The Pulse: San Francisco office news, late October 2026

San Francisco’s office market is recovering from a deep trough, and the reports published in October agree on the direction even where their numbers differ. Kidder Mathews puts overall vacancy at 27.2% at the end of the second quarter, down from a peak of 32% in 2024. The same report says sublease space has fallen to 14.3% of all available space, from a record 44% in 2020.

Leasing and attendance are telling different stories. Kidder Mathews says leasing has reached levels not seen since the city’s last major expansion cycle, while Placer.ai’s September data put San Francisco office visits 33.8% below September 2019. Both can be true because one number counts space that has been signed for and the other counts people who show up.

Leasing

Oct. 1: Third-quarter leasing reached 3.9 million square feet. Savills counted 3.9 million square feet of San Francisco office leasing in the third quarter of 2026, up 77.3% from 2.2 million a year earlier. Volume eased from the second quarter’s 4.4 million, and leasing so far this year stands at 12.1 million square feet, against 8.1 million at this point in 2025. Savills also reports that fast-growing companies are favoring furnished, move-in-ready space because they want to move in quickly.

For scale, Kidder Mathews counted 3.6 million square feet of leasing in the second quarter and described it as the seventh straight quarter above 2.0 million. Savills put the same quarter at 4.4 million. Brokerages count deals differently, so each firm’s figures are most reliable when compared with its own earlier quarters.

Oct. 9: Twelve months of leasing topped 12 million square feet. NAI NorCal’s October report, which relies on CoStar data, says leasing volume passed 12 million square feet over the past year, the strongest annual total since 2019. Net absorption was 5.5 million square feet, vacancy fell to 20.2%, and office asking rents average about $59 per square foot, up 6.8% over the year. The report also describes falling sublease availability.

The report adds that the recovery is broadening beyond trophy buildings, though new and repositioned buildings capture a disproportionate share of deals while older buildings hold most of the vacancy. It names the South Financial District, Mission Bay and China Basin, Rincon and South Beach, and Showplace Square as the strongest submarkets. That split suggests the space most likely to be available is older space, and the space most in demand is newer.

NAI’s list of top office leases includes Anthropic at 300 Howard Street (419,172 square feet) and OpenAI at Icona Labs in Mission Bay and China Basin (279,726 square feet). The largest entry, at 505,275 square feet, is the City and County of San Francisco at 1455 Market Street, a deal Kidder Mathews dates to May 2026.

Oct. 12: The Peninsula tells a different story. CBRE’s third-quarter figures for the San Francisco Peninsula, which is not the city itself, show vacancy up 30 basis points from the prior quarter to 24.8% and availability up 60 basis points to 27.0%. Net absorption turned positive at 138,000 square feet, and leasing volume eased to 960,000 square feet from 1.03 million. AI firms made up about 39% of demand, roughly 1.1 million square feet.

CBRE adds that active requirements ended the quarter at 2.8 million square feet across 50 tenants, with six of them pursuing more than 100,000 square feet. Renewals accounted for the three largest transactions of the quarter, and 325,000 square feet of new space was delivered in South San Francisco. Class A asking rents held near their peak, a slight step down from the prior quarter.

How to read the numbers

Three firms published four vacancy figures, and each answers a slightly different question.

Source	Area and period	Measure	Figure
NAI NorCal (CoStar data)	“San Francisco,” October 2026 report	Vacancy	20.2%
Kidder Mathews	San Francisco, end of Q2 2026	Direct vacancy	24.7%
Kidder Mathews	San Francisco, end of Q2 2026	Overall vacancy	27.2%
CBRE	San Francisco Peninsula, Q3 2026	Vacancy	24.8%

Kidder Mathews reports both a direct rate and an overall rate. Overall vacancy is generally the direct rate plus sublease space, as brokerages such as Boulos define total vacancy in their own surveys. The other gaps come from geography and timing: CBRE’s number covers the Peninsula, NAI’s lease list includes a Redwood City deal that suggests its market reaches beyond the city, and Kidder’s figures are a quarter older. When you quote a vacancy rate to a landlord or a board, name the source, the area, and the measure.

