New York Pay Transparency Law: Salary Range Posting Rules

The Posting That Triggered a $3,000 Question

Your New York hiring manager drops a job posting in the approval queue on Thursday afternoon — software developer, hybrid, reports to the Brooklyn office. The range field is blank. Your attorney calls Friday morning asking for documentation of your salary-range methodology. The posting is already live on two job boards.

That scenario plays out more often than HR teams expect, because New York's pay transparency landscape is actually two overlapping regimes: a statewide law that applies to most private employers in New York, and a New York City law that has been in effect longer, covers a lower employer threshold, and carries substantially higher penalties. Getting one right while missing the other is the most common compliance gap we see reflected in the questions HR generalists send us.

By the end of this article you will know exactly what each law requires, which employers and postings each covers, what the penalty exposure looks like, and how to build a salary range for a New York role that is grounded in verifiable wage data — so the next time an attorney asks for your methodology, you have a documented answer.

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Two New York Laws, One Posting Obligation

New York employers operating in or hiring into New York need to be aware that two distinct laws may apply simultaneously: New York State Labor Law §194-B and the New York City pay transparency law. Neither replaces the other — both can apply to the same posting.

New York State — Labor Law §194-B

New York State's pay transparency law took effect September 17, 2023. It applies to private employers with four or more employees and requires that any job posting for a position that will be performed, at least in part, in New York State include a salary or salary range (that is, a minimum and maximum) reflecting what the employer in good faith believes it will pay for the role (NY State DOL, 2023).

"Good faith" is the operative standard. A range of $0 to $1,000,000 does not satisfy the requirement — the range must reflect the employer's actual compensation intention for the role. If there is a fixed salary, the employer may post that single figure. The law covers full-time, part-time, and temporary positions, and it covers remote roles when the employer reasonably expects the work to be performed in New York.

Under the statewide law, penalties escalate: up to $1,000 for a first violation, up to $2,000 for a second, and up to $3,000 for each subsequent violation (SixFifty / Trusaic, 2026). Always confirm the current penalty schedule with the New York State Department of Labor or with employment counsel before acting on any specific figure.

New York City — Local Law 32 (effective November 1, 2022)

New York City's law predates the statewide requirement by nearly a year. Enforced by the NYC Commission on Human Rights, the NYC law has been in effect since November 1, 2022 and carries civil penalties up to $250,000 per violation (Trusaic, 2025). The gap between the statewide maximum ($3,000) and the city maximum ($250,000) is meaningful — employers with postings in New York City should treat NYC enforcement exposure as the primary risk.

The NYC law applies to employers of four or more employees for positions that will be performed in whole or in part in New York City, or that are remote but report to a supervisor, office, or worksite in New York City. Like the state law, it requires a good-faith minimum and maximum salary range.

Always verify the current enforcement guidance with the NYC Commission on Human Rights before acting.

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What Your New York Posting Must Include

Understanding the minimum disclosure requirements keeps your posting compliant. For most New York roles, the obligation has three components:

1. A minimum salary or hourly rate — the lowest the employer genuinely intends to pay for the role.
2. A maximum salary or hourly rate — the highest the employer genuinely intends to pay for the role.
3. For NYC postings: the NYC Commission on Human Rights guidance also recommends (and in practice expects) that the range not be so wide as to be meaningless.

Neither the state law nor the NYC law currently mandates disclosure of bonus, equity, or benefits in the posting itself — though disclosing those elements is a best practice that strengthens the defensibility of the range and is required in other jurisdictions (Washington State, for example, requires a general description of benefits alongside the wage scale). Check the current requirements with the relevant authority before omitting benefits language.

One further point: the same role posted on multiple platforms — your company's career page, LinkedIn, Indeed, a staffing agency listing — each posting is a separate event. If you post a non-compliant version on five platforms, that may constitute five violations, not one. The "each posting is a separate violation" exposure present in other state laws (see California's approach under Labor Code §432.3) has not been litigated extensively in New York yet, but conservative compliance practice treats each distinct posting as independently obligated. Confirm the current enforcement posture with the NYC Commission on Human Rights or with counsel.

For a detailed breakdown of what elements to include beyond the minimum salary disclosure, see our guide on what to include in a salary range posting.

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How New York Fits the National Picture

New York is not an outlier — it is part of a rapidly expanding national compliance landscape. As of 2026, 16 states plus Washington D.C. mandate salary disclosure in job postings, with Delaware joining in 2027 (Paycor / Nesco Resource, 2026). In the same year, active pay transparency laws affect an estimated 65% of U.S. employers (Lift HCM, 2026).

For employers with multi-state hiring — a common situation for New York-based companies with remote roles — a posting that triggers New York law may simultaneously trigger Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, Washington State's Equal Pay and Opportunities Act, or Illinois's amended Equal Pay Act. Each carries its own employer-size threshold, effective date, and penalty schedule.

For a state-by-state overview, see our pay transparency laws by state guide. For a detailed look at how penalties are calculated across jurisdictions, see pay transparency penalties explained.

