What New York requires, and how to check it yourself
Most contractor websites say “licensed and insured” and stop there. This page explains which license actually governs this trade in New York, what it covers, what it does not, and how to verify anyone’s claim in about ninety seconds.
Two words that mean almost nothing on their own
“Licensed and insured” is the most common phrase in the trade and one of the least useful. It does not say which license, issued by which authority, covering which work, current until when. It does not say what the insurance limits are, whether your building can be named as additional insured, or whether the policy was in force last Tuesday.
It matters more here than in most trades, because in New York a great deal of this work is a licensed activity and holding out as able to do it without the license is a criminal offense rather than a paperwork problem. That cuts both ways: a contractor who is vague about credentials may be hiding a gap, and a contractor who states a credential loosely may be creating one.
So this page does three things. It sets out what the law actually requires. It tells you exactly how to verify any contractor, including us, against the state’s public register. And it states our own position today without dressing it up.
Our own status today: to be confirmed, not yet claimed
Gotham Access Control NY is a new company. As of the date this page was published, we make no license claim of any kind. Nothing on this website says or implies that we hold a state or county license, and you should not read anything on it that way.
The fields below are placeholders. Each one will be filled with a real number, and this notice replaced, only once the credential has been issued and can be independently verified against the issuing authority’s own public record, not before.
- NYS Department of State Security and Fire Alarm Installer license (GBL Article 6-D):
{{NYS_6D_LICENSE_NUMBER}}(pending, not yet issued). - NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Home Improvement Contractor license:
{{NYC_DCWP_HIC_NUMBER}}(pending, not yet issued).
Until those numbers are real and verifiable, treat this page as a description of what New York requires, not as a statement of what we hold. If a credential is a precondition for the work you need done, ask us directly and you will get a straight answer rather than a badge.
The license that governs this trade is a state license, not a city one
The core credential for security work in New York is the Security and Fire Alarm Installer license, issued by the New York State Department of State, Division of Licensing Services, under General Business Law Article 6-D and its regulations at 19 NYCRR Part 195. It is valid statewide: the five boroughs, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester all sit under the same license.
Two points regularly surprise buyers.
First, there is no separate New York City alarm installer license. If a contractor tells you they hold an “NYC alarm license,” they are describing something that does not exist. The city’s own business portal lists the credential but names the State Department of State as the issuing agency.
Second, the license reaches much further than burglar alarms. The scope regulation at 19 NYCRR §195.2 expressly brings in closed-circuit television and video surveillance systems used, full-time or part-time, for the detection or monitoring of intrusion, break-in, theft, movement, sound or fire. It also brings in electrical entry systems that detect or give notification of those things, regardless of how many entry points there are. In practice that means most commercial and residential camera work sold as security is a licensed activity, and the Department’s position has been that a video intercom is treated as a small CCTV system for these purposes.
Getting the license is not a formality. It requires a minimum of 81 hours of Department-approved coursework across installation standards and codes, control panels and alarm transmission, security systems, fire technology, and service and maintenance; electronic fingerprinting; an examination; and it runs on a two-year term. A licensed principal may employ technicians who are not individually licensed, but those employees must be fingerprinted and registered with the Department. Operating without the license, or employing unregistered installers, is a misdemeanor under Article 6-D.
The exemptions are narrower than contractors like to pretend
19 NYCRR §195.2 also lists what falls outside the license. The exemptions cover sprinkler systems; line-voltage connections to an outlet, junction box or distribution panel; systems in vehicles, vessels and aircraft; single-station battery smoke alarms; systems a property owner buys and installs on their own property; and (the one that gets abused) a single-door card-access entry system that does not detect or give notification of intrusion, break-in, theft, movement, sound or fire.
Read that last one carefully, because two conditions must both hold. It has to be a single door, and it has to be non-detecting and non-notifying. A two-door system is outside the exemption. So is a single-door system that raises a forced-door or door-held-open alert, which is to say almost every access control system worth installing, because door position monitoring is what makes the system useful in the first place.
