Every Major Company Reducing Office Space: 2020-2025 | Buildremote (original) (raw)

companies reducing office space

At Buildremote, we’ve reported a staggering amount of well-known companies that have implemented some form of permanent remote work. Next, we analyzed in-depth the true plans for the Fortune 500’s return to office. As of October 2024, only 10 of the Fortune 100 had declared a full return to the office for all employees. The others planned to never come back in full, come back in a hybrid approach, or delay their returns indefinitely.

Well, as it turns out, if thousands of companies are going remote and thousands aren’t ever going back into the office at full capacity, the demand for office space could crater. It seems that is starting to happen.

In our research, you’ll find every notable announcement from companies reducing, downsizing, or altogether dropping their office spaces.

Here are a few notes about the research:

Report: Companies reducing office space
Access the report here.

Or, access a sample of the database first.

Below, you’ll find 17 notable office reductions over the last few years.

Company Date Lease Plan Story Remote Policy
Alphabet (Google) April 2025 October 2024 May 2023 Sublease "In May 2023, the tech giant put over 1.4 million square feet of office space on the sublease market. The following May, Google vacated its 300,000-square-foot San Francisco office in One Market Plaza’s Spear Tower. And now the company has listed four separate office buildings, including a “life science” building, at the city’s Pacific Shores Center near the Port of Redwood City, totaling over 400,000 square feet." Hybrid
Forrester April 2025 Downsize "Research giant chops headquarters in half in response to hybrid work model. Forrester renegotiates deal for corporate hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, alongside shifting workforce." Hybrid
Lyft January 2025 Downsize "Lyft has renewed its lease for its San Francisco headquarters, signing on to another decade in a space that’s less than half the size of its original hub as the company adjusts to pandemic-era changes." Hybrid
X (Twitter) September 2024 Sublease "'This is the final straw,' Musk said in announcing that X would move its headquarters to Austin, Texas." Office First
Cardinal Health September 2024 SubleaseSell "Cardinal Health is seeking a sublessee for the building at 5100 Rings Road through 2029. The company owns another building at 7200 Cardinal Place West, which is now unoccupied, too." Hybrid
General Motors May 2024 Sublease "The automaker plans to downsize its office space significantly, my colleague JC Reindl reported, taking just two office floors in the new Hudson's building, each about 50,000 square feet." Hybrid
Amazon March 2024 Cancel "Tech and e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) is hatching a plan to save $1.3 billion by significantly reducing its office space and ending leases early." Hybrid
Bank of America March 2024 Cancel "Bank of America plans to vacate all 13 floors it occupies in a Charlotte, North Carolina, office tower with more than a year left on its lease." Office First
Verizon December 2023 Sublease "Verizon...plans to sublease the 143,000 square feet at Essex Crossing (which Verizon never built out or occupied)." Hybrid
Microsoft October 2023 Sublet "Microsoft to vacate 50,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco as tech-xodus continues amid drug and crime 'doom loop'." Hybrid
Meta (Facebook) September 2023 December 2022 October 2022 CancelLet Lease ExpireDownsize September 2023"Meta has paid £149mn to break its lease on a major London development."December 2022"Meta has listed a 113,585-square-foot building in Fremont for sublease."October 2022"Meta will take a $2 billion financial hit to close offices and scrap leases as revenue growth slows at the social media giant." Hybrid
Johnson & Johnson September 1, 2023 Sublease "Johnson & Johnson is slashing its Tampa office space by more than 60%. It will leave behind nearly 90,000 square feet." Hybrid
Charles Schwab July 19, 2023 "The financial services company is hoping to reduce its real estate footprint by 'closing floors or closing offices' at its downtown office space (SF). Similar downsizing efforts are planned for... Boston; Chicago; Henderson, Nevada; and Jersey City, while offices in Atlanta, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis and Tampa are slated to close completely." Hybrid
Exxon Mobil April 2023 Sell "The campus – a 290-acre masterplanned campus centered around a 379,000-square-foot office building – will hit the market relatively soon now that Exxon Mobil Corp. is moving its headquarters to the Houston area." Hybrid
Walmart February 2023 "Walmart plans to close three of its U.S. technology hubs and require hundreds of workers to relocate to keep their jobs, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal."
Chevron June 2022 Sell "Chevron plans to sell its 92-acre headquarters campus in San Ramon, seek smaller office space in the city and move some employees to Houston. The headquarters complex of Chevron Park includes 13 buildings encompassing 1.4M SF and more than 2,000 workers." Hybrid
JPMorgan Chase March 2022 "JPMorgan Chase, New York City’s largest office tenant, cut its commercial footprint by 400,000 square feet last year. The bank, which has said it plans to “significantly reduce” its global office footprint in the coming years, also downsized by 300,000 square feet in 2020." Office First
Download the full database here.

See Also:

Lease Plan Definitions

In the table, you’ll see a few different classifications in the “lease plan” column. That column is where we marked the company’s intention to exit the office space. Here’s how we define the terms you see there.

Remote Policy Definitions

In the table, you’ll see a few different classifications in the “remote policy” column. Here’s how we define remote work policies.

  1. Optional: Employees have the option to work from home or the office.
  2. Partial: Some employees, based on role and situation, are able to work from home.
  3. Remote First: The processes required to work remotely lead the company’s operations, with in-office processes coming second.
  4. Fully Remote: The company does not have any physical office locations.
  5. Hybrid: The company plans to have employees working from home part of the time and in an office part of the time.

See Also: Every Company Going Remote Permanently

Statistics About Office Space Downsizing

The statistics and studies tell a mind-boggling story about the drop in demand for office space as a result of the move to remote and hybrid work. Here are a few to highlight the extent to which companies are reducing office space.

See Also:

Want to add a notable announcement?

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