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Building a Defensible Salary Range for a New York Role

Posting a range that satisfies the "good faith" standard requires a documented methodology — not because the law specifies a particular method, but because "good faith" means you can explain, in writing, how you arrived at the minimum and maximum. If an enforcement body or your own employment attorney asks for that explanation, a methodology that traces back to a named public dataset and a defined spread calculation is far more defensible than a range set by gut feel or by copying a competitor's posting.

Here is a repeatable framework using publicly available wage data.

Step 1 — Identify the occupation and find the BLS wage anchor.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program produces wage estimates for over 800 occupations, drawn from a sample of approximately 1.1 million establishments (BLS, May 2025). The data is reported in five percentiles: 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th, and 90th. The 50th percentile (the median) — the wage below which half of workers in that occupation and geography earn — is the standard market anchor for a salary range midpoint.

For example, for marketing managers (SOC 11-2021) nationally, the BLS OEWS May 2024 median is $161,030, with a 10th percentile of $81,900 and a 90th percentile of $239,200 (BLS OOH, May 2024). State-level OEWS tables for New York are available directly at bls.gov/oes — always pull the state-specific figure for a New York posting rather than relying solely on the national median, as New York metro wages frequently differ from the national figure. See our marketing manager salary range guide for a worked example using this occupation.

Step 2 — Choose a range spread and define minimum and maximum.

A range spread is the width of the salary band expressed as a percentage of the midpoint (or sometimes the minimum). A typical spread for professional individual-contributor roles runs 40%–60%; manager-level roles often use 50%–80%. Here is a simple worked example using a round midpoint figure:

Worked example (illustrative — not a BLS assertion): Suppose you set a midpoint of $100,000 and use a 50% spread. With the spread applied symmetrically: minimum = $100,000 × (1 − 0.25) = $75,000; maximum = $100,000 × (1 + 0.25) = $125,000. The posted range is $75,000–$125,000. Document the midpoint source (e.g., BLS OEWS SOC code, geography, reference year) and the spread percentage in a salary-range record that travels with the requisition.

Step 3 — Document the methodology before the posting goes live.

New York's statewide law and NYC's law both apply at the moment the posting is published. That means the documentation — the SOC code you used, the BLS release year, the geographic anchor, the spread calculation — needs to exist before the posting goes live, not reconstructed after a complaint. Illinois's pay transparency law, as a comparison, requires employers to retain pay-scale documentation for five years after a posting closes (Greenberg Traurig / Illinois DOL, 2024). New York does not currently specify the same retention window, but treating your range documentation as a compliance record with a multi-year retention policy is a reasonable precaution. Confirm current NY requirements with counsel.

For a step-by-step guide to the full methodology, see how to build a salary range.

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The Documentation Gap Most New York Employers Have

The most common gap we see is not the missing range — most HR teams know the posting needs a number. The gap is the missing methodology record: the document that answers "why this range?" when your employment attorney, an HR auditor, or an enforcement investigator asks.

A range built in a spreadsheet with no named data source, no BLS release year, no SOC code, and no spread rationale is difficult to defend. A range with a documented anchor (BLS OEWS SOC 11-2021, New York State, May 2024, median $X), a defined spread (50%, per company policy for manager-level roles), and a calculation trail — that is a range you can hand to counsel and stand behind.

If you are building ranges for multiple New York roles across a hiring cycle, the labor involved in doing this manually adds up quickly. The Pay Transparency Compliance Kit at /store/pay-transparency-compliance-kit includes a structured range-building template, a jurisdiction-specific compliance checklist for New York State and NYC, and a methodology-documentation worksheet designed to produce the kind of audit-ready record described above — without requiring a dedicated compensation analyst or an enterprise-priced software platform.

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New York Pay Transparency Law: What to Do Before Your Next Posting

New York's new york pay transparency law is, in practice, two obligations that must be evaluated for every posting: the statewide §194-B requirement (effective September 17, 2023, four or more employees, penalties up to $3,000 per violation per NY State DOL / SixFifty / Trusaic 2026) and the NYC Local Law 32 requirement (effective November 1, 2022, civil penalties up to $250,000 per violation per Trusaic 2025). Both require a good-faith minimum and maximum at the time of posting. Neither accepts a blank range or a placeholder.

The defensibility of your range depends on the methodology behind it, not just the presence of two numbers. Grounding the midpoint in BLS OEWS state-level data, defining and documenting a spread, and retaining that record with the requisition are the practices that distinguish a compliant posting from a liability.

For a broader view of how New York fits into the national pay transparency landscape, visit our pay transparency resource hub. To see how Salary Range Builder can help you build and document New York-compliant salary ranges, visit /pricing.

Download the Pay Transparency Compliance Kit — including the New York State and NYC compliance checklist and range-documentation worksheet — at /store/pay-transparency-compliance-kit.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Pay transparency laws change frequently. Confirm all requirements, effective dates, employer thresholds, and penalty schedules with the New York State Department of Labor, the NYC Commission on Human Rights, or qualified employment counsel before acting.