CFTC Announces Additional Cost Savings From Office Leases

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is in the process of extending a lease at its current headquarters while buildout continues on its new offices. The one-year extension represents a 4.5 percent reduction in rental expenses, totaling nearly $1 million. This logical and fiscally responsible arrangement allows for staff to continue their work uninterrupted while the new facility is completed, in full compliance with the President’s executive orders, and avoids the excess costs, inefficiencies and inconveniences of moving multiple times. The CFTC has already saved nearly $340,000 by renegotiating its lease at its Chicago branch office.

The CFTC’s new headquarters in an existing building in Southwest Washington is scheduled to come online in June 2026. The lease at the current headquarters in Northwest Washington expires on September 30, requiring a short-term solution. The CFTC was able to negotiate the one-year extension at the current facility at a meaningfully reduced rate. The lease at the new facility will be significantly reduced from the FY 2025 rate of over $21.37 million to just over $6 million.

Here are additional details about the extension:

The extension will not require additional funding from Congress

• The CFTC’s current rent expense is built into the existing budget. 

• Rental and payment line items in the FY 2026 budget request are unchanged from FY 2025 enacted levels.

• The extension is expected to result in savings of 4.5 percent compared with the lease expense in FY 2025.

The CFTC considered various scenarios and determined that an extension was the most logical, efficient and responsible option. 

• The CFTC partnered with GSA in the search and acquisition process for the new HQ, including regarding contingencies in the event of delays in bringing the new HQ online.  

• While the CFTC has worked with GSA throughout the process, the CFTC negotiated directly with the lessor to extend the lease at the current HQ, as required by statute. This is consistent with decades of historical precedent and practice regarding the CFTC’s independent leasing authority and the terms of an MOU with GSA, which covers leases at new facilities, not existing leases. 

• While the CFTC and GSA had planned to use temporary space from another federal agency that was in GSA’s inventory after the expiration of the CFTC’s HQ lease in September 2025, the agreement for the CFTC’s temporary space was canceled by the other federal agency due to their mission needs. 

• Moving to a temporary space would have also cost millions to move staff and equipment to and from the temporary space as well as the setting up and decommissioning of that space.

Teleworking during this time is not a viable option 

• The CFTC is committed to complying with President Trump’s return-to-office executive orders, just like other Americans who go to work every day without special treatment. 

• A teleworking posture would still require the CFTC to secure a physical space for its IT infrastructure and other critical services, which would require a lease and two moves, costing millions.

• The CFTC inspector general identified widespread and prolonged telework fraud during the CFTC’s post-COVID fully remote telework period of over four years. This has prompted an ongoing review of CFTC employee compliance with federal government laws and regulations regarding time and attendance to better safeguard American taxpayer dollars from waste and fraud by federal employees who have been collecting pay for time not actually worked. This ongoing review has identified additional instances of telework fraud and misuse of government property and paid official time. CFTC employees are the highest paid in the entire federal government, making nearly $250,000 per year on average.