CYPHR Register · Employment
What are the remedies for violating the Freelance Isn’t Free Act?
A freelancer who wins a late-payment claim under the Freelance Isn't Free Act recovers double damages plus reasonable attorneys' fees and costs. A missing written contract carries two hundred fifty dollars in statutory damages. The Attorney General may seek civil penalties of one, two or three thousand dollars depending on how many violations there have been, and separately, in a civil action, the trier of fact may impose up to twenty-five thousand dollars for a pattern or practice of violations.
The short version
The Freelance Isn’t Free Act carries four separate money consequences, and they do not all work the same way or run to the same person. Reading them as one pot is the usual error.
Late payment. A plaintiff who prevails on a claim that a hiring party violated the timely-payment section is entitled to an award of double damages, injunctive relief, and other such remedies as may be appropriate — and shall also be awarded reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.
No written contract. Statutory damages of two hundred fifty dollars attach to a violation of the written-contract requirement. That is a separate failure from paying late, and it carries its own number.
The Attorney General’s penalties. The Attorney General may seek a civil penalty not to exceed one thousand dollars for a first violation, two thousand dollars for a second violation, or three thousand dollars for a third or subsequent violation.
The pattern-or-practice penalty. In a civil action commenced under the article, the trier of fact may impose a civil penalty of not more than twenty-five thousand dollars for a finding that a hiring party has engaged in a pattern or practice of violations.
Who imposes what
| Remedy | Trigger | Amount | Imposed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Double damages | Timely-payment violation | Double damages, plus injunctive and other appropriate relief | Court, on the freelancer’s claim |
| Fees and costs | Timely-payment violation | Reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs | Court, on the freelancer’s claim |
| Statutory damages | No written contract | $250 | Court, on the freelancer’s claim |
| Civil penalties | By violation count | $1,000 / $2,000 / $3,000 | Sought by the Attorney General |
| Pattern-or-practice | Pattern or practice finding | Up to $25,000 | The trier of fact, in a civil action |
Every row is quoted from the statute itself in the table below.
The details that catch people out
The $25,000 is not an Attorney General fine
This is the single most commonly mis-stated point in the article, and we had it wrong in our own material before we read the section again. The two penalty tracks are distinct and are easily conflated: the twenty-five thousand dollar pattern-or-practice penalty is imposed by the trier of fact in a civil action, and is not an Attorney General fine. The Attorney General’s own penalties are the one, two and three thousand dollar tiers. Both can exist in the same matter; neither is the other.
Double damages and fees ride on the payment section, not on everything
The double-damages and fee awards are written against a violation of the timely-payment section. A written-contract failure is what carries the two hundred fifty dollar figure. Which section was breached decides which remedy is available.
The threshold is in the definition, not in the contract section
That threshold sits in the definition of freelance worker rather than in the written-contract section itself. The article reaches a hiring party that retains a freelance worker for an amount equal to or greater than eight hundred dollars, either by itself or when aggregated with all contracts for services between the same hiring party and freelance worker during the immediately preceding one hundred twenty days. The aggregation window is what catches a series of small engagements.
Where this comes from
| Instrument | Section | Operative text, quoted | Source | Checked | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1414(3)(c) — double damages | a plaintiff who prevails on a claim alleging a violation of section fourteen hundred eleven of this article is entitled to an award of double damages, injunctive relief, and other such remedies as may be appropriate | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1414(3)(a) — attorneys’ fees and costs | A plaintiff who prevails on a claim alleging a violation of section fourteen hundred eleven of this article shall be awarded damages as described in this section and an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1414(3)(b)(i) — statutory damages, written-contract violation | A plaintiff who prevails on a claim alleging a violation of section fourteen hundred twelve of this article shall be awarded statutory damages of two hundred fifty dollars. | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1414(1) — Attorney General civil penalties | a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars for a first violation, two thousand dollars for a second violation or three thousand dollars for a third or subsequent violation may be sought by the attorney general | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1414(5) — pattern-or-practice penalty, trier of fact | In any civil action commenced pursuant to this section, the trier of fact may impose a civil penalty of not more than twenty-five thousand dollars for a finding that a hiring party has engaged in a pattern or practice of violations of this article. | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
| N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law art. 44-A, §§ 1410-1415 (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) | § 1410(3) — the $800 / 120-day threshold | an amount equal to or greater than eight hundred dollars, either by itself or when aggregated with all contracts for services between the same hiring party and freelance worker during the immediately preceding one hundred twenty days | nysenate.gov | 2026-08-31 | Checked at source |
“Checked at source” means a second, independent pass re-retrieved this text from the official New York State source and from the bill as enacted, and matched every quotation above against both. Until August 31, 2026 these rows read “Read at source · second check pending”, because the single pass that recorded them had also fetched them; that second check has since been done by a different hand. The same pass captured the two hundred fifty dollar sentence, which we previously held only as our own summary of the subsection and could not quote to you — it is quoted in full above.
What we have not verified
- We did not source the New York City ordinance that preceded the statewide act. Our material dates that ordinance to 2017, but we hold no primary for it and have not reproduced it here.
- We read the statute. We did not read the regulations, agency guidance or enforcement practice underneath it, and we did not read the case law applying these remedies to particular facts.
- We have not checked how these remedies interact with New York’s other wage statutes, or whether a single course of conduct can draw on more than one of them at once.
- We checked this source on August 31, 2026. We have not checked whether it changed after that date.
- This is a description of what the statute says. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own counsel on your own facts.
Related
The neighbouring entry on who counts as a contractor in the first place is whether New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania use the ABC test for worker classification. This entry is part of the CYPHR Register — questions answered from the law itself, each one dated and sourced. Why we publish the sources at all is set out on the evidence page. The corpus behind these answers is CYPHR Intelligence.