BOMA 360: What the Designation Takes and How Operations Records Get You There

• BOMA 360 evaluates office and industrial buildings in six areas and lasts three years before renewal.
• Buildings need a standard operating procedures manual, a preventive maintenance program and ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmarking before they apply.
• The 2026 office criteria require at least 91 points, with a minimum in each of the six sections.
• BOMA cites Kingsley Associates research showing higher tenant satisfaction scores and CoStar research showing higher retention and rents for designated buildings.
• Much of the evidence is operational: maintenance programs, work orders, life safety procedures and contracts, emergency plans and indoor air quality reporting.

The BOMA 360 Performance Program is run by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International. It measures a building's operations and management against best practices and grants a designation to every building that meets the bar, rather than ranking buildings against each other (BOMA 360 FAQ).

The designation lasts three years and must then be renewed. Designated buildings can also enter BOMA's TOBY awards, which is one reason owners treat it as a first step rather than an end point.

All occupied commercial and industrial buildings are eligible, including owner occupied buildings, if they meet three prerequisites (BOMA 360 FAQ, updated March 2025):

• A standard operating procedures manual.
• A building preventive maintenance program.
• Energy benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, or BOMA BEST or a comparable program for Canadian buildings.

The application fee listed by BOMA is $995 for members and $1,500 for non members, with portfolio discounts of 5% to 25% depending on the number of buildings. Fees change, so confirm current amounts with BOMA before budgeting.

If benchmarking is new to your team, our guide to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager covers how to set it up and why equipment condition moves the score.

The 2026 office criteria score six sections and require at least 91 points in total, with a minimum in each section (BOMA 360 Office Criteria, 2026):

• Building operations and management: 14 of 18 points required.
• Life safety, security and risk management: 19 of 26.
• Training and education: 13 of 20.
• Energy: 16 of 23.
• Environmental, sustainability and wellness: 20 of 30.
• Tenant and occupant relations and community: 9 of about 13.

Renewing buildings receive an extra point in three of the sections. Because every section has its own minimum, a building strong on energy but weak on life safety documentation will not pass on total points alone.

BOMA points to independent research behind the program. It cites Kingsley Associates studies showing BOMA 360 buildings score higher in nearly all tenant satisfaction categories, and a CoStar study showing higher tenant retention and higher rental rates than non designated buildings (BOMA 360 FAQ). BOMA does not publish the exact figures on its FAQ page, so treat these as directional.

There is also an internal benefit. Working through the criteria is a structured audit of how the building is run, and the gaps it exposes are usually the same ones insurers, lenders and tenants ask about.

Many points come from showing that routine work is planned, done and documented. In the 2026 office criteria, these include:

• Preventive maintenance program: a task sheet, the name of the maintenance software or the maintenance contract.
• Work order management: evidence of a work order system, with a sample.
• Fire and life safety: compliance procedures, third party contracts for alarm, sprinkler, fire pump and backflow systems, code compliance documentation from the last five years and an inspection checklist or similar verification system.
• Emergency planning: preparedness, disaster recovery and pandemic response plans.
• Indoor air quality: an IAQ plan, a daily feedback system and annual testing that shows how findings were used, with humidity guidance of 40% to 60%.
• Tenant survey: a summary from a tenant or occupant survey within the last 12 months.

These overlap with topics we cover in depth: preventive maintenance, CMMS and work orders, fire code compliance and indoor air quality monitoring.

Buildings that run well can still come up short on paper. The usual reasons are about documentation, not performance:

• Out of date evidence: several items have time windows, such as a Portfolio Manager report and a tenant survey from the last 12 months and code compliance documents from the last five years.
• Work that happens but is not written down: rounds walked without a checklist, or repairs closed without notes, leave nothing to upload.
• Plans that live in one person's head: emergency, recovery and IAQ plans need to exist as documents, with a table of contents or summary the reviewer can see.
• Training records: the training and education section rewards documented staff training, which is easy to do and easy to forget to record.
• One weak section: because each section has its own minimum, a gap in one area can stop an otherwise strong application.

The fix is the same in each case: decide where each record lives, keep it current year round and check it against the criteria before the application window, not during it.

• Confirm the prerequisites: SOP manual, preventive maintenance program and a current Portfolio Manager report.
• Run a gap check: go through the current criteria section by section and mark what you can document today.
• Assign owners: engineering for operations and life safety, property management for tenant relations, sustainability or energy staff for their sections.
• Collect evidence early: recent contracts, inspection records, plans and survey summaries take the longest to pull together.
• Submit and plan renewal: applications are made online through BOMA, and the three year renewal is easier if records are kept current between cycles.

What is BOMA 360?

BOMA 360 is a designation from BOMA International for commercial and industrial buildings that meet best practices in six areas: operations and management, life safety and risk, training, energy, sustainability and wellness, and tenant relations.

How long does a BOMA 360 designation last?

Three years. Buildings then renew, and renewing buildings receive an extra point in three sections of the criteria.

What are the prerequisites for BOMA 360?

A standard operating procedures manual, a building preventive maintenance program and energy benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, or a comparable program for Canadian buildings.

How many points does BOMA 360 require?

The 2026 office criteria require at least 91 points in total, with a minimum score in each of the six sections.

Does an ENERGY STAR label count toward BOMA 360?

An ENERGY STAR label is not required, but Portfolio Manager benchmarking is a prerequisite, and higher ENERGY STAR scores earn additional points in the energy section.

FacilityOps AI (RoboSkill Inc.) is an autonomous inspection platform that produces the dated operations records BOMA 360 asks buildings to show. A FacilityOps inspection robot walks the route through mechanical rooms, electrical rooms, corridors and exit routes on schedule and records each check with a time and location stamp.

• Preventive maintenance and work orders: every round is documented, and findings become work orders with a photo and location, in the FacilityOps platform or in your own CMMS.
• Life safety verification: exit routes, extinguishers, panels and sprinkler areas checked every round, giving the inspection checklist and history the criteria look for.
• Indoor air quality: VOC, particulate, temperature and humidity readings across floors, building the history an IAQ plan and annual report can draw on.
• Energy: thermal and condition readings on HVAC and electrical equipment that support the work behind the Portfolio Manager score.

The robot runs fully autonomously, and technicians can take manual control at any time. The platform is hardware agnostic: robots and sensor hubs are the usual delivery, and drones, other robots or a technician's phone can feed the same record.

Because the records are created as the work happens, they are current when the application or renewal comes around, instead of being pieced together from emails and clipboards.

The records behind the designation, captured every round.

FacilityOps does not prepare or submit BOMA 360 applications, does not decide designations, which are made by BOMA International, and does not replace your SOP manual, contracts or emergency plans.

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