Renting in Manhattan
Broker Fees After the FARE Act: Who Pays Now
The 2025 law that ended the tenant-paid fee for a broker you never hired. What changed, what didn't, what to watch.
Facts, figures and legal references on this page were verified against public sources in August 2026. Rules change; confirm anything decision-critical with your attorney or agent.
For decades, renting here came with a ritual insult: a fee of 12 to 15% of the annual rent, paid by you, to a broker who worked for the landlord. On a $3,500 apartment that was five figures, due at signing, for someone you never hired. The FARE Act (Local Law 119 of 2024) ended it on June 11, 2025.
The rule now
Whoever hires the broker pays the broker.
- Landlord lists the apartment with an agent, the usual case: landlord pays.
- You hire your own broker to hunt for you: you pay them, whatever you agreed.
- Nobody can require you to pay the landlord’s broker, or to use a particular broker, as a condition of renting.
The city’s consumer agency (DCWP) enforces it, complaints go through 311, and the first year produced over a thousand of them. The law has teeth.
The honest catch
Landlords can fold the cost into the asking rent, and in a tight market plenty have. What you gain anyway:
- The cost now sits in the advertised number where you can compare it, instead of arriving as a four-figure surprise at lease signing.
- Move-in cash drops to first month plus one month security. If you’re relocating, that’s the difference that matters.
- The math flipped for length of stay. A baked-in rent bump costs you again at every renewal; the old one-time fee didn’t. Short stays win under the new rules, long stays may quietly pay more.
Still-illegal moves you might see
- “Tenant pays broker fee” on a landlord’s own listing. Walk, or report it.
- The fee reborn as a “processing,” “application,” or “move-in” charge. Application fees are capped at $20 by state law.
- Being told you must go through a specific broker to see the apartment.
Everything above reflects the law as of the date at the top. Enforcement and market behavior are still settling.