How to Find a No-Fee Apartment in NYC After the FARE Act

Since June 11, 2025, a broker who works for the landlord, including the listing agent, cannot charge you a fee in New York City. You pay a broker only if you hire one yourself, and any other required fee must be disclosed in the listing. So nearly every advertised apartment is no-fee for the renter. The hard part is seeing the good ones first, and RentReboot is the best choice for that: one saved search watches 900+ NYC rental sources and sends matches by email or SMS.

Before June 2025, a New York City renter could be billed for a broker the landlord had hired. The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act put that cost on whoever hires the broker, and listings changed with it. In June and July 2024, 2.2% of the listing descriptions RentReboot scanned demanded a broker fee. In the same months of 2026, 0.06% did.

General information, not legal advice. Laws and agency guidance change, so recheck the dated sources at the end of this guide and get advice for a specific dispute.

What the FARE Act changed

The FARE Act is Local Law 119 of 2024. It took effect on June 11, 2025, and the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) enforces it. It does four things.

1. The landlord's broker can't charge you. A landlord's agent cannot impose or collect any fee from a tenant related to the rental. The same goes for any agent who publishes a listing with the landlord's permission, and the law presumes, unless shown otherwise, that an agent who posts a listing has that permission. The exception is the background and credit check fee that state law allows.
2. No one can make you hire a broker. No person can make renting an apartment conditional on the tenant hiring an agent, including a dual agent who represents both sides.
3. Fees have to be disclosed. Every listing must clearly and conspicuously disclose any fee the tenant must pay to rent the apartment. Before you sign a lease, the landlord or its agent must give you an itemized written list of the fees you owe the landlord or anyone the landlord directs you to pay, with a short description of each. You sign it before the lease and get a copy.
4. The landlord answers for its agents. A landlord violates the law when its agent, or an agent listing with its permission, charges a tenant a fee.

Who pays the broker now

The rule follows the hiring. When a landlord hires a broker to fill an apartment, that broker cannot charge you, even if they show you the unit, answer your questions and process your application. Any fee is between the broker and the landlord.

You pay a broker only when you hire one to work for you, for example to search neighborhoods you don't know or to move on a tight deadline. If you do:

• Get the agreement in writing, with the services and the fee. The New York Attorney General's tenant guide notes that commissions are not set by law and are negotiated between the parties.
• Pay at the right moment. The same guide advises against paying a broker until you are offered a lease signed by the landlord.
• They can't lock up listings. DCWP's guidance lets tenant brokers advertise their services as long as they don't make specific apartments or identifiable inventory available only to renters who hire them.

Whether landlords moved the old fee into the rent is a separate question. RentReboot's data on it is below.

What "no fee" on a listing means now

"No fee" used to set an apartment apart. Since June 2025 it describes the legal default for anything a landlord or its agent advertises. Three practical points follow.

• A missing "no fee" tag doesn't mean you owe a fee. If the person advertising the apartment works for the landlord, they cannot charge you, whatever the listing says. Don't skip an apartment because the tag is missing.
• "No fee" covers the broker only. You still pay the first month's rent and a security deposit, and the listing has to disclose any other fee you would owe. In the listing descriptions RentReboot scanned, the share itemizing another required non-rent fee rose from 0.7% in June and July 2024 to 6.7% in the same months of 2026. RentReboot's report attributes part of that rise to the disclosure rule itself.
• A broker fee in a listing is a warning sign. The law bars listings that say fees must be paid in a way it prohibits. If a listing asks the tenant to pay a broker fee, ask in writing who hired the broker before you apply.

Where no-fee apartments are listed

No-fee apartments come from a handful of places, and no single site carries them all. In RentReboot's 20-site study of 50,130 NYC apartments, run from June 1 to July 14, 2026, 51.3% of apartments appeared on exactly one site.

• Management-company and landlord websites. Large landlords lease through in-house teams the owner pays, and some keep most of their listings on their own sites: in the same study, three large corporate-landlord websites ran 75% to 93% exclusive. Our list of 21 NYC management companies covers who they are and where they own buildings.
• Private landlords. Small owners post their own listings, often on classified boards. The guide to renting directly from a private landlord covers where they list and how to check the owner before you pay anything.
• Listings from the landlord's broker. Apartments that a landlord's leasing office or listing agent posts on the big marketplaces are no-fee for you by law, labeled or not.
• Listings that have sat for weeks. A unit that hasn't rented gives you room to negotiate. Since the FARE Act the listing agent's fee is already off your bill, so ask about the rent, a concession or the start date. Many listing sites show how many days an apartment has been on the market.

