Federal Agencies Use Less Than 60% Of Their Space At Nearly 10,000 Sites, New Data Shows

The federal government for the first time has released a trove of data showing how much of its footprint is being used — or not used — in close to real time. 

As mandated by a 2024 law, the 23 largest agencies measured the utilization rates of their leased and owned buildings between Jan. 12 and March 6. 

That data released Tuesday by the federal government’s real estate arm, the General Services Administration, shows that 9,766 government spaces, including offices and other properties, fell below a 60% utilization rate.

It comes as the Trump administration is aggressively moving to shrink the federal footprint, selling buildings and eliminating billions of dollars of deferred maintenance expenses that have saddled the federal portfolio. 

“Today’s data shines a light on the usage of federal buildings and gives GSA a clear path to smarter space allocation,” GSA Administrator Edward Forst said in a release. “With the problem defined, we can act: increase transparency, cut waste, and concentrate on a stronger core.” 

“Eliminating underutilized, delinquent maintenance-heavy buildings is a top priority,” he added. 

The GSA’s release notes that the “initial data remains imperfect” but says the findings are “a necessary step that will allow [the GSA] to continue to refine the methodology and consistently measure the space while bringing transparency and federal accountability to the forefront.”

The 2024 law under which agencies were mandated to measure their space — the USE IT Act — was signed by then-President Joe Biden during his final weeks in office.

The act directs that for spaces that fall below a 60% utilization threshold, agencies and the GSA must work together to reduce the tenant agency’s space. They could take measures including consolidating it with another agency, selling or disposing of excess space, and adjusting square footage requirements for replacement space.

Forst and Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania who chairs the subcommittee overseeing the GSA, said in a joint op-ed that no agency hits that 60% occupancy benchmark. 

"In any well-run organization, whether it be public or private sector, that should be a cause for concern,” they wrote in the op-ed published by Government Executive. 

The data is the deepest look yet at space utilization across the federal government’s nationwide owned and leased footprint, but there had been previous measures of agency headquarters. 

A Public Buildings Reform Board report in March 2024 had found that federal agencies were using just 12% of the space in their headquarters buildings on average. And a Government Accountability Office report in July 2023 found that a majority of the agencies it surveyed used 25% or less of their headquarters.

The momentum is picking up to move agencies out of owned space, freeing up buildings for disposition. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy are all moving out of their giant headquarters buildings in D.C., all of which are slated for disposition. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also set to move out of its longtime home on Pennsylvania Avenue.

During a congressional hearing last month, Forst said the GSA is looking at three or four opportunities to colocate agencies. 

Last week, the GSA sold a large office building in D.C., the nearly 1M SF Regional Office Building that had formerly housed GSA National Capital Region employees but had been vacant since March 2025.

The GSA lists dozens of other properties slated for accelerated disposition on its website, including federal office buildings and courthouses, garages, and warehouses.

While the newly released GSA database doesn’t include the names or addresses of specific federally owned or leased properties, it lists the tenant agencies' names and their square footage alongside their utilization percentages. Agencies were able to exclude certain properties from the reporting if publishing the data would be detrimental to national security. 

In a topline analysis, the GSA broke down agency utilization rates in the usable square footage across their entire reported owned and leased portfolio.

The agencies below do not represent the full 23 agencies that reported data. The GSA says it will update the page as “additional summaries are received.”

• The Department of Agriculture reported 19.1M SF of owned and leased space with a 26.2% utilization rate.
• The Department of Education reported 617K SF of owned and leased space with a 20.7% utilization rate.
• The Department of Energy reported 4.4M SF of owned and leased space with a 33% utilization rate.
• The Department of Justice reported 42.6M SF of owned and leased space with a 23.8% utilization rate. 
• The Department of Labor reported 3.3M SF of owned and leased space with a 26.5% utilization rate.
• The Department of State reported 7.4M SF of owned and leased space with a 35.4% utilization rate. 
• The Department of the Interior reported 10.3M SF of owned and leased space with a 35.9% utilization rate. 
• The Department of the Treasury reported 25M SF of owned and leased space with a 31.4% utilization rate. 
• The Department of Transportation reported 6.2M SF of owned and leased space with a 24.5% utilization rate.
• The Environmental Protection Agency reported 2.9M SF of owned and leased space with a 27.3% utilization rate.
• The General Services Administration reported 1.6M SF of owned and leased space with a 40% utilization rate. 
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported 11.2M SF of owned and leased space with a 16% utilization rate. 
• The National Science Foundation reported 800K SF of owned and leased space with a 3.3% utilization rate. 
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported 823K SF of owned and leased space with a 28.4% utilization rate. 
• The Office of Personnel Management reported 763K SF of owned and leased space with an 18.8% utilization rate.
• The Small Business Administration reported 1.1M SF of owned and leased space with an 18.6% utilization rate. 
• The Social Security Administration reported 22.4M SF of owned and leased space with a 22.8% utilization rate.