New York Pay Transparency Law: What Employers Must Disclose

With the New York pay transparency law now in effect, employers face significant new obligations regarding salary disclosure during the hiring and promotion process. Effective September 17, 2023, New York State amended its Labor Law to require that all employers with four or more employees disclose a compensation range in every job advertisement. This law is part of a growing national movement toward pay equity and salary transparency, and it carries real enforcement teeth—including civil penalties and private rights of action. As an HR professional, understanding exactly what the law requires is essential to avoid penalties and build trust with candidates and employees alike.

Key Requirements of the New York Pay Transparency Law

Under the New York pay transparency law, employers must include a compensation range in every advertisement for a job, promotion, or transfer opportunity. The range must specify the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly range that the employer in good faith believes it would pay for the advertised role. The law also requires employers to include a job description for the position if one exists.

Critically, the compensation range disclosed must be genuinely reflective of what the employer is willing to pay. Employers cannot post artificially wide ranges—such as "$0 to $1,000,000"—that obscure the real compensation being offered. The "good faith" standard means the range must reflect the employer's actual assessment of what the role is worth based on the specific requirements and the relevant labor market.

In addition to external job postings, the law applies to all internal postings for promotions and transfers. This is a frequently overlooked obligation—HR teams that have updated their external job boards but not their internal systems remain out of compliance.

Who Must Comply?

Any employer with four or more employees must comply with the New York law when advertising positions that will be performed, at least in part, in New York State. Notably, this includes remote positions—if a New York resident could apply for and perform the job from New York, the posting likely triggers the disclosure obligation regardless of where the employer is headquartered.

The scope of covered postings is broad:

• Publicly posted job listings on employer career pages, job boards, and social media
• Job postings shared with a third-party recruiter or staffing firm for distribution
• Direct outreach to specific individuals if the communication constitutes an "advertisement" under the law
• Internal postings for transfer or promotion opportunities made available to current employees

New York City has its own, pre-existing pay transparency law (effective November 2022) that is substantially similar but applies to employers with four or more workers who work in New York City. Employers operating within NYC must comply with both the city and state requirements, applying whichever is more stringent in cases of conflict.

Exceptions and Special Cases

The law contains a limited set of exceptions. Positions that are not advertised—such as roles filled entirely through direct, non-public outreach without any formal advertisement—may fall outside the posting requirement in some circumstances. However, the definition of "advertisement" is interpreted broadly, and HR teams should assume that most formal job communications require disclosure.

There are also specific exclusions for certain temporary staffing arrangements when a worker is being placed through a temporary help firm in an occupation where the compensation varies with each assignment. Employers relying on this or any other exception should obtain legal guidance to confirm the exception is properly applicable to their specific situation before omitting the required information.

Penalties and Enforcement

The New York State Department of Labor and the New York City Commission on Human Rights both have enforcement authority over pay transparency violations. Penalties for first-time violations begin at $1,000, rising to $2,000 for second violations and $3,000 for subsequent violations. Private individuals can also file complaints with the relevant agency. The compounding nature of penalties—each non-compliant posting is typically treated as a separate violation—means that organizations with high-volume hiring activity face substantial aggregate exposure if their job posting review process is inadequate.

How to Manage Compliance

Building a sustainable compliance program for New York's pay transparency law requires updating your processes across the full job posting lifecycle—from initial job requisition creation through final offer. Key steps include:

• Establishing a compensation range setting process that produces genuine, defensible ranges for every role before posting begins—not after
• Creating a job posting checklist that requires HR reviewers to confirm that both a compensation range and a job description are present before any posting is published internally or externally
• Auditing all third-party job board postings and recruiter instructions to confirm the required information is being passed through accurately
• Reviewing internal job posting systems to ensure promotion and transfer opportunities are treated identically to external postings under the law
• Training hiring managers and recruiters so they understand why the information is required and what constitutes a good-faith range versus a placeholder

Many ATS platforms, including Treegarden, can help HR teams operationalize these requirements by building compensation range fields into the job requisition workflow and flagging incomplete postings before they are published.

Next Steps for HR Teams

HR teams that have not yet fully audited their job posting practices for New York compliance should prioritize this review immediately. The most common gaps found in compliance audits are missing ranges on internal postings, compensation ranges that were set without a documented good-faith basis, and job postings distributed through external recruiters that lack the required disclosures.

Start by auditing every current job posting—internal and external—against the law's requirements. Then build the compensation range-setting process into your standard requisition workflow so future postings are compliant by default. Finally, brief your legal team on any pending or historical postings that may not have been compliant so they can assess the organization's exposure and advise on appropriate remediation steps.