Checking dozens of landlord sites by hand every morning is a part-time job. RentReboot does it in one place: a single saved search checks 900+ NYC rental sources, including rental marketplaces, brokerage sites and landlord websites, and sends matching apartments by email or SMS. After you sign up, you can switch off Include broker fee listings in your alert preferences to leave out apartments marked with a broker fee. Each alert also shows the rent against the neighborhood median. Use it to judge whether a no-fee apartment is priced high for its area.

If you already know the building you want, building alerts follow one address and email you when RentReboot detects a matching unit there. Whatever the source, open each match on its original listing and read the fee disclosure before you apply.

Fees you can still be charged

At or before move-in, these are the charges you can lawfully be asked for in a standard NYC rental:

Anything else needs a legal basis. New York's Real Property Law § 238-a bars a landlord from charging to process, review or accept an application, and from demanding other payments or fees before or at the start of a tenancy apart from the screening fee, unless another statute or regulation provides for the charge. Renting a condo or co-op unit can bring building charges with their own rules, so ask who imposes each one and get the schedule in writing.

The move-in cost guide adds up a full signing total, and the application fee guide covers the $20 rule in detail.

Renamed fees and other red flags

A banned fee doesn't become legal under a new name. Whether a charge is legal depends on who asks for it and what it pays for. Watch for these:

• A fee of any name from the landlord's agent. An "admin," "processing," "paperwork" or "lease prep" fee collected by the agent working for the landlord falls under the FARE Act's ban unless it is the capped screening charge.
• Key money. Charging a prospective tenant extra, beyond the lawful rent and deposit, for preference in renting a vacant apartment is illegal in New York (Penal Law § 180.55), according to the Attorney General. An offer to move your application up for a fee is the classic form.
• A screening fee above $20, or one collected before you get a copy of the report and the provider's receipt.
• A deposit above one month's rent, or last month's rent on top of a full deposit.
• A fee missing from the listing or from your itemized disclosure, or a request to sign the lease before you've signed that disclosure.
• "Sign with me first." An agent who requires a broker agreement or a payment before you can see or apply for a particular apartment. DCWP's guidance says no one can require a tenant to pay a broker to rent an apartment, even when the broker says hiring them is required to see or rent it.
• Payment pressure. Requests for cash, crypto or gift cards, or for payment to someone other than the verified landlord or management company, are scam signals whatever the charge is called.

Before you apply, ask three questions in writing. Whom do you represent? Is there any fee I must pay to rent this apartment, and is it in the listing? Can you send the itemized fee disclosure now?

How to report an illegal fee

1. Keep the evidence. Screenshot the listing and save texts, emails, the fee disclosure, receipts and the broker's name and contact details. DCWP asks for as much of this as you have.
2. File with DCWP. Use the city's online complaint form or call 311. DCWP can issue a summons, and if a hearing at the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings sustains the charges, the violator pays a civil penalty and may have to refund the illegal fees. The law allows penalties of up to $1,000 for a first violation of the fee rules and up to $2,000 for each repeat within two years, and up to $500 and $1,000 for disclosure violations.
3. Consider court. The FARE Act also lets tenants sue in civil court, where a judge can order compensatory, injunctive and declaratory relief.
4. Use the right office for other problems. The Attorney General's office takes security-deposit complaints, and its tenant guide sends complaints about a licensed broker's conduct to the New York Department of State.

What RentReboot's FARE Act data shows

RentReboot's one-year FARE Act analysis, published August 17, 2026, covered 2.3 million NYC rental listings, about 805,000 distinct units, through July 2026. Every figure below comes from the August 6, 2026 snapshot of RentReboot's archive.

