New York recently enacted a law that, among other things, requires employers to provide current and former employees with a copy of their personnel records upon the employee’s request.

Overview of the Major Provisions

The new law amends the New York State Labor Law and will take effect on November 8, 2026.  Under this new law, New York employers are required to:

• Upon employees’ or former employees’ request, provide them, within five business days, with a copy of their “personnel records” at no cost;
• Permit employees to access their “personnel records” for review up to two times per calendar year;
• Allow employees to dispute information in their “personnel records” with written responses;
• Retain complete “personnel records” from the employee’s date of hire through three years after termination, without deleting or expunging information required to be maintained under the law; and
• Advise employees within ten days of placing “any information to the extent that the information is, has been used or may be used, to negatively affect the employee’s qualification for employment, promotion, transfer, additional compensation or the possibility that the employee will be subject to disciplinary action.”

More Specific Details, Burdens and Open Questions

One of the most potentially burdensome aspects of the new law is the last bullet point above: the employee notification requirement. The law does not define what constitutes “negative” information or prescribe how the notice must be provided.

Also, the law’s definition of “personnel record” is expansive, and at this time the state has yet to issue guidance. Accordingly, employers should carefully consider whether, for example, “informal” written feedback or “coaching” about substandard performance may nonetheless constitute a “personnel record” and necessitate notification under the law.

As it stands now, personnel records are broadly defined as a “record kept by an employer that identifies an employee, to the extent that the record is used or has been used, or may affect or be used relative to that employee’s qualifications for employment, promotion, transfer, additional compensation, or disciplinary action,” which includes:

• Employee’s name, address, and date of birth;
• Job title and description;
• Employee’s rate of pay and other compensation; and
• Any documents that pertain to the employee’s performance, evaluations, warnings, or disciplinary actions.

The law excludes from the definition of a personnel record certain information of a personal nature that, if disclosed, would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Thus, employers should also be mindful that other laws may require certain information to be kept and maintained separately from an employee’s personnel record, such as information related to an employee’s medical, accommodation, or immigration status.

As noted, the new law requires employers to notify employees if they add negative information to the personnel record. Employers have ten days to do so. If the employee disagrees with information maintained in the record, the employer and employee may mutually agree to amend or remove the disputed information. The law does not set forth the minimum requirements for such a dispute resolution process, including any timelines for communications. If no agreement is reached, employees may submit a written statement explaining their position, which must become part of the personnel record. Moreover, if the employee’s review was initiated because of negative information in the record, the review does not count against the annual limit of two employee reviews.

The new law will not affect unionized employees if the applicable collective bargaining agreement “provides at least substantially similar access” by employees to their personnel records. Again, however, there is no definition of what constitutes “substantially similar access.”

To make matters more complicated, but potentially helpful to employers, in signing the bill Governor Hochul required a Chapter Amendment, which obliges the state legislature to correct “ambiguities” in the new law. To be clear, the law as described above becomes effective November 8, 2026. However, the Governor asked the legislature to provide through a Chapter Amendment “clarification that employers are not required to create a personnel file or produce new documents beyond the records they currently maintain,” and that personnel files include only records “used to determine an employee’s qualifications for hiring, retention, promotion, transfer, additional compensation or disciplinary action.” The legislature will have to make such amendments during its next legislative session, which starts in January 2027.

Potential Penalties and Other Considerations

The New York Attorney General will enforce the law, and it provides for penalties of not less than $500 or more than $2,500 for a violation. As written, the law provides no private right of action for employees to sue. It also does not have a posting requirement. 

We note that New York is a bit late to the party in passing a law requiring employee access to personnel files (19 other states already have such laws). In our experience, employee requests for their personnel files in those states are sometimes a precursor to litigation against an employer. If so, the employer’s failure to comply with the new law could not only result in fines from the Attorney General, but also might be used as evidence in subsequent litigation against the employer for discrimination, whistleblowing, wage and hour claims, etc.