Anyone who tells you “access control does not need a license in New York” is quoting half a sentence. The honest version is that a genuinely dumb single-door reader may fall outside it, and almost nothing else does.
The second exemption matters too, in the opposite direction: line-voltage connections are expressly not covered by the installer license. That is electrician territory. In New York City it interacts with Admin Code §28-105.4.7, which exempts wiring below 50 volts for signaling, communication, alarm and data from an electrical permit, except for life safety systems, hazardous locations, intrinsically safe systems, and any point of connection interfacing with a control circuit that switches light, heat or power. Landing the 120V feed for a lock power supply sits squarely in that last exception.
County licensing is separate, and it is not uniform
New York has no statewide contractor or home improvement license. Contractor licensing is a city and county matter, and the rules genuinely differ across a service area that spans the five boroughs, two Long Island counties and Westchester.
New York City
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection issues the Home Improvement Contractor license, required for construction, repair, remodeling or other home improvement work on residential property in the five boroughs, generally for jobs above $200 in one- to four-family dwellings. Applicants sit a written examination, are fingerprinted, and must supply either a $20,000 surety bond naming the department or a one-time contribution to the city’s Home Improvement Contractor Trust Fund, plus proof of general liability and workers’ compensation coverage. Note the distinction: a trust fund contribution is not a bond, and a contractor who advertises as “bonded” on the strength of one is overstating it.
Nassau County
The Office of Consumer Affairs licenses home improvement contractors under Nassau County Administrative Code §21-11, and separately licenses locksmiths. Nassau does not license electricians at county level. That sits with each town, city and incorporated village building department, so Hempstead, North Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Glen Cove, Long Beach and the villages each have to be checked individually.
Suffolk County
Consumer Affairs licenses home improvement contractors under Suffolk County Code Chapter 563, and unlike Nassau it requires a written examination on the county code and General Business Law. Suffolk also licenses electricians at county level.
Westchester County
The Department of Consumer Protection licenses home improvement contractors and home improvement salespersons, and operates trade licensing boards for electricians and plumbers. Several Westchester municipalities (Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle and Mount Vernon among them) add their own requirements and issue their own permits on top.
The practical consequence for you as a buyer: a contractor who says “we serve Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, fully licensed” is making four or five separate claims at once, and each one is separately checkable. Ask which counties, and ask for the numbers.
How to verify any contractor in about ninety seconds
Including us. None of this requires a lawyer and all of it is free.
- Ask for the license number and the exact name it is issued under. A refusal, or a number that arrives as a screenshot rather than a number, is the whole answer. So is a licensee name that does not match the entity on your contract and your certificate of insurance.
- Check it against the state’s public register. The Department of State runs a free licensee search at appext20.dos.ny.gov. Search by name or license number, confirm the license type is Security and Fire Alarm Installer, and confirm the status and expiry date. A license that lapsed four months ago still looks impressive on a business card.
- Check the county separately. Nassau Office of Consumer Affairs, Suffolk Consumer Affairs and Westchester Consumer Protection each publish their own license lookups, and NYC DCWP licenses can be checked through 311 or the department directly. A state license does not substitute for a county home improvement license, and vice versa.
- Get the certificate of insurance from the broker, not the contractor. An ACORD 25 emailed by the agency of record is verifiable. A PDF forwarded by the contractor is a picture of a document. Ask that the certificate be issued directly to the building.
- Read the additional insured wording, not just the limits. The building entity, the managing agent and the board should appear as additional insured on both ongoing and completed operations, on a primary and non-contributory basis, with a waiver of subrogation. Limits alone tell you very little.
- Ask what they will not do. Any competent low-voltage contractor in New York should be able to tell you instantly that fire alarm work needs FDNY company recognition and certified technicians, and that line-voltage terminations belong to an electrician. A contractor who claims all of it is claiming too much.
Insurance: to be confirmed, not yet claimed
We publish no insurance claim on this site. There is no limit, carrier, policy number or certificate anywhere on these pages, and there will not be until coverage is bound and a current certificate can be issued to your building by the broker rather than by us.
