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Yes, office vacancies remain elevated in the United States, but “empty downtowns” is not a nationwide condition. The answer depends on whether you mean fewer people entering offices, less office space occupied by tenants, or vacant space—and on which downtown and time period you are measuring. Those distinctions matter because downtowns also depend on residents, visitors, culture, retail, jobs, and commercial property-tax revenue.
Are offices still empty after remote work?
U.S. office vacancies remained 50% above pre-2020 rates in The Pew Charitable Trusts’ May 2026 national comparison. That means vacancy rates were elevated relative to before 2020; it does not mean that half of all U.S. office space was vacant. Pew also highlights potential effects beyond real estate, including city revenue, employment, housing, and downtown activity.
Remote and hybrid work contributed to the shift. Jordan Rappaport, author of a 2025 Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City analysis, writes: “Both fully remote and hybrid work have enabled companies to cut back on their office space.” But the scale of change differs sharply by market, and no single statistic establishes a national count of “empty downtowns.”
Why attendance, occupied space, and vacancy are different
These measures describe related but distinct things. Attendance counts people entering offices; occupied space measures how much rentable office area tenants occupy; availability includes space marketed to tenants and may differ from vacancy. One measure cannot be substituted for another.
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- Attendance: A badge-swipe measure can fall when employees visit less often, even if employers still lease their offices.
- Occupied space: A tenant may continue to occupy space under a lease even when fewer workers use it day to day.
- Availability and vacancy: Availability can include space being marketed, while vacancy measures space that is unoccupied under a source’s definition.
New York illustrates the timing difference: office attendance plunged before vacancy rose, as tenants remained in place under leases. Manhattan’s central business district availability later fell from 18% at mid-2024 to roughly 14%, according to the New York City Comptroller’s 2026 report. Yet inflation-adjusted average gross asking rents remained nearly 35% below their year-end 2019 level. Lower availability therefore does not by itself show a full return to earlier market conditions.
Why downtown office markets have diverged
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City compared 55 medium and large downtown office markets. From late 2019 through 2024 Q3, occupied office space fell 29% in downtown San Francisco and more than 19% in Denver, Seattle, and Portland. Over the same period, it rose 16% in Nashville and more than 6% in Memphis, Tampa, and Fort Worth. These are changes in occupied space—not attendance—and the city figures should not be treated as interchangeable with other measures or periods.
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Attendance also remained well below pre-pandemic levels in the Kansas City Fed’s separate analysis of 10 large metropolitan areas: by March 2025, weekly badge-swipe activity had plateaued around 50% of its pre-pandemic level. The report put San Francisco at roughly 40% and Austin at 60%. Those figures describe office visits, not the share of space leased or the vacancy rate.
More than job mix helps explain the differences
In the Kansas City Fed analysis, occupation and industry composition could explain no more than 18% of the variation in post-pandemic occupied office space across and within downtowns. The author also identifies transit, parking, walkable amenities, safety, and building quality as possible factors affecting a downtown’s appeal. The analysis does not establish that any one of those factors caused a particular city’s outcome.
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Do signs of recovery mean downtowns are back?
Not necessarily. City indicators can point in different directions at the same time, because office attendance is only one part of downtown activity.
- Washington, DC: In 2025, office attendance reached 48% of pre-pandemic activity for March through December, and cultural attendance rose 9%. Downtown employment nevertheless fell 2.8% to 204,000, according to DowntownDC BID’s May 2026 report release.
- Portland: The Portland Metro Chamber reported in 2026 that Central City office leasing was at a record low and vacant office inventory at a record high for 2025. Total foot traffic had recovered to about 86% of its pre-pandemic level.
- Boston and the national trend: The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reported that national downtown vacancy had plateaued from 2024 Q2 through 2026 Q1 before dipping to 19.1% in 2026 Q2; Boston downtown vacancy was 17.7% that quarter. The report also described office rents as rising in recent quarters.
These reports use different geographic boundaries, measures, and periods, so their figures are useful as local signals rather than a single apples-to-apples ranking. They show why a downtown can have stronger cultural attendance or foot traffic while office leasing, employment, or vacancy remains weak.
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What office vacancies can mean for cities and household finances
Underused commercial property can expose municipal budgets to risk because cities rely on commercial property taxes, Pew explains. The size of that exposure varies by city; the national comparison does not establish a specific local budget loss. A city’s tax base, property assessments, tax structure, and local market conditions matter.
For households, the effects are indirect and local rather than a uniform consequence of remote work. Changes in commercial property values and tax receipts can affect municipal finances, while shifts in jobs and downtown activity can shape local employment and services. Pew also identifies housing and broader downtown activity as part of the picture. Without city-specific fiscal evidence, it is not possible to infer a particular tax increase, service cut, or household cost from an office-vacancy statistic alone.
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How to read claims that a downtown is “empty”
Before comparing headlines or judging a city’s recovery, check what the figure actually measures and where it applies.
Quick Recap
- Identify the metric: Is it office attendance, occupied space, availability, vacancy, employment, or foot traffic?
- Check the geography: A central business district, downtown, central city, and metropolitan area are not the same boundary.
- Keep the period attached: A 2025 attendance figure cannot be compared directly with a vacancy figure from a different year as if both measured the same recovery.
- Look beyond offices: Residents, visitors, cultural activity, retail, employment, and municipal revenue all help describe downtown health.
- Treat causes carefully: Remote and hybrid work have enabled space reductions, but local outcomes also vary with other characteristics; the cited analysis does not prove a single cause for each city.
Sources and city-level context
- The Pew Charitable Trusts, “With Revenue at Risk, Cities Seek to Overcome Office Vacancies” (May 2026)
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jordan Rappaport, “Accounting for Changes in Downtown Office Occupancy Since the Pandemic,” Economic Review 110(3), 2025
- Office of the New York City Comptroller, “NYC’s Office Market: Doom Loop or Boom Loop?” (2026)
- DowntownDC Business Improvement District, 2025 State of Downtown report release (May 2026)
- Portland Metro Chamber, “2026 State of Downtown & the Central City”
- Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “New England Economic Conditions through September 1, 2026”
- The Pew Charitable Trusts, “The Remote Work Challenge: Lessons From 5 Cities” (May 2026)
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