PLUTO — the Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output — is New York City's master spreadsheet of land. It holds one row for every tax lot in the city, with dozens of fields describing the parcel: its zoning, lot and building area, year built, number of floors, land use and assessed value. MapPLUTO is the same data joined to the geographic shape of each lot.
Where ACRIS tells you about transactions — who bought and borrowed — PLUTO tells you about the physical asset. For any BBL you can read the lot's square footage, the existing building area, the zoning district, the year it was built, the number of units and floors, and the assessed value the city uses for taxes.
Two fields are especially powerful together: built FAR (how much floor area already exists) versus the maximum FAR the zoning allows. The gap between them is unused development rights — the "air rights" that can make an otherwise ordinary lot valuable.
PLUTO is the backbone of NYC property analysis. It lets you size a building precisely, which is what makes price-per-square-foot comparisons possible. It reveals development potential through unused FAR. And it standardizes land use across the whole city, so you can compare a Bronx walk-up to a Midtown office on the same terms.
Combined with sale prices from ACRIS, PLUTO's building area is what turns a raw sale figure into a meaningful price per square foot — the single most useful metric for comparing CRE deals.
Crezly uses PLUTO to enrich every property and neighborhood with real physical data. Lot and building sizes power the median price-per-square-foot figures on each neighborhood market page, and the property map reads PLUTO to show zoning, lot size and building details for any parcel you click.
Because PLUTO is updated by the city and joined here to live ACRIS records, the picture stays current as buildings trade and change hands.
What does PLUTO stand for?
PLUTO stands for Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output, New York City's dataset describing every tax lot's land use, zoning and physical characteristics.
What is the difference between PLUTO and MapPLUTO?
PLUTO is the tabular data — one row per lot. MapPLUTO is the same data joined to each lot's geographic boundary, so it can be drawn on a map.
What can I learn from PLUTO?
Lot and building square footage, zoning district, year built, number of units and floors, land use, assessed value, and unused development rights (the gap between built and maximum FAR).
How is PLUTO used in real estate analysis?
Its building-area figures make price-per-square-foot comparisons possible, and its FAR fields reveal development potential. Combined with ACRIS sales, it turns raw prices into comparable metrics.