China building energy codes (CBEC) have been introduced for over two decades but little has been publicized in literature. LEED on the contrary is the most publicized building environmental assessment scheme. To enable better understanding of the compliance standards of CBEC, this paper presents the energy performance assessment results (represented by energy and energy cost savings) of three office buildings in China (one in Beijing and two in Shanghai) using the current versions of CBEC and LEED. The energy and energy cost savings of the three buildings were predicted based on hour-by-hour simulations using the weather data and energy tariffs of Beijing and Shanghai where the three studied buildings are located, and their actual building and system characteristics. The study revealed that LEED in general sets more stringent requirements than CBEC in indoor design conditions, building envelope characteristics and air-conditioning system features. Amongst various building end uses, energy use for air-conditioning was found dominating the assessment results, and the use of energy efficient measures not forming part of the baseline criteria, could lead to 2 to 5% reduction in the overall building energy use. The two schemes were benchmarked against BEAM Plus and their weaknesses were also unveiled. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.