a building's storefront filings? Yes. DOF publishes every filing as Open Data, and BlockLot shows each building's storefront history on its page.

  • NYC Local Laws for building owners — What a New York City Local Law is, how one is made and numbered, and the Local Laws that put duties on building owners — energy and emissions, facades and gas piping, lead paint, mold and pests, storefronts, short-term rentals and broker fees.
  • Challenging an assessment: RPIE, the Tax Commission and SCAR — How to challenge a NYC property assessment: DOF's Request for Review, the Tax Commission, the RPIE filing, SCAR and Article 7 — with success rates.
  • Department of Finance (DOF) — What New York City's Department of Finance does for property — the yearly assessment roll, the property tax bill and its calendar, the City Register that records deeds and mortgages, the transfer taxes, exemptions and the charges other agencies put on a property's account.
  • Building class codes and land use: what A1, C6, D4, O4 and R4 mean — How the Department of Finance's two-character building class describes every property in New York City, the 25 letter families from A to Z, the codes beginners meet most, how a building class relates to the tax class, and City Planning's eleven land-use categories built from it.

Sources

By BlockLot. Reviewed October 9, 2026. Figures by BlockLot Intelligence, computed from public data on October 11, 2026. This page explains the rules in general; it is not legal or tax advice. For a decision about a specific property, check the official source or ask a professional. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.