NYC Co-op and Condo Tax Abatement: Is It Worth Paying Prevailing Wage? (Board Calculator)

Updated Nov 7, 2026 · 15 min readShare

What the Co-op/Condo Abatement Is

The Cooperative and Condominium Property Tax Abatement is a New York City tax cut for apartments that are their owner's primary residence. The Department of Finance (DOF) runs it. The building applies, not each owner: a condo's board or managing agent files for the whole condo, and a co-op board files for the co-op.

The size of the cut depends on the building's average assessed value per home, the city's taxable value, which is far below market price:

Source: NYC Department of Finance, Cooperative and Condominium Property Tax Abatement.

Most new Manhattan and Brooklyn condos are in the 17.5% tier. In the 238 newer condos we studied, the typical home getting the abatement saved $2,800 in 2025/26.

Who qualifies, and who doesn't

• Primary residence only. The home must be where the owner lives.
• Three homes at most. An owner with more than three homes in the same building gets none.
• No LLCs or sponsors. A home owned by a business such as an LLC, or still held by the developer, doesn't qualify. DOF has a narrow waiver for some LLCs. A trust qualifies only if the home is the primary residence of the trustee, all the beneficiaries or the life tenant.
• Bought by January 5 for the tax year starting the next July 1.
• No stacking. A building on 421-a, J-51, 420-c, 421-b or 421-g can't get it until that benefit ends. HDFC, Mitchell-Lama and some other subsidized buildings can't get it at all.

That LLC rule is why who bought matters. Every home bought through an LLC, and every pied-à-terre or rented-out home, adds to the building's costs but gets no abatement. See who buys NYC condos in their own name.

The Prevailing Wage Rule

Since tax year 2022/23, larger and higher-value buildings must file a Prevailing Wage Affidavit every year to keep the abatement. It applies if your building has:

• 30 or more homes and an average assessed value per home over $60,000, or
• fewer than 30 homes and an average over $100,000.

DOF figures the average by taking the building's total assessed value, multiplying by the residential share, and dividing by the number of homes. It publishes the list of buildings that must file each January.

The affidavit certifies that all building service employees, now and later, get the prevailing wage for as long as the building has the abatement. It's signed by a board officer or an authorized agent. A building with no staff still files, checking a box. The stakes are high:

• No affidavit, no abatement, for everyone. If it isn't filed, the whole building loses the abatement for that year. DOF says there is no exception process.
• Filed but not paid: the building faces civil penalties and can lose the abatement.
• Opting out: a board that decides it isn't worth it files a one-time opt-out form. The abatement ends the next July 1. Coming back later means a new application.

Deadline: for tax year 2027/28, applications and affidavits are due February 16, 2027.

In our data, 71% of the newer condos we studied are over the line, 170 of 238. Below it, the abatement costs a building nothing but the paperwork.

What Prevailing Wage Costs

The NYC Comptroller publishes the rates in its Building Service Employee schedule. For residential buildings, the July 2026 to June 2027 schedule sets:

Source: Office of the NYC Comptroller, Building Service Employee Prevailing Wage Schedule, July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027. Benefits were $16.07 an hour through December 2026. New hires can start lower, and benefits are paid on up to 40 hours a week. Ten paid holidays and vacation (three days after six months, rising to ten days after a year) are owed on top.

A full-time porter at the 2027 rate costs about $107,000 a year in wages, benefits and payroll taxes.

The schedule tracks the building workers' union contract (Local 32BJ). So a union building usually already pays it, and the rule costs it little or nothing. The cost falls on non-union buildings, which is most new condos (see what condo staff cost).

Our assumption for a non-union building: $22.00 an hour, $3.00 an hour in benefits and 10% in payroll taxes, about $57,000 a year per full-time worker. On those numbers, prevailing wage adds about $50,000 a year per full-time porter or doorperson, and $57,000 per handyperson. Put in your own figures in the calculator.

Ask your lawyer: whether a resident superintendent counts as a "building service employee" depends on the job. The schedule has no separate super title.

Who Actually Gets the Abatement: Owners vs. Investors

We matched 11,810 homes in 238 new condos (first sales by 2023) to DOF's abatement records for 2025/26, and to the deeds from the developer's first sales.

• 112 of 238 buildings (47%) had no home getting it. Buildings below the wage line skip it almost as often (46%) as those above it (48%). So the wage rule isn't the main reason. Many boards just never file.
• Where the building files, about half the homes get it. In those buildings, 79% of first buyers bought in their own name, but only 48% of homes get the abatement. The gap is owners who rent out the home, use it part-time, or never told the managing agent they live there.
• The more investors, the less it's worth. Where fewer than half the first buyers used their own name, 16% of homes get the abatement. Where 95% or more did, 61% do.

