Eligibility
Who qualifies for ICAP?
Four tests decide most projects, and the free check runs all four against the city's own records for your lot. A hard failure is still worth a call: screens read records, and records have paths.
The four tests
Where is the property?
Industrial work qualifies in all five boroughs. For commercial work, Manhattan between 59th and 96th Streets is excluded, and south of 59th Street renovation runs its own schedules while new commercial construction is largely barred. Everywhere else in the city, location is not the problem.
How much will you spend?
At least 30 percent of the property's taxable assessed value, spent within four years of the first permit. The dollar line is computed from the city's published roll, and the checker on the front page prints it for your lot before you commit to anything.
What will the building be used for?
Commercial, industrial, community facility and transient hotel uses all qualify, because the test is whether the finished property is nonresidential and provides goods or services or other lawful business activity. At 20 percent or more residential the benefit is barred, and any self-storage, parking-facility or storage-warehouse use bars it entirely. Hotel use is expressly NOT residential for that bar, so a transient hotel is not caught by it, which surprises people in both directions. Transience is the test rather than the signage: space operated as permanent residence sits on the residential side of the line however the building is branded.
When do you file?
Before the first qualifying building permit is issued, and before the program's own sunset: applications close March 1, 2029, and no benefits are granted for work permitted after April 1, 2029. Your project's real deadline is almost always the permit, which comes first.
The determination is the Department of Finance’s, made on the application. What the free check tells you is whether the public record already blocks it, and what the minimum spend is, before you commit to anything.
Find out where your own project stands
The free check reads the city’s assessment roll for your lot and prints the minimum you would have to spend, along with anything in the public record that already blocks a filing. It takes about a minute and asks for no sign-up.