The new year is approaching, and when it comes a slate of new laws will go into effect in New York state.

Some are the result of years-old legislation coming into effect now, while others will come into effect over the course of the year after being signed into law by Gov. Kathy. Hochul in recent weeks.

The minimum wage will go up to $15.50 per hour upstate starting Jan. 1, and $16.50 per hour downstate and on Long Island. That’s the result of legislation signed in 2023 that will raise the minimum another 50 cents in 2026 and then peg future increases to a three-year average of the consumer price index for the northeast.

For salaried workers, state laws regarding overtime pay are changing too. Effective Jan. 1, salaried workers in administrative or executive roles making less than $60,405.80 annually upstate will be eligible to be paid more for working over 40 hours a week. For New York City-based workers, the threshold will be set at $64,350.

A bill signed into law earlier this year will provide all employees in New York with 20 hours of paid sick time to use specifically on prenatal care for pregnant people or their partners, and expand Medicaid to cover doulas.

On July 31, employers requirement to offer COVID-specific paid sick leave will expire.

On March 4, a handful of workplace safety requirements will go into effect, the result of a bill signed by the Governor earlier this year. For retail shops that don’t primarily sell food, employers will have to develop safety plans shared with their employees and the state labor department, implement safety training programs and install ‘panic buttons’ to contact security or police in their storefronts. Further guidance from the state Department of Labor is expected in the coming months, which will detail what stores are subject to the new rules and what specifically they should be doing.

Already in effect is a bill requiring telemarketers to identify themselves, and the reason they’re calling, within the first 30 seconds of a conversation. With financial penalties in place for failure to comply, telemarketers must now give their name, the name of the business they’re calling from, and the reason they’re calling. They are also required to identify if the call is being recorded, and offer a ‘do-not-call’ option.

A bill to reauthorize the cannabis growers showcase program will also be finalized and immediately put into effect next year. The legislature this year passed a bill that reauthorizes the program, which allowed state cannabis regulators to provide temporary sales permits to people seeking to open a dispensary, partnered with legal growers and processors, at a time when the state’s legal marijuana industry was struggling to get established. Ongoing delays for dispensary approvals have left many business-owners in a bureaucratic purgatory and stymied plans for growers and processors — the showcase system was hailed as a solution, but all showcase permits expired on Jan 1, 2024.

Hochul and the state legislature have agreed to make some changes to the reauthorization bill passed this year through chapter amendments before it goes into effect — meant to bring the legislation closer to what the regulators reported after the 2023 program ended.

Another bill to regulate short-term rentals like AirBnB’s is also getting some changes before final approval expected early next year. The legislature passed a bill this year that would have created a mandatory, statewide registry of short-term rental units, maintained with data from the platforms that host the rental postings and property owners. It also established that those short-term rentals are subject to the occupancy and sales taxes that hotels pay in New York.

Hochul said last week that the bill needs some changes — rather than establishing a mandatory, statewide registry, it empowers counties to establish their own local registries but doesn’t require it — the counties were already empowered to do just that, and many including St. Lawrence County have struck agreements with hosting platforms to collect occupancy and sales taxes without any specific state laws.

Hochul and lawmakers also came to an agreement to make marginal changes to a bill passed this year that would require consumer reporting agencies, like Equifax or Experian, to report when a data breach occurs within 30 days of it happening. After legislators make some small changes to the bill regarding how that notification is delivered early next year, the law will go into effect immediately.