Housing & Real Estate Reviewed 2026-08-22
How the FARE Act changed who pays the broker fee
Since June 11, 2025, a broker who represents the landlord, including one who simply posts the listing with the landlord's permission, cannot charge the tenant a fee to rent an apartment in New York City, under the FARE Act, Local Law 119 of 2024. A tenant who chooses and hires their own broker can still be charged one, landlords must itemize every other fee in writing before a lease is signed, and a landlord's agent who charges a banned fee faces a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for a first violation and $2,000 for each one after.
The numbers that matter
- What it bans
- A landlord's agent, including a listing agent who posts the apartment with the landlord's permission, may not impose or collect any fee from a tenant related to the rental (Local Law 119 of 2024, NYC Council Legistar, read August 2026)
- When it took effect
- June 11, 2025 (the law passed in November 2024 and took effect 180 days after becoming law) (DCWP, Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act FAQ, last updated 6/02/2026, read August 2026)
- What's still allowed
- A landlord may still charge a prospective tenant for background and credit checks, and a tenant may still choose to hire and pay their own broker (DCWP, Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act FAQ, read August 2026)
- The penalty for an illegal fee
- A civil penalty of not more than $1,000 for a first violation and not more than $2,000 for each subsequent violation within a two-year period (Local Law 119 of 2024, NYC Administrative Code § 20-699.23, read August 2026)
- The penalty for a disclosure violation
- A civil penalty of not more than $500 for a first violation and not more than $1,000 for each subsequent violation within a two-year period (Local Law 119 of 2024, NYC Administrative Code § 20-699.23, read August 2026)
- How to complain
- File online with DCWP, which can issue a summons heard at the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH); a tenant can also sue directly in civil court (DCWP, Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act FAQ, read August 2026)
Who pays the broker fee now
The rule that changed is narrow but it covers most of what a renter used to pay at signing. DCWP's own summary:
The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act took effect on June 11, 2025. This law prohibits brokers who represent landlords from charging broker fees to tenants. This includes brokers who publish listings with the landlord's permission. Landlords or their agents must disclose other fees that the tenant must pay in their listings and rental agreements.
The law itself, passed by the City Council as Local Law 119 of 2024, states the ban in almost the same words:
a landlord's agent shall not impose any fee on, or collect any fee from, a tenant related to the rental of residential real property; and … any agent who publishes a listing for a rental of residential real property with the permission or authorization of the landlord for such property shall not impose any fee on, or collect any fee from, a tenant related to the rental of such property.
A rebuttable presumption in the same law treats any listing agent who posts an apartment as acting with the landlord's permission, which is what closes the obvious workaround of a broker claiming to represent nobody in particular.
The Council passed the bill in November 2024; the law itself set its own runway before taking hold.
This local law takes effect 180 days after it becomes law.
That runway landed on June 11, 2025, the effective date DCWP cites throughout its own guidance.
What a landlord can still charge, and who can still charge a tenant
The FARE Act bans a specific kind of fee, not every fee a renter pays to move in. Two carve-outs matter most.
The Law does not prohibit landlords from charging fees to prospective tenants for background checks and credit checks.
The Law does not prohibit: tenants from choosing to hire their own broker and pay broker fees; tenant brokers from advertising their services to tenants.
A tenant broker can still market apartments and get paid by the tenant who hires them. What the law forbids is making that hire a condition of seeing or renting a specific unit.
No person shall condition the rental of residential real property on a tenant engaging any agent, including but not limited to a dual agent.
A lease signed before the effective date is where the rule gets genuinely case by case rather than automatic.
As of June 11, 2025, the effective date of the FARE Act, neither a landlord nor a landlord's agent can impose a fee on, or collect a fee from, a tenant for a broker's services. However, this prohibition may not apply to a contractual obligation for a tenant to pay a fee for a broker's services that arose before June 11, 2025, depending on the particular circumstances under which the obligation arose.
DCWP does not give a flat answer here. An obligation to pay a fee that was already locked in before the law took hold may survive it, depending on the facts, which is the one part of this law that is genuinely not automatic.
The itemized disclosure every landlord owes a tenant
Whatever a tenant does still owe, it cannot arrive as a surprise at the closing table.
landlords or their agents must give tenants an itemized written disclosure of all fees they must pay the landlord, or any person at the direction of the landlord, to rent an apartment. The fees must include a written description, and the tenant must sign the itemized disclosure before signing a lease. Landlords or their agents must keep the signed disclosure for three years and give a copy to the tenant.
Order matters here: the disclosure has to be signed before the lease is, not folded into the lease itself or handed over after.
How to complain, and what it costs a violator
A tenant who is charged an illegal fee, or never gets the itemized disclosure, has two separate paths, and they are not mutually exclusive.
If the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) determines that a person violated the Law or applicable rules, DCWP will issue a summons detailing the violations and relevant sections of Law. The respondent will have an opportunity to appear before the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) to respond to the summons.
The Law creates a private cause of action, which allows individuals to sue in civil court.
A DCWP complaint and a lawsuit are not either-or. Nothing in the law requires exhausting one before trying the other.
Any person who violates the provisions of section 20-699.21 shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $1,000 for the first violation and not more than $2,000 for each subsequent violation occurring within a two-year period.
Any person who violates the provisions of section 20-699.22 shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $500 for the first violation and not more than $1,000 for each subsequent violation occurring within a two-year period.
The lower disclosure-only penalty is a separate violation from charging the fee itself; a landlord who does both can be cited for both.
For the separate rules that govern the rent itself once a tenant is in place, rather than what it costs to get in the door, read how rent stabilization works.
The questions New Yorkers actually ask
Who pays the broker fee under the FARE Act?
The tenant no longer pays a fee to a broker who represents the landlord, including a broker who simply posted the listing with the landlord's permission. A tenant who chooses to hire their own broker can still be charged a fee by that broker.
When did the FARE Act take effect in NYC?
June 11, 2025. The City Council passed the law, Local Law 119 of 2024, in November 2024, and it took effect 180 days after becoming law.
Can a landlord still charge me a broker fee if I signed my lease before June 11, 2025?
It depends on the circumstances. DCWP states that the ban may not apply to a contractual obligation to pay a broker's fee that arose before the effective date, depending on how that obligation arose, so an agreement signed before June 11, 2025 is not automatically covered.
Can I still hire and pay my own broker in NYC?
Yes. The FARE Act does not stop a tenant from choosing to hire a broker and paying that broker's fee. What it bans is a landlord or landlord's agent charging the tenant, or conditioning a rental on the tenant hiring a specific agent.
How do I file a FARE Act complaint, and what happens to a landlord who violates it?
File online with DCWP, which can issue a summons heard at the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings; a sustained violation carries a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for a first offense and $2,000 for each later one within two years for an illegal fee, or up to $500 and $1,000 for a disclosure violation. A tenant can also sue directly in civil court under the law's private right of action.
The documents
The public records this page draws on. Read them yourself:
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