Typical Commercial Lease Length in NYC, by Type of Office Deal

The typical commercial lease length for a New York office depends on what you are leasing. A conventional direct lease runs five to ten years, and five to seven is usual on a full floor the landlord helps build. Prebuilt floors and flexible private floors run one to three years. A sublease lasts for whatever is left on the first tenant's lease. Coworking is the only product sold month to month. So the shortest commercial lease that still gives a team its own floor is about 12 months, with 24 and 36 more common, and it is usually found on space that is already built.

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Find me a short lease

Updated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group

Lease length by product, shortest commitment first

Term follows the landlord's spending. Whatever an owner puts into a deal, in free months, construction money and commissions, is earned back over the years the tenant stays, so the commitment grows as you read down this list.

Coworking: month to month. It is a membership or a license, not a lease, and it can usually be ended on short notice.
A flexible private floor from an operator: counted in months, with 12, 24 and 36 the common terms.
A sublease: the time left on the original tenant's lease and never a day more.
A landlord's prebuilt floor: usually one to three years, since the construction is already paid for.
A full floor with a custom buildout: five to seven years.
A large floor with a major fit-out: seven to ten years.

Our direct lease page gives the same range, with what a direct deal brings at the long end.

The shortest term that still comes with your own door

A team that wants a private floor, and not a room inside someone else's, should treat 12 months as the practical minimum. Terms of 24 and 36 months are easier to find, because more owners will consider them. Nothing shorter exists outside coworking and the last months of another tenant's sublease.

Short terms sit where the space is finished. Move-in on a furnished or prebuilt floor usually follows signing by two to four weeks, and the owner has no new construction to recover, which is why it can accept a shorter stay. The live block on this page shows the furnished and prebuilt floors on our book, and a search for a short private lease should begin with them. The short-term lease playbook explains how supply of this kind comes and goes.

What a shorter term does to the rent and the landlord's money

Length is priced. On a short deal, expect to pay roughly 10 to 20 percent above the rent an equivalent long lease would carry, with fewer free months and little or no contribution to construction. A long direct lease reverses each of those: about one free month for every year of term is a common shape, and the improvement allowance grows with the commitment.

That is why a very short requirement prices poorly as a direct deal on raw space and well on a floor where nothing has to be built. Lease or rent explains what each kind of agreement gives you in rights.

When the term runs out: renew, hold over or move

Every length ends in one of three ways. You renew, by using an option written into the lease or by negotiating a new deal. You move. Or you stay on with neither, which is holdover, and a lease here usually bills that at 150 to 200 percent of the last month's rent.

A short lease brings that moment forward. Ask for a renewal option while the landlord still wants the deal, and begin the next search nine to twelve months ahead of the end date. Holdover shows what the clause can cost.

Furnished and prebuilt floors available now

Live from our listings · 6 of the 24, cheapest first

24 floors we list are furnished or prebuilt, so a team can move in without running its own buildout. They run from 2,500 to 19,097 square feet, asking $44 to $135 per square foot per year.

Floors: 24
Sizes: 2,500-19,097 sq ft
Asking rent: $44-$135 / sq ft

All 24 furnished and move-in-ready floors →

The full guide

This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:

What is the shortest commercial lease a landlord will sign for a private office floor?

About 12 months, and usually only on a floor that is already built or furnished. Terms of 24 and 36 months are more common. Anything under a year is a coworking membership, which is month to month, or the tail end of a sublease.

Does a sublease count as a short lease?

Often, but its length is not yours to choose. A sublease runs for whatever remains on the original tenant's lease, commonly one to three years, and it ends when that lease does.

Is a coworking membership a lease at all?

Almost never. Most coworking agreements are memberships or licenses, so you hold nothing you could assign or sublet and you have no protected position when the agreement renews. That is the trade for being able to leave on short notice.

Why do prebuilt floors come with shorter terms than raw space?

Because the landlord has already built them. With no new construction to recover from one tenant, the owner can accept one to three years, and some offer short terms on purpose to fill a floor between larger tenants. The cost of that construction is folded into the rent instead.

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