- Commercial general liability limit:
{{GL_LIMIT}}(to be confirmed). - Workers’ compensation carrier:
{{WC_CARRIER}}(to be confirmed).
If a certificate of insurance naming your building is a condition of a technician setting foot in it (and in most managed New York buildings it is), ask us before you schedule a survey, and you will get an accurate answer about where that stands rather than a badge on a web page.
What your building will actually ask a vendor for
This is market practice rather than statute, and it varies building by building, but the pattern across managed New York property is consistent enough to plan around.
- An ACORD 25 certificate of insurance, current-dated and usually issued specifically to that building rather than generically.
- Commercial general liability, commonly $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate as a floor. Larger commercial buildings, institutional owners and hospitals routinely ask for $2M/$4M with umbrella or excess layers above it. These are typical demands, not legal minimums. No statute sets them.
- Additional insured status for the owner entity, the managing agent, the board and sometimes the net lessee or lender, on a primary and non-contributory basis, covering both ongoing operations and completed operations. The endorsement forms are usually named explicitly in the alteration agreement.
- A waiver of subrogation in favor of the same parties.
- Workers’ compensation and New York disability benefits coverage, evidenced on the state board’s own forms rather than a generic certificate. Contractors forget disability constantly and it is a common cause of a permit or an alteration agreement stalling.
- Increasingly, professional liability and cyber coverage for any vendor touching the building network, hosting video in the cloud, or handling credential data. If you are buying cloud access control or cloud video, this is a fair question to ask.
Building this into the schedule matters. A certificate with the wrong entity name on it can cost a week, and on a co-op with a monthly board cycle a week can cost a month.
Credentials that do not exist, and phrases that should worry you
Every one of these appears on competitor websites in this market right now.
- “FDNY approved” or “FDNY certified” for cameras, intercoms or access control. FDNY company recognition and its certificates of fitness apply to fire alarm work. They do not cover CCTV, access control or intercom, and using the department’s name or shield without holding the credential is misrepresentation.
- “NYC alarm license.” No such license exists. The alarm installer license is issued by the New York State Department of State.
- “ADA certified” or “ADA approved.” There is no such certification for installers or products. The ADA is a civil rights statute enforced through litigation, not a plan-approval scheme. The defensible phrasing is that hardware is specified and installed to meet the 2010 ADA Standards and ICC A117.1-2009 as referenced by the NYC Building Code.
- “UL certified company.” UL lists products, not contractors. The meaningful statement is that the access control equipment installed is UL 294 listed.
- “Bonded” on the strength of a trust fund contribution. The NYC Home Improvement Contractor route allows either a $20,000 surety bond or a one-time trust fund payment. Only the first one makes a contractor bonded.
- “Guaranteed code compliant” or “guaranteed to pass inspection.” The authority having jurisdiction decides that, not the contractor. What can honestly be promised is design and installation to a named code section, and attendance at the inspection.
- “All our products are NDAA compliant.” A blanket claim requires verification of every part number, including rebranded hardware built on covered platforms. On a federally funded project a wrong answer here is a false claims exposure, not a marketing slip.
- Any 24/7 or guaranteed response-time promise from a small contractor. Ask what happens at 3 a.m. on a Sunday and who physically answers. We work business hours and say so.
Work we will not take, whatever any license eventually says
A license defines what a contractor may do. It does not oblige them to do all of it, and in this trade the boundaries you refuse to cross say more about competence than the ones you claim.
Fire alarm. Installation, inspection, testing and service of fire alarm systems in New York City requires an FDNY-recognized company with a certificate-holding principal and certificate-holding technicians. This is not on our roadmap. Where our work interfaces with fire alarm (and on any building with electrically locked egress doors it must, because those locks have to release on alarm and stay released until the panel is reset), the fire alarm contractor makes the connection at their panel and we make ours at the lock power supply, with the interface tested jointly and documented.
Central-station monitoring. A separately regulated activity with its own listings. We do not provide it and we do not resell it under our name.