This matters for fairness as well as the total. Staff wages are paid out of common charges (or co-op maintenance) by every owner. The abatement goes only to the owners who qualify. In an investor-heavy building, a raise for prevailing wage is paid by everyone and repaid to a few.

Building Examples

Homes: the plan's residential units. Assessed value: the average of the homes matched to the tax roll, tax year 2025/26. Abatement: the Department of Finance's records for the matched homes. Buyers: the sponsor's first sale of each home, from ACRIS.

• Central Park Tower has the highest assessed values in this group: about $752,000 a home. Only 24% of its first buyers used their own name, and 17 of 172 homes get the abatement. Still, those few homes save $13,900 each, $236,000 in all. That's enough to cover the gap for about 4.7 full-time non-union porters, on our assumptions. In a large staffed tower the answer turns on whether staff are already union.
• 98 Front Street in Brooklyn (165 homes) is owner-heavy: 91% of first buyers used their own name, and 63% of homes get the abatement, $318,000 a year. That pays for the gap on about 6.3 non-union porters.
• 323 Lenox Road in Brooklyn (47 homes) is just over the wage line, at about $106,000 a home. Its 33 abated homes save $75,000 a year, about 1.5 porters' worth of gap. With one or two non-union staff, it comes out ahead; with a bigger crew, it may not.
• Q in Brooklyn (55 homes) averages about $44,000 a home. That's below the $60,000 line, so it doesn't need the affidavit, and it gets the top 28.1% tier: $64,000 a year with no strings.
• 734 5th Avenue in Brooklyn (20 homes, about $70,000 each) is under 30 homes and under $100,000, so no affidavit either. 15 of 18 homes get $23,000 a year between them.

Buildings Where the Abatement Stopped

We checked DOF's tax bills from fiscal 2024 on. In 6 buildings, at least half the homes had the abatement in 2024 or 2025, and none had it in 2025/26 or on the 2026/27 bills: 561 Pacific Street (63 homes, Brooklyn), 475 Washington Avenue (60 homes, Brooklyn), Greystone (12 homes, Queens), 101 (22 homes, Manhattan), 359 Second Avenue (53 homes, Manhattan) and 11-16 Main Avenue (30 homes, Queens). All 5 are over the wage line.

The bills can't tell us why. It may have been an opt-out, a missed affidavit or a missed renewal. But at 561 Pacific Street, where 98% of first buyers used their own name and 100% of homes had the abatement in fiscal 2024, it's worth roughly $236,000 a year to the owners, based on their tax and own-name share. If you own in one of these buildings, ask the board.

Calculator: Should Your Building Opt In?

Pick your building to fill in its numbers from our data, or type your own. Co-ops: enter the building's total assessed value divided by the number of apartments, and your best count of shareholders who live there.

How a Board Should Decide

1. Check if the rule applies. Look for your building on DOF's list of required filers, published each January, or use the calculator.
2. Count who qualifies. Ask the managing agent how many homes are on the abatement list now. Compare it with how many owners live there. Owners who moved in or stopped renting out their home often never tell anyone.
3. Price your payroll. List each staff member, their hours, wage and benefits. If you're union, check that the contract matches the Comptroller's schedule.
4. Look at who pays. If many homes are owned by LLCs or used part-time, the cost lands on owners who don't benefit. That's a real fairness question to put to the owners.
5. Decide before the deadline. February 16, 2027 for tax year 2027/28. Missing it costs the whole building a year of abatement.

Your offering plan's budget (Schedule B) lists the staff the developer planned, union or not. See how to read Schedule A and Schedule B.

For Co-ops

A co-op has one tax bill for the whole building. The co-op board applies, DOF credits the abatement on the building's bill, and the co-op passes it to shareholders who qualify, usually as a credit on maintenance. The same rules apply: primary residence, no more than three apartments, no business owners, and the wage rule if the building is over the line. For the average, DOF takes the building's assessed value times its residential share, divided by the number of apartments. Our data covers condos only, so for a co-op, enter your own numbers in the calculator.

Related: An Advisor for Your Condo or Co-op Board That Knows How Every Other NYC Building Is Run · The NYC Condo Tax Breaks Most Owners Don't Know About (Beyond 421-a and 485-x)