USE IT Act Requires CFO Agencies to Report Office Space Utilization

The Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act, enacted in January 2025, mandates that the 24 Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies collect and report occupancy data for office space in federally owned and leased locations. Agencies were required to have the data collection system in place by the July 2025 implementation deadline, and the first set of data was submitted to Congress and the public in March 2026.

GAO's September 2025 survey found that 20 of the 23 responding agencies rely on existing badging systems to track occupancy, and 16 of those supplement the data with daily check-in surveys. Agencies reported that the cost of collecting and reporting the USE IT Act data was minimal, totaling $16 million across the 23 agencies in 2025. Many officials said the data are already being used to identify underutilized space for consolidation or disposal, with expectations of saving millions of dollars annually.

The GAO report notes that the data submitted lack context on General Services Administration (GSA)-controlled vacant space, preventing a full picture of utilization rates. About one-third of surveyed agencies expressed concerns that GSA's data-collection guidelines affect their utilization calculations, and some agencies reported data in ways inconsistent with those guidelines - for example, reporting the number of employees assigned to a location rather than actual presence.

GAO issued four recommendations to GSA: (1) include GSA-controlled vacant space in utilization reporting; (2) clarify or publish utilization data for spaces meeting the 60 percent threshold; (3) evaluate the impact of current GSA guidelines on agency utilization rates; and (4) develop a coordination plan with CFO agencies to improve data consistency and completeness. All four recommendations remain open.

GSA responded that it neither agreed nor disagreed with the recommendations but will consider them in future actions.