Placer.ai Office Index—2025 Recap

Return-to-office mandates seem to be everywhere. Following the federal government’s example, local governments from the City of Atlanta to the State of Texas have introduced stricter in-office requirements. And an increasing number of corporations are demanding full-time in-person work—including firms like JPMorgan, which began enforcing a five-day RTO mandate in early March. 

But what does ground-level data tell us about how these new policies are affecting office attendance in practice? Did the RTO slowdown observed in January and February continue into March? Or is a new resurgence underway?

RTO marches ahead

The latest data from the Placer.ai Office Index suggests that nationwide office visits may be trending upwards once again. Although March 2025 office visit levels didn’t match the peaks of October and July 2024, visits last month were only 32.2 percent below March 2019 levels—an improvement over March 2024. 

Significantly, among months with 21 or fewer working days, March 2025 ranked as the second-busiest in-office month since the pandemic, just slightly behind October 2023 (October and July 2024 both had 22 days). So while January and February’s declining numbers hinted at a stalled market, March’s uptick suggests that lower office attendance earlier in the year may have been due to temporary factors like weather, and that the RTO may still be gaining momentum.

New York Still in the lead

Diving into the data for eleven major business hubs nationwide shows New York City and Miami once again at the head of the office recovery pack. Visits to NYC office buildings in March 2025 were just 11.4 percent below pre-pandemic (March 2019) levels, while Miami trailed by 17.3 percent.

Meanwhile, Atlanta (-29.3 percent), Washington, D.C. (-30.6 percent), Dallas (-30.7 percent) and Houston (-31.0 percent) all outperformed the nationwide average of -32.2 percent. San Francisco tied in last place with Chicago, with visits 44.6 percent below 2019 levels. 

YoY upticks (nearly) across the board

Turning to year-over-year data, ten of the eleven analyzed cities experienced year-over-year office visit growth—led by Boston, with a 10.2 percent uptick. Washington, D.C. also recorded strong annual gains (9.8 percent), while San Francisco continued its recent positive momentum with a 9.6 percent increase. Los Angeles was the only city to see a minor (-2.2 percent) year-over-year visit lag—perhaps lingering fallout from the wildfires earlier this year. 

Overall, the Placer.ai Office Index points to a renewed upswing in RTO momentum, likely driven by increasingly strict mandates from governments and corporations. Though persistent post-pandemic office visit gaps point to the continued prevalence of hybrid work, March’s noticeable uptick suggests that offices may be poised to make further gains in the coming months.

—Posted on April 29, 2025

---

While headlines trumpeting an imminent return to traditional office life fueled by corporate mandates have become increasingly common in recent months, ground-level data reveals a more complex reality. Office building foot traffic indicates that the office recovery has slowed, with February visits down by 36.3 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2019. This data suggests that despite top-down pressure and return-to-office mandates at several major U.S. companies, hybrid and remote work models remain widespread.

New York and Miami lead the RTO recovery

Diving into the market-level data reveals that the nationwide average office occupancy metric was driven by relatively significant visit gaps across most analyzed cities, with the exception of New York City and Miami that continued to lead the return to office trends, followed by Atlanta. Houston, Washington D.C., and Dallas all experienced year-over-five-year visit gaps of 34.6 percent to 38.4 percent—close to the nationwide average—while the year-over-five-year office visit gaps for Boston, Los Angeles and Denver was 43.5 percent, 45.1 percent and 46.6 percent, respectively.

But one metric did stand out in the February data that could hint at a relatively localized return-to-office acceleration. For the first time since we started tracking the post-pandemic office recovery, San Francisco (47.5 percent year-over-five-year visit gap) outperformed Chicago (48.5 percent)—perhaps indicating that RTO mandates in the tech world are beginning to move the needle in the country’s tech capital.

Year-over-year data points to a stalling recovery 

The slowing RTO trends also emerge when analyzing the year-over-year data. Although some visit gaps were to be expected given the comparison to a 29 day February in 2024, most cities—with the exception of Miami, Boston and San Francisco—saw a larger dip in office visits than the approximately 3.5 percent visit gap that could be attributed to the calendar shift. 

The dip in office visits compared to 2024 suggests that the RTO mandates are not having a significant impact on office occupancy patterns in most major cities and further underscore the enduring impact of remote and hybrid work models.

—Posted on March 28, 2025

---

Nationwide, January 2025 office visits were 40.2 percent lower when compared to pre-pandemic January 2019. A confluence of factors, including last month’s polar vortex, as well as the mid-week New Year’s Day, likely resulted in fewer office visits than usual. 

New York continued to lead the return-to-office pack, with office visits in the Big Apple just 19.0 percent lower than in January 2019. Analyzing the year-over-year data indicates that the polar vortex likely had a greater impact on employees in typically warmer climates while employees in cities that tend to have colder winters seemed less affected.

Temporary setback for RTO 

Several factors seem to have converged in January 2025 to temporarily hamper the return-to-office recovery. First, last month brought a polar vortex to much of the United States, compelling Americans to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary trips outside—including to the office. January 1st also fell on a Wednesday this year, and many people likely took advantage of the calendar luck to extend their vacation through the weekend—leading to fewer January office visits compared to years when New Year’s Day falls earlier in the week. 

As a result, the January 2025 bump appeared relatively muted: visits in January 2025 were only 17.7 percent higher than in December 2024, compared to a 31.3 percent month-over-month increase from December 2023 to January 2024. And visits were 40.2 percent lower than they were in pre-pandemic January 2019—a slightly worse showing than the 39.2 percent pre-pandemic visit gap of December 2024. 

New York continues to lead the RTO pack 

The meteorological and calendar challenges seem to have impacted office visits on a metro area as well, with few cities analyzed making significant RTO strides in January 2025. The sole exception was New York, where January 2025 visits were only 19.0 percent lower than they were in January 2019—a slightly smaller visit gap than the previous month.

Many of the cities where residents are used to and equipped for the colder weather—Chicago, Boston, and New York—seemed to have experienced a relatively minimal impact from the arctic blast. The one exception was Denver, which was exceptionally frigid—with subzero temperatures—so that even those used to cold may have opted to work from home. 

But in metro areas where weather tends to be relatively warm—including Atlanta, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Dallas—the impact of the polar vortex was visibly stronger. In these cities, the year-over-year visit gap ranged from 7.5 percent (Atlanta) to 12.0 percent (Dallas)—as employees without proper winter jackets or snow tires likely chose to stay cozy and avoid the chill.

January 2025’s RTO stats may not have been particularly impressive, but the relatively weak office data is likely more a reflection of last month’s unique challenges rather than a slowdown in the RTO momentum. With the weather now back to normal and no mid-week holidays in the near future, the coming months will be critical in evaluating if the RTO is in fact slowing down or whether January just marked a temporary setback within a still unfolding story. 

For more data-driven insights, visit placer.ai. 

This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.1, which introduces a new dynamic model that stabilizes daily fluctuations in the panel, improving accuracy and alignment with external ground truth sources.

—Posted on February 26, 2025