FISP Cycle 10 Facade Inspection Guide: Sub-Cycle 10B Filing Window Is Open

Sub-cycle 10B just opened — here’s what that means for your building

New York City’s Facade Inspection and Safety Program (FISP), the inspection regime created by Local Law 11, is in the middle of its tenth five-year cycle. Cycle 10 runs February 21, 2025 through February 20, 2030, and DOB splits it into three sub-cycles so that qualified inspectors and contractors aren’t overwhelmed trying to serve every building in the city at once.

Sub-cycle 10B — buildings whose tax block number ends in 0, 7, or 8 — opened its filing window on February 21, 2026. If that’s your building, you’re in an active filing window right now.

Sub-cycle	Tax block ends in	Filing window opens
10A	4, 5, 6, 9	February 21, 2025
10B	0, 7, 8	February 21, 2026
10C	1, 2, 3	February 21, 2027

Source: NYC DOB, Facade & Local Law and the official Cycle 10 Sub-Cycle Diagram (PDF).

Step 1: Find your building’s tax block number

Your sub-cycle is determined entirely by the last digit of your building’s tax block number — not your address, not your borough. To find it:

1. Go to the NYC DOB’s Building Information Search (BIS) and search by house number and street name, or use the newer DOB NOW Public Portal.
2. Your building’s profile will show its Borough-Block-Lot (BBL). The block is the middle segment of the BBL.
3. Take the last digit of that block number and match it against the sub-cycle table above.
4. Cross-check against the DOB’s FISP Universe Map, which lists subject facades and their filing cycle directly (a downloadable CSV is linked at the top of that map). Per DOB, it is ultimately the building owner’s responsibility to confirm whether their building is subject to FISP — don’t rely on a single source.

Step 2: Understand what applies to your building

FISP applies to any building taller than six stories. Owners must have their exterior walls and appurtenances inspected by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector (QEWI) — a New York State licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect approved by DOB to file facade compliance reports — and must submit the technical report through DOB NOW: Safety.

What “Safe,” “SWARMP,” and “Unsafe” actually mean

After the critical examination, the QEWI classifies your facade as one of three conditions (these are DOB’s own definitions):

• Safe — no repair or maintenance is required to sustain the structural integrity of the exterior, and none is expected to become necessary within the next five years.
• Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program (SWARMP) — the facade is safe right now, but will need repairs or maintenance sometime in the next five years (though not less than one year out) to keep it from deteriorating into an unsafe condition.
• Unsafe — a condition is hazardous to people or property and requires repair within one year of the inspection’s completion. The owner must immediately install public protection (sidewalk shed, construction fence, or netting). Any condition reported as SWARMP in the prior cycle that was never corrected must now be reported Unsafe.

What it costs to file — and what it costs to miss the window

Per NYC DOB’s Facade Fees & Penalties page:

Filing fees

• Initial filing: $425.00
• Amended/subsequent filing: $425.00
• Extension of time to complete repairs: $305.00
• Request for waiver of penalties: $140.00

Penalties for missing deadlines

• Late filing (initial report): $1,000 per month
• Failure to file (initial report): $5,000 per year
• Failure to correct an Unsafe condition: per the schedule in 1 RCNY 103-04
• Failure to correct a SWARMP condition: $2,000

Unsafe conditions must be corrected within 90 days of filing, with an amended report due within two weeks of completing repairs. If repairs and the amended report can’t be finished within 104 days of the original filing, the owner must request an extension before that deadline passes.

If your building comes back SWARMP or Unsafe

A SWARMP finding isn’t an emergency, but it is a countdown: the repair or maintenance program the QEWI identifies has to be completed before the next cycle, or it becomes an Unsafe finding by default. An Unsafe finding means the shed or fence is already required and the 90-day repair clock is already running.

Either way, the next call is the same one: get the actual restoration work scoped, permitted, and executed by a contractor who’s done this before. Niche Waterproofing handles the full range of Local Law 11 restoration work — facade repair and replacement, parapet repair, slab edge restoration, sealant and caulk replacement, and the suspended scaffold and scaffolding/shed work the job requires — for buildings across NYC. If your FISP report came back SWARMP or Unsafe, talk to us about scope and timeline before the clock runs out.

This page cites NYC Department of Buildings published sources directly (linked above) and does not restate compliance dates, fees, or penalty amounts from memory. Always confirm your building’s current filing status against DOB NOW: Safety, since individual filing history can affect deadlines.