As pay transparency requirements continue to spread across states and municipalities, organizations that build systematic compliance into their job posting processes now will be well-positioned to adapt quickly as new laws take effect.

Setting Salary Ranges That Withstand Scrutiny

Pay transparency requirements force a level of rigour in salary range-setting that many organisations have historically avoided. Publishing a range of "$50,000 – $200,000" for a single role — a practice that briefly became common as employers tried to comply with the letter rather than the spirit of transparency laws — has been explicitly addressed in New York State guidance, which requires ranges to be "good faith" estimates of what the employer actually intends to pay. Regulators and plaintiff attorneys are paying close attention to ranges that appear designed to obscure rather than inform, and enforcement actions against egregiously broad ranges are emerging.

A defensible salary range typically spans no more than 30–40% from minimum to maximum for a given role and level. Wider ranges generally indicate either that the role is being defined across multiple distinct levels (which should be split into separate postings), that the organisation hasn't done the compensation analysis to define the range properly, or that there is genuine flexibility based on candidate seniority — in which case the posting should describe what differentiates candidates at the lower versus higher end of the range.

Building salary ranges requires access to reliable market data. Compensation surveys from Radford, Mercer, Willis Towers Watson, or Culpepper provide statistically robust market data segmented by industry, geography, company size, and role level. For organisations without survey subscriptions, publicly available sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics, LinkedIn Salary Insights, and levels.fyi (for technology roles) provide useful reference points, though with lower precision than dedicated compensation surveys. Geographic differentials — the pay premium associated with New York City compared to other markets — should be explicitly applied to ranges for roles hiring in specific locations.

Document your methodology. When ranges are challenged by employees, candidates, or regulators, the ability to show that ranges were set using a defined, consistent process — referencing specific market data sources, applied to defined job levels using a defined competitive positioning (e.g., targeting market median) — is your primary defence against claims of discriminatory or arbitrary compensation practices. This documentation also creates internal discipline, making it harder for individual hiring managers to deviate from established ranges based on subjective judgements about individual candidates.

Pay Transparency and Internal Equity Management

External pay transparency requirements create internal equity pressures that many HR teams underestimate when preparing for compliance. When salary ranges are publicly visible in job postings, current employees will compare those ranges against their own compensation — and in many cases find discrepancies that are difficult to explain and that generate legitimate frustration. Managing this dynamic proactively is one of the most important preparation steps before a pay transparency programme goes live.

The first step is an internal pay equity analysis. Before publishing ranges externally, conduct a thorough review of current employee compensation relative to the ranges you intend to publish. Identify employees whose pay falls below the minimum of the range for their current role — these represent both a legal risk (paying below a published minimum is difficult to defend) and an immediate retention risk when employees notice the gap. Budget for remediation payments to bring below-range employees to at least the range minimum, ideally before ranges are published.

Address compression proactively. Pay compression — where long-tenured employees earn less than new hires because market rates have increased since their hire date — is the internal equity problem most commonly surfaced by pay transparency. It is also one of the most corrosive to morale, because it effectively penalises loyalty. A compression analysis compares the compensation of each current employee against the market rate for their role and experience level, identifies gaps, and budgets corrective adjustments. Organisations that address compression before publishing external ranges avoid the painful discovery dynamic where employees learn about their compression from a job posting rather than from a proactive HR conversation.

Manager training is essential before external ranges go live. Employees will ask their managers questions about pay ranges, their personal position within the range, and the basis for any gap between their current compensation and the published range. Managers who are not prepared for these conversations will either give inconsistent answers — creating legal risk — or deflect entirely — creating trust damage. Invest in structured manager training that equips them with accurate information, clear talking points, and the policy context needed to have these conversations with confidence and empathy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the New York pay transparency law?

The New York pay transparency law requires employers to disclose salary ranges in all job postings to promote pay equity and reduce wage discrimination.

Does the law apply to remote employees?

Yes, if the job will be performed in whole or in part in New York State, the law applies, even if the employee is remote.

Are there penalties for non-compliance?

Yes, employers who fail to disclose salary ranges may face civil penalties of up to $250 per violation.

Can I exempt internships from the law?

Yes, internships and apprenticeships are exempt if the compensation is mandated by law or regulation.

How can I automate compliance with the law?

Using an ATS like Treegarden can help automate salary range disclosures and ensure job postings meet New York's requirements.