Getting listed

SHPO directory: every state preservation office and how to find review-board dates

John HarrisonUpdated October 2026

Every state and the District of Columbia has a State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), and it, not the National Park Service, is where a National Register nomination, a Section 106 consultation or a tax-credit application starts. The table below gives each office’s website as listed in the NCSHPO member directory in October 2026, with the office name as its own site states it and, where we could verify one, the page that carries review-board or nomination information.

Websites, office names and meeting dates change. Everything here is as of October 2026: the links were taken from the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers’ directory and checked against the NPS’s own SHPO list, and each office’s site was loaded to read its name. Where a state site blocked automated loading we say so rather than guess. If a link fails, the NCSHPO directory is the fastest route to the current one.

The directory

† These sites refused automated loading in October 2026 (bot protection or access errors), so the office name could not be read from the site itself; the website link is the one NCSHPO lists and is unchanged. Where no page is given in the last column, we did not find and verify a review-board or National Register page from the office’s home page; use the site’s own navigation.

NCSHPO also lists the SHPO-equivalent offices for American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the three freely associated states (Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau); they are on the NCSHPO directory page linked in the sources.

What a SHPO does

The office exists because of federal regulation. Under 36 CFR 61.4, a state takes part in the national program only if its governor appoints a State Historic Preservation Officer, and that officer must:

• run a planning process that produces a comprehensive statewide historic preservation plan;
• survey and keep an inventory of historic properties (the regulation also allows collecting data on properties that may become eligible with the passage of time);
• provide for public participation, including the owner notification rules in 36 CFR 60 when recommending a property to the National Register.

The SHPO may contract parts of the work to qualified nonprofits or universities but may not delegate responsibility for compliance. The Secretary of the Interior evaluates each state program at least every four years.

For a property owner the SHPO shows up in four places: nominations (how to nominate a property), Section 106 consultation on federally assisted projects (Section 106 review), the federal and state rehabilitation tax credits (federal historic rehabilitation tax credit, state historic tax credits), and as the keeper of the paper nomination file for every listed property in the state. The NPS FAQ summarises the nomination role: forms go to the SHPO, which may reject the property, ask for more information, list it only at the state level, or forward it to the NPS; the NPS then runs a similar review of its own. To see whether a property is already listed, use the address lookup.

How state review boards work

Each state has a review board (the names vary: State Review Board in Texas and Virginia, State Board for Historic Preservation in New York, Historic Preservation Board in Pennsylvania, State Historical Resources Commission in California, National Register Advisory Council in Illinois, National Register Advisory Committee in North Carolina). The NPS FAQ describes it as a professional board that evaluates proposed properties and recommends whether they are eligible.

Composition is set by state law within federal rules. New York’s board has 13 members: five state officials or their designees and eight appointed by the governor with Senate consent, most with backgrounds in history, architecture or archaeology. Pennsylvania’s board also has 13 members, and a majority must meet the National Park Service’s professional qualification requirements. Members serve without pay.

Procedure is federal. Under 36 CFR 60.6:

• The SHPO must notify each private owner in writing at least 30 and not more than 75 days before the board meeting, using owner lists from land or tax records drawn within the previous 90 days, and must notify the chief elected local official on the same timetable.
• The nomination must be on file and available during that comment period.
• Owners may concur or object in writing; for nominations with more than 50 owners the state publishes a general notice instead of individual letters.

Two provisions in 36 CFR 61.4 are less well known. A SHPO may let the historic preservation commission of a Certified Local Government act in place of the state review board for nominations in its jurisdiction, provided the commission meets the board’s professional qualifications. And, with the consent of both the owners and the chief elected local official, a board may consider a nomination without a face-to-face meeting.

Boards are advisory. The SHPO signs the nomination, and if a SHPO declines to forward a property the board recommended, 36 CFR 60.12 lets any person or local government appeal to the Keeper of the National Register, who must answer within 45 days. See why nominations get rejected.

How to find review-board dates (and why this page does not list them)

Boards publish their calendars on the SHPO site, and the dates move. As of October 2026, here is what a sample of offices showed, to give a sense of rhythm and lead time:

• New York meets quarterly; the next listed meeting was December 2, 2026 in Albany, and the office says a nomination must be scheduled at least three months ahead to allow public notification.
• Texas meets three times a year. For the January 23, 2027 meeting in San Antonio, final drafts were due November 1, 2026 from Certified Local Governments and December 1, 2026 from everyone else; the office warns that a place on a given agenda is not guaranteed.
• Virginia’s two boards meet quarterly on Thursdays; December 10, 2026, then March 18, June 17, September 16 and December 9, 2027, with the agenda posted before each meeting.
• Pennsylvania listed three 2027 meetings: February 2 (by videoconference), June 8 and October 5, each open to the public.
• California’s commission met four times in 2026 (February, May, August and November 12); local governments must be given 90 days to comment before a nomination reaches the state office.
• Georgia’s next meeting was November 13, 2026, with online registration.
• Illinois has no deadlines; staff schedule complete nominations for the next council meeting in the order received.
• North Carolina posts its advisory committee schedule as yearly PDFs (2026 and 2027 were both up) on a meetings-and-deadlines page.

Pattern: three or four meetings a year, drafts due one to three months before, and owner notices going out 30 to 75 days ahead. Build that into any timeline; nomination cost and timeline works through the whole calendar.

Reading the file your SHPO holds

Every listed property has a nomination on file with its SHPO; most are also scanned by the National Archives and linked from the property pages on this site. For an example of what the file contains, see Reading a nomination form, which walks through the Hall County Courthouse nomination in Texas. Other state files you can read from the site include Monticello (Virginia), Serpent Mound (Ohio) and Saugus Iron Works (Massachusetts).

General information, not legal or tax advice. Researched from the sources above and drafted with AI assistance; published under the editor's name, corrections welcome. See the editorial policy.