Brokers also quote changes in basis points, where 100 basis points equal one percentage point. Kidder’s overall vacancy fell from 31.6% a year earlier to 27.2%, which it reports as a drop of 440 basis points.

Leasing volume and net absorption measure different things too. Net absorption is the change in occupied space after move-ins and move-outs, so a market can post strong new occupancy while net absorption stays flat or negative, according to the glossary at commercial real estate software firm Cove. Kidder Mathews reported 830,000 square feet of net absorption in the second quarter alongside 3.6 million square feet of leasing, and CBRE’s Peninsula figures were 138,000 and 960,000. Leasing shows deal flow, and absorption shows whether more space is actually being occupied.

AI demand

Oct. 13: AI companies leased 2.9 million square feet in the first half of 2026. The Registry reports on a Savills and CompStak study finding that AI firms leased 2.9 million square feet of San Francisco office space in the first six months of the year, more than in any earlier full year. According to the report, the sector has shifted from discounted subleases to direct, longer-term commitments in Class A buildings. The Registry article is partly behind a paywall, and this summary relies on its opening paragraph.

The scale is easier to see with earlier data. CRE Daily reported in April, citing Avison Young, that AI companies occupy 8.75 million square feet of San Francisco office space, or 13.4% of all occupied space, up from just over 2 million square feet in 2020. Kidder Mathews’ list of significant second-quarter leases includes together.ai (149,000 square feet at 2 Henry Adams Street) and LangChain (70,000 square feet at 303 Second Street), both dated April 2026.

Attendance and policy

Oct. 13: San Francisco office visits rose 12.2% year over year in September. Placer.ai’s September office index shows San Francisco with the strongest year-over-year growth in that month’s comparison, though visits remain 33.8% below pre-pandemic levels. Nationwide, office visits rose 4.0% year over year and sit 25.5% below 2019, and Placer.ai says that is the highest September level since 2019.

Placer.ai describes San Francisco as a market that long lingered near the bottom of its rankings. Miami, at 1.1% above its 2019 level, led the recovery relative to 2019, followed by New York at 11.0% below and Dallas at 13.5% below. The figures are estimates, not headcounts: Placer.ai says it uses a panel of tens of millions of devices and machine learning to estimate visits.

July 30: Patreon raised its in-office requirement to three days. Business Insider reported, in a piece republished by DNYUZ, that Patreon will move employees at its New York, San Francisco, and Porto, Portugal offices from two required office days a week to three, starting in the coming months. Employees must attend 75% of required office days, and staff classified as remote are not affected. The company said it wants more intentional time together.

The change followed a layoff. According to 404 Media, Patreon cut 93 employees, or 20% of its workforce, in an email from CEO Jack Conte, who described flattening the organization and refocusing teams on top priorities. This item is older than the rest and is included because it is a specific, confirmed San Francisco policy change.

The takeaway for small teams

This section is editorial, not reported.

Treat a sublease as an option to confirm, not a default. Kidder Mathews says sublease space fell from 44% of available space in 2020 to 14.3%, NAI reports falling sublease availability, and Savills says growing companies want move-in-ready space. Ask brokers what is actually on the market before building a plan around a cheap sublease.
Ask about older buildings. NAI says older buildings hold most of the vacancy, so that is where a small team may find the most options. Weigh what you give up in layout and amenities against what you save.
Name your numbers. Reputable reports put vacancy more than four points apart, and the gaps are explainable. Pick a source, an area, and a measure, and say which.
Size the space for the days people come in. San Francisco visits are still a third below 2019, even in a strong leasing market. A rule like Patreon’s, three days a week with a 75% attendance allowance, is one specific model for making attendance predictable.