On November 1, 2022, New York City's salary transparency law came into force. Since then, the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) has been actively issuing fines, conducting investigations, and publishing enforcement guidance. As of early 2026, many employers are still non-compliant — including some large, sophisticated companies that should know better.
If you post jobs for roles that can be performed in New York City, this law applies to you. Here's everything you need to know — including the nuances that most compliance guides skip over.
What Local Law 32 actually requires
Any job advertisement for a position that can be performed — even partly — in New York City must include the minimum and maximum salary or hourly rate that the employer in good faith believes it will pay for that role at the time of posting.
The law applies to:
- All employers with four or more employees who work in NYC
- Any role that can be performed even partially in NYC — including fully remote roles
- Job postings on any platform: your careers page, LinkedIn, Indeed, Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, or anywhere else
- Promotions and transfer opportunities advertised internally
- Postings by third-party recruiters and staffing agencies acting on behalf of covered employers
The four-or-more-employees threshold counts employees across all locations — not just NYC. A company with 200 employees, three of whom work in NYC, is covered.
The good-faith standard in practice
The law requires the range you advertise to reflect what you actually intend to pay. The DCWP's enforcement guidance has flagged postings with absurdly wide ranges as likely not meeting the good faith standard.
What's "too wide"? The DCWP hasn't defined a precise number, but enforcement actions and informal guidance suggest that ranges wider than roughly $30,000–$40,000 for a single role will attract scrutiny. A Senior Product Manager role listed at "$80,000–$250,000" would raise questions. The same role listed at "$140,000–$175,000" would not.
Ranges also need to be updated when circumstances change. If your compensation benchmarks shift mid-year, your posted ranges should reflect that. A range that was accurate in January but is no longer reflective of your actual offer range by September may not satisfy the good-faith standard.
Remote roles: the nuance most employers miss
If a role is advertised as remote and a NYC resident could perform it from their home in Brooklyn, the law applies — regardless of where your company is headquartered. This includes companies based entirely outside New York.
Many employers initially tried to exclude NYC applicants from remote role postings — literally writing "not open to New York City residents" in job ads. The DCWP issued guidance in 2021 making clear this approach constitutes a violation of the law's anti-exclusion provisions. That tactic is no longer viable.
The only valid exception: roles that require physical presence at a location outside NYC — such as an in-person warehouse role in New Jersey, a construction site in upstate New York, or a retail position in another city. For those, provide written documentation that the role genuinely cannot be performed in NYC if questioned.
What the penalties look like
First violations receive a warning notice if corrected within 30 days. Subsequent violations carry fines:
- First violation (not corrected): up to $1,000
- Second violation: up to $2,000
- Third and subsequent violations: up to $3,000 per occurrence
- Systemic enforcement actions: aggregate fines have reached $500,000 for patterns of non-compliance
Private rights of action are not currently available under Local Law 32 (unlike California law), but DCWP enforcement has been active and increasingly systematic since 2023. Complaint-based investigations are supplemented by proactive audits of major job boards.
Record-keeping: the often-forgotten requirement
Beyond the posting itself, employers should document the salary range at the time of each posting. If the DCWP investigates, they'll want to verify that the posted range reflected a genuine good-faith assessment at that time — not a retroactive justification. Keep records in your ATS or a separate compliance log.
Check your NYC compliance today.
Role Canary scans every posting for Local Law 32 compliance — including remote roles.
Five things to do before your next posting
- Audit all live postings for NYC compliance — including any marked as remote
- Verify good-faith ranges against your current compensation benchmarks
- Document your salary bands for every active role at the time of posting
- Add a required salary range field to your ATS template — make it impossible to publish without one
- Brief your recruiting team on the good-faith standard, especially if they're sourcing through third-party agencies who post on your behalf
For a broader view of how NYC's law fits into the national landscape, see our Pay Transparency 101 guide or the multi-state salary range best practices post.