GAO finds empty Transportation Department buildings cost taxpayers $370 million a year

Crumbling and under-used Department of Transportation buildings are costing taxpayers $370 million a year in rent, operations and maintenance costs, the Government Accountability Office has estimated.

The government’s auditor reported that 89% of 189 DOT facilities it examined nationwide in August and September 2025 fell short of the 60% occupancy average required by the federal USE IT Act to stay open.

The agency’s largest spaces have an average capacity of 613 workers each and were just 34% occupied, GAO found.

Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican, co-requested the report with Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican. Her office highlighted a separate report last month from the Public Buildings Reform Board that found all federal properties nationwide averaged 29% occupancy and cost taxpayers $1.34 billion annually.

That means the DOT accounts for more than one-fourth of all taxpayer expenses to maintain empty government buildings, her office said.

“With seven out of every ten desks sitting empty in thousands of government buildings, Washington needs to follow this simple rule: use it or lose it,” Ms. Ernst said in an emailed statement. “Taxpayers can’t afford to waste more than $1 billion every year on Taj Mahals for bureaucrats.”

She said she’s “working with the Trump administration to hang out the ’For Sale’ sign on unneeded properties to downsize government and save taxpayer money.”

The GAO noted in the that DOT officials “concurred with our recommendations” to “develop department-wide consolidation plans” as they prepare to vacate the Federal Aviation Administration’s D.C. headquarters in summer 2027.

The FAA plans to relocate 950 employees from its headquarters at 800 Independence Avenue Southwest near the National Mall as part of a plan to consolidate operations at the DOT’s headquarters in Navy Yard.

“DOT has not pursued department-wide-consolidation to increase space utilization or implemented space-maximizing strategies to address underutilized office space,” the GAO report warned. “Specifically, as of March 2026, DOT did not have plans to consolidate other DOT offices beyond FAA headquarters despite widespread underutilization.”

There are more than 50,000 Department of Transportation workers nationwide, the vast majority of them FAA workers.

A DOT official said Monday that the agency is working to “centralize operations and enhance the efficiencies” of its workforce.

“USDOT is committed to unifying the Department under one roof and maximizing our space,” the official said in an email. “We’re already making significant progress: one of our FAA buildings has already been returned to GSA, and over 800 FAA employees have already been relocated to DOT HQ.”

The official said the agency’s “consolidation efforts and cutting government waste” have saved taxpayers $14 billion since President Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Nationwide, the General Services Administration manages a federal real estate portfolio of more than 350 million square feet. Roughly 40% of federal buildings are in Washington, where extended telework during the pandemic rendered them ghost towns.

The USE IT Act, which took full effect in July 2025, directs federal agencies to restaff underused office space within 12 months or else dump it.

The Public Buildings Reform Board, an independent government agency with a mandate to identify under-used properties, based its $1.34 billion cost estimate on an analysis of GSA data covering 275,336 of the nation’s roughly 2 million federal employees.

Reform board members noted at a June 25 public hearing that the Defense and Justice departments did not report their numbers. They told Ms. Ernst in a May 1 letter that the federal government should publicize all usage numbers and sell more properties immediately.

“Even if these buildings reached the 60% target occupancy, their costs and liabilities would remain significantly above commercial market rates which we use as a proxy reference point, not as a true benchmark,” the reform board wrote in the letter, which Ms. Ernst shared with The Times.

The Trump administration has implemented mass federal layoffs and accelerated the disposal of government properties over recent months.

In March, the administration announced it would sell the Department of Agriculture’s South building, marking the first use of the USE IT Act to alienate a crumbling government space. GSA officials estimated the building was just 15% occupied.