New York Employer HR Compliance Guide

Priority Compliance Actions

• 1Audit all job postings, promotion notices, and transfer announcements to ensure they include a good-faith salary range and job description compliant with Labor Law §194-B, and remove any placeholder or artificially wide ranges.
• 2Enroll all eligible employees in New York Paid Family Leave coverage through a licensed carrier or the State Insurance Fund, and ensure correct PFL deduction rates are applied to payroll.
• 3Train HR and hiring managers on ban-the-box and Fair Chance Act procedures, including the required individualized assessment process before adverse action based on criminal history.
• 4Update new hire onboarding to include a written wage notice (in English and the employee's primary language) and obtain signed acknowledgment, as required by the Wage Theft Prevention Act.
• 5Monitor NYC pay data reporting guidance — once the city designates an administering agency and issues reporting forms, employers with 200+ NYC employees must submit annual demographic and pay data reports.

Leave Laws

Federal FMLA applies to employers with 50+ employees, but New York PFL supplements it with broader coverage for smaller employers (after 26 weeks of employment for full-time workers). New York City's Earned Safe and Sick Time Act requires employers with 5+ employees to provide up to 40 hours of paid safe/sick leave per year; employers statewide with 100+ employees must provide up to 56 hours paid. Employees must specify whether a leave request is for paid or unpaid time; if unspecified, employers must treat it as a paid leave request. Additional leave mandates include crime victim leave, jury duty leave, voting leave (up to 3 hours paid), and domestic violence leave.

Wage & Hour

New York does not allow a tip credit for most industries (the tip credit for food service workers is limited and subject to strict conditions); the tipped wage for NYC food service workers is $16.50/hour as of 2025. Final paychecks are due by the next regular payday following termination; there is no requirement to pay immediately upon involuntary termination. Pay frequency is regulated by occupation: manual workers must be paid weekly, clerical and other workers at least semi-monthly. New York does not have a general expense reimbursement statute, but NYC has local ordinances, and failure to reimburse necessary business expenses may trigger wage deduction violations.

Worker Classification

New York is an at-will employment state, but robust anti-discrimination and whistleblower statutes significantly limit termination discretion. Independent contractor classification is evaluated under a common law control test for most purposes, but a strict ABC test applies under the Unemployment Insurance Law, creating high risk of misclassification findings. Non-compete agreements are severely restricted: a 2023 law (signed but subject to legal challenge) would ban most employee non-competes; pending final legal resolution, courts narrowly enforce non-competes limited in scope, duration, and geography, and only to protect legitimate business interests.

Hiring & Onboarding

New York State has a ban-the-box law (Article 23-A) prohibiting blanket exclusions based on criminal history and requiring an individualized assessment for employers with 10+ employees. New York City's Fair Chance Act imposes stricter requirements, including a post-conditional-offer process and separate analysis for offenses discovered after hire. Salary history inquiries are banned statewide under Labor Law §194-A — employers may not ask about or rely on prior compensation. New hire reporting is required within 20 days to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Pre-employment drug testing for marijuana is prohibited; employers may not discriminate against employees for off-duty cannabis use except for safety-sensitive roles.

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