New York City enacts new laws to require pay data reporting

Following a vote to override former Mayor Eric Adams’ earlier vetoes of two bills, the New York City Council adopted new laws requiring annual reporting of employee compensation data based on race/ethnicity and gender and analyses of the collected data.¹ Pursuant to these new laws, an as-of-yet undetermined city agency will be designated by the Mayor of New York City by December 4, 2026 to implement the requirements under the new pay data reporting laws.

Int. 982-A: Pay data reporting requirements

Within a year of its designation, which could be as late as December 3, 2027, the responsible agency will be required to develop and release a standardized, fillable form for covered employers to use in submitting pay reports to the agency. Covered employers under this law include any non-governmental employer with 200 or more employees working in New York City, including those working on a full-time, part-time, or temporary basis.

The pay report form will be based on the reporting requirements used by the EEOC in its 2017 and 2018 EEO-1 Component 2 reports, which included wages and total hours worked by race/ethnicity and gender within 12 specified pay bands. However, the designated agency will have discretion to adopt modifications to the reporting options over the EEOC reporting categories, such as accounting for different gender identities.

Covered employers will be permitted to provide explanations regarding any information included in their report and will not be required to provide any individual employees’ personal information. Covered employers will have an option to submit the form anonymously (provided, that anonymous submitters will still separately be required to submit a signed statement that identifies the employer and confirms the employer’s submission of an accurate report).

Each year, following the annual data submissions, the designated agency will publish a list of employers who are not compliant with the pay reporting requirements online.² Noncompliant employers will first receive notice of their noncompliance and have a 30-day cure period prior to the list’s publication. Employers that do not submit a pay report and certification within 30 days after a written warning of noncompliance will face a civil penalty of USD1,000 for the first offense and USD5,000 for any subsequent offense.

Int. 984-A: Pay equity studies

Int. 984-A operates in tandem with Int. 982-A, requiring the designated agency to conduct a pay equity study within a year following covered employers’ annual submission of their pay data reports. The pay equity study will evaluate the data in the reports to highlight any compensation disparities based on race/ethnicity and gender, identify industries in which the disparities (if any) are prevalent, and report any trends in occupational segregation based on those demographic categories. Within six months of conducting the pay equity study, the designated agency will deliver its findings to both the Mayor of New York City and the Speaker of the City Council. The findings must include at least an analysis of the data collected, a description of all statistical methodologies used, and recommendations for action plans to address identified disparities. The recommendations will be made public along with the aggregated data contained in the pay reports (without revealing any employer’s or employee’s identifying information).

The new laws represent the most recent iteration of bills first introduced by the City Council in July 2024. In enacting these new laws, New York City becomes the fourth jurisdiction in the United States to require pay data reporting of this nature, following similar laws enacted in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts.³ This also follows a growing global trend, as several jurisdictions outside of the United States have enacted more expansive gender-based pay reporting laws. For example, the United Kingdom and Australia both mandate annual gender pay gap reporting for certain employers that must also be publicly disclosed, and the European Union’s Pay Transparency Directive requires certain employers to (i) report their annual gender pay gap data to both a monitoring body and their employees and (ii) conduct a pay assessment with their workers’ representatives.⁴

Next steps

The laws are effective immediately as of the City Council’s veto override. Depending on how quickly the Mayor and City Council act, employers should anticipate being required to perform pay data reporting starting as early as 2026 and as late as 2028. In the meantime, employers can prepare by reviewing organizational structures, pay policies, and data collection processes.

We are continuing to monitor any developments to these laws. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or if you would like to know more about how the new laws relating to pay data reporting requirements may affect you.

Footnotes

1 N.Y.C. Introduction No. 982-2024-A (“Int. 982-A”); N.Y.C. Introduction No. 984-2024-A (“Int. 984-A”).

2 This applies even to employers who submit the form anonymously, as the separate signed statements will identify which employers have submitted the required data.

3 Cal. Gov. Code § 12999; 820 ILCS 112/11; Mass. Gen. Laws c.149 § 105E. These states’ laws differ from the new NYC laws, however, in that they apply to employers with 100 or more employees.

4 Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, SI 2017/172 (UK); Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) (Austl.), as amended by Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Act 2025 (Cth) (Austl.); Directive (EU) 2023/970, 2023 O.J. (L 132) 21 (implementation deadline of June 7, 2026).