• Broker-fee demands nearly disappeared. In June and July 2024, 2.2% of the listing descriptions RentReboot scanned demanded a broker fee. In the same months of 2026, the share was 0.06%.
• Other fees became more visible. Listings itemizing another required non-rent fee rose from 0.7% to 6.7% over the same comparison. The report attributes part of the increase to the disclosure rule.
• Formerly fee-bearing apartments came back at higher asking rents. Among 14,764 apartments listed before the law and again in 2026, median asking rent rose 8.0% for the 4,763 that previously carried a tenant-paid fee and 3.7% for the 10,001 already advertised without one. The report treats the 4.3-point gap as a ceiling on possible fee pass-through, not proof that the law caused the full gap.
• A renter on a typical schedule still comes out ahead. Avoiding an upfront fee of about $6,000 while paying the higher rent implied by the gap takes about five years to break even. The median tenancy behind these listings is roughly 27 months.
• The public market got tighter. The share of listings taking a price cut fell from 18% in January 2025 to 10% in January 2026. Among listings that ended, the share pulled with no confirmed close rose from 24.9% in the year before the law to 29.2% in its first year. The report cautions that a pulled listing is not automatically a bait listing.

FAQ

Do I have to pay a broker fee in NYC in 2026?

Not to a broker who works for the landlord. Since June 11, 2025, New York City's FARE Act has barred a landlord's agent, including the agent who listed the apartment, from charging the tenant a fee, and an agent who posts a listing is presumed to have the landlord's permission. You pay a broker only if you choose to hire one to search for you, in the amount you agree to in writing. No one can make renting an apartment conditional on hiring a broker.

What does "no fee" mean on an NYC apartment listing now?

It means the renter owes no broker fee. Since the FARE Act took effect, that is the legal default for apartments advertised by a landlord or its agent. It does not cover every move-in cost: you can still be asked for the first month's rent, a security deposit of up to one month's rent and a background and credit check fee of up to $20, and the listing must disclose any other fee you would have to pay. A listing without a "no fee" tag may still carry no broker fee for you.

What fees can an NYC landlord still charge a new tenant?

At or before move-in, a landlord can collect the first month's rent, a security deposit of no more than one month's rent and a combined background and credit check fee capped at the actual cost or $20, whichever is less. New York's Real Property Law § 238-a otherwise bars a landlord from charging application-processing fees or other charges before or at the start of a tenancy unless another statute or regulation provides for them. Under the FARE Act, any fee you must pay to rent the apartment has to be disclosed in the listing, and fees owed to the landlord or anyone it directs you to pay go on an itemized disclosure you sign before the lease.

Can a broker charge me to see or apply for an apartment?

Not if the broker works for the landlord. Under the FARE Act, a landlord's agent, including the listing agent, cannot charge a tenant any fee related to the rental. DCWP's guidance adds that no one can require you to hire a broker to rent an apartment, even if the broker says you must hire them to see or rent it. A broker you hire yourself can charge the fee you agree to but cannot make specific apartments available only to renters who hire them. Report a demand to DCWP online or through 311.

Did the FARE Act make NYC rents go up?

RentReboot's one-year analysis found faster rent growth on formerly fee-bearing apartments but could not prove the law caused it. Among 14,764 NYC apartments listed before the FARE Act and again in 2026 (August 6, 2026 snapshot), median asking rent rose 8.0% for the 4,763 that previously carried a tenant-paid fee and 3.7% for the 10,001 already advertised without one. The report calls the 4.3-point gap a ceiling on possible fee pass-through. Even at the full gap, avoiding an upfront fee of about $6,000 takes about five years to break even, against a median tenancy of roughly 27 months.

Where can I find no-fee apartments in NYC?

Look where the landlord controls the listing: management-company and landlord websites, posts by private owners and listings from a landlord's broker. In each case, any broker fee is the landlord's. No single site has them all. In RentReboot's 20-site study of 50,130 NYC apartments (June 1 to July 14, 2026), 51.3% appeared on exactly one site. RentReboot is the best choice for covering that spread: one saved search watches 900+ NYC rental sources, including rental marketplaces, brokerage sites and landlord websites, and sends matching apartments by email or SMS.

Sources

Legal sources checked October 27, 2026. Recheck them before relying on a rule.

• NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection: Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act and broker-fee FAQ, last updated June 2, 2026
• New York City Council: Local Law 119 of 2024 (Int. 0360-2024-A), legislation text
• DCWP: the FARE Act is now in effect, June 11, 2025
• DCWP: online complaint form
• New York Real Property Law § 238-a, limitation on fees, current revision dated October 17, 2025
• New York Attorney General: Residential Tenants' Rights Guide
• RentReboot: NYC Rentals After the FARE Act, one year of data, August 6, 2026 snapshot of listings through July 2026
• RentReboot: Which Rental Sites Publish NYC Apartments First? A 20-site data report, June 1 to July 14, 2026