Average CAM Charges per Square Foot: Commercial Operating Expense Benchmarks

Office operating costs climbed to $11.15 per square foot in 2023, then eased to $10.33 in 2024. A tenant on a pass-through lease feels both moves, so an expense cap protects you in the years that go up.

Repairs and maintenance at $3.12 is the biggest office line, ahead of taxes and insurance at $2.66. Those two are where CAM disputes usually start, so ask how each is defined in your lease.

Taxes and insurance make up the largest industrial cost at $1.92 per square foot. For a warehouse tenant on a triple net lease, the local property tax bill matters more than the maintenance budget.

Industrial costs jumped 26% in 2024, from $3.03 to $3.83 per square foot. Year-to-year swings this large are why you want your pass-through costs capped or at least explained.

In 2018, energy spending ran from $0.67 per square foot in warehouses to $5.66 in food sales buildings. If utilities are billed as part of CAM rather than metered separately, a restaurant next door can push up your share.

The effective rate on the same $1 million commercial property ranged from 0.64% in Cheyenne to 4.04% in Detroit for taxes paid in 2025. Location alone can change the tax line on your NNN bill several times over.

US office vs industrial income and operating expenses per square foot, 2024

Source: Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), with BOMA International and the National Apartment Association, Income/Expense IQ National Summary, 2024 Operating Data. Download as image

Selected US office expense line items per square foot, 2020 to 2024

Source: Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), with BOMA International and the National Apartment Association, Income/Expense IQ National Summary, 2024 Operating Data. Download as image

Selected US industrial expense line items per square foot, 2020 and 2022 to 2024

Source: Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), with BOMA International and the National Apartment Association, Income/Expense IQ National Summary, 2024 Operating Data. Download as image

Effective property tax rate on a $1 million commercial property (plus $200,000 fixtures), largest city in each state, 2025

Source: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, 50-State Property Tax Comparison Study (for taxes paid in 2025). Download as image

What are average CAM charges per square foot?

Start with the right number. The Institute of Real Estate Management puts total operating expenses for US office buildings at $10.33 per square foot in 2024, and $3.83 for industrial properties. That covers repairs, utilities, management fees, administration, taxes, insurance and a few smaller items.

Your CAM bill is a portion of that. In a strict sense, common area maintenance covers shared spaces: lobbies, parking lots, grounds upkeep, security, cleaning of hallways. Taxes and insurance are often billed as separate lines, and in a triple net lease all three are passed through together. So when a broker quotes you an NNN figure, compare it with the full operating expense number. When they quote CAM alone, expect it to be a smaller piece.

The gap between office and industrial is big for a reason. A warehouse has little shared space, few elevators and simple systems. An office building runs lobbies, HVAC across many floors and staff on site, which is why office repairs and maintenance alone came to $3.12 per square foot in 2024.

What goes into CAM charges in a commercial lease?

It depends entirely on the definition in your lease. A tight definition lists the items: cleaning of shared areas, parking lot repair, snow removal, security, elevator service, common area lighting. A loose one says something like all costs of operating, maintaining and managing the property. The second version is where surprises come from.

The IREM categories give you a sense of what a full pass-through can hold. For office buildings in 2024, the national figures were $3.12 per square foot for repairs and maintenance, $1.90 for utilities, $1.67 for administrative costs and $0.68 for management fees. Leasing expenses were only $0.09, but they should not be in your CAM at all. You are not the one paying to fill the empty suite next door.

Watch for costs that look routine but are really the landlord's investment in the building. A new HVAC system, a parking deck rebuild or a lobby renovation adds value the owner keeps after you leave. Good leases either exclude those or spread them over the useful life of the work, so you pay only the part that falls in your term.

Concessions are another tell. Office concessions, such as free rent offered to new tenants, ran $0.93 per square foot in 2024. That is a landlord cost, not an operating cost, and it has no place in a tenant's CAM bill.

Why do CAM charges go up even when my rent is fixed?

Base rent is set in the lease. Operating costs are not. When a landlord passes them through, you carry whatever the building actually costs to run that year.

Look at industrial property. Total operating expenses rose 26% in 2024, from $3.03 to $3.83 per square foot. Real estate taxes on industrial buildings went from $1.51 to $1.74, and total utilities from $0.18 to $0.40. A tenant whose rent never moved still saw a bigger reconciliation bill.

Office went the other way in 2024, with costs down 7%. But the longer trend shows how uneven this is: the line jumped from $8.92 in 2017 to $11.01 in 2018, then fell back. Pass-through costs follow the building, not your budget.

How much of my CAM bill is property tax?

More than most tenants expect. Taxes and insurance came to $2.66 per square foot for office buildings and $1.92 for industrial in 2024. For industrial space, that is the single largest operating cost.

Location drives it. The Lincoln Institute found the effective tax rate on a $1 million commercial property averaged 1.757% for taxes paid in 2025, across the largest city in each state plus DC and two other cities. That works out to $21,084 a year once you add $200,000 in fixtures. Detroit came in at 4.04%. Cheyenne was at 0.64%.

Two things to watch. First, a sale of the building can trigger a reassessment, and a pass-through clause may let the landlord bill you for the higher tax. Second, ask if you share in any tax refund if the landlord appeals the assessment and wins. Many leases are silent on that.

Are CAM charges negotiable?

The total cost of running the building is not really up for debate. How it gets split and what goes into it is. That is where you have room to push.

Ask for these, in roughly this order:

• A cap on controllable expenses, so maintenance, admin and management costs cannot rise without limit each year.
• A list of exclusions: capital improvements, roof replacement, costs to lease other suites, landlord legal fees, and fixes for code violations that existed before you moved in.
• A management fee limit. Office management fees averaged $0.68 per square foot in 2024; a fee calculated on gross revenue plus an admin markup on top can double-charge you.
• Audit rights, with a set window after each year-end statement and the landlord paying for the audit if the overcharge is material.
• A clear pro rata formula, based on rentable square footage of the whole building rather than only the occupied space.

How should a small business budget for CAM and NNN costs?

Treat the landlord's estimate as a floor, not a promise. Most leases bill CAM monthly from an estimate, then send a reconciliation after the year closes. If actual costs come in higher, you get an invoice for the difference.

Ask for the last few years of actual operating statements, not just the current budget. Compare the per square foot total with the benchmarks here. If an office landlord's operating costs sit well above $10.33, find out why: older systems, a big repair backlog or an expensive management contract are all things you would rather know before signing.

Also check which utilities are inside CAM. EIA's 2018 survey put energy spending at $1.63 per square foot for office buildings, but $5.14 for food service. In a mixed retail center without separate meters, how utilities get allocated can matter as much as the overall rate.

Sources and method

Every number on this page comes from the sources below, each opened and read on or before October 18, 2026. A second, independent review checked every figure against its source and corrected anything that did not match. Figures that could not be confirmed were left out.

1. Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), with BOMA International and the National Apartment Association, Income/Expense IQ National Summary, 2024 Operating Data (2024 operating data (PDF dated October 2025))
2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), Table C4: Sum of major fuels consumption and expenditure gross energy intensities (Released September 2022, revised December 2022)
3. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, 50-State Property Tax Comparison Study (for taxes paid in 2025) (April 2026)