Line-voltage electrical work. Covered above. An electrician does the 120V side; we do everything downstream of it.
Locksmith work. Rekeying, cylinder work and key cutting is a different license in New York City and in Nassau County. We electrify openings and install strikes, maglocks and electrified hardware. We do not cut keys.
If a job needs all four trades, say so early and we will tell you which parts are ours and who should hold the rest. That conversation costs nothing and it is a great deal cheaper than discovering the gap at inspection.
Common questions
Do security cameras really need a licensed installer in New York?
In most commercial and residential cases sold as security, yes. The scope regulation at 19 NYCRR §195.2 covers closed-circuit television and video surveillance systems used, full-time or part-time, for the detection or monitoring of intrusion, break-in, theft, movement, sound or fire. That description fits nearly every camera system a building or business buys.
The gray area is a camera system installed for a non-security purpose: process monitoring, a nursery camera, a live view of a loading bay for logistics rather than theft. The trigger is how the system is used and how it is sold, which means marketing copy describing “security cameras” is itself evidence of a licensed activity. That is a thin reed to lean on and a serious contractor does not build a business on it.
There is also the owner self-install exemption: a property owner or proprietor buying and installing a system on their own property is outside the license. That is why a building’s own maintenance staff can put up cameras. It does not extend to a contractor doing it for them.
Our building is in Westchester, not the city. Do the same rules apply?
The state Security and Fire Alarm Installer license is statewide, so that part is identical in Yonkers, Scarsdale, Huntington and Manhattan alike. What changes is everything layered on top.
Westchester County licenses home improvement contractors through its Department of Consumer Protection and operates its own electrical trade licensing board, and individual municipalities add their own permit and licensing requirements. Nassau licenses home improvement at county level but leaves electrical licensing to each town and village. Suffolk licenses both at county level and makes home improvement applicants sit a written exam on the county code.
The building code edition differs too. New York City runs its own electrical code, while Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester sit under the New York State Uniform Code. A contractor quoting the same code edition for a job in Flushing and a job in Rye has not thought about it.
Why will you not just say “licensed and insured” like everyone else?
Because it would be false today, and because a claim you can check is worth more than a claim you cannot.
Holding out as able to install, service or maintain security systems without the state license is a misdemeanor under General Business Law Article 6-D, not a marketing infraction. Separately, a materially misleading statement to a consumer is actionable under New York’s consumer protection statutes, where a private plaintiff needs to show only that a reasonable consumer would be misled, not that anybody intended it.
There is also a practical argument. If we published a badge, you would have no way to test it. Because we published a verification method instead, you can hold every contractor you talk to (including us, once our number exists) to the same standard.
What can you legally do right now, before the license is issued?
Ask us directly about your specific job and you will get a specific answer, because the correct answer depends on what the system is and what it does.
What we will not do is take work that requires a credential we do not hold and hope nobody checks. If your job needs the state installer license and it is not in hand, we will tell you that rather than quote it. If it needs an electrician or a fire alarm contractor, we will tell you that too, and we can usually tell you which parts of the job those trades own so you can price the whole package properly.
Site surveys, scoping, documentation review, network and cable design work and straight technical advice are available now, and a survey costs you nothing inside the service area. A survey report on its own is often worth having, because it answers the question that decides most budgets in this city: whether the existing riser can carry a modern system, or whether it cannot.
Does the state license cover fire alarm work as well? The name suggests it does.
The state credential is called the Security and Fire Alarm Installer license, and that name causes real confusion. Holding it does not authorize fire alarm work in New York City.
Since December 2020, fire alarm installation, inspection, testing and service in the five boroughs must be performed by a company holding FDNY recognition, with a principal and technicians holding the relevant certificates of fitness. That is a separate application, a separate approval and a separate annual cycle from anything the state issues.
So a contractor can hold the state license, be entirely legitimate, and still be prohibited from touching a fire alarm panel in New York City. Anyone who conflates the two is either confused or hoping you are.
Work that usually comes with this
Access Control
Fobs, cards, keypads and phone-based credentials, plus the locking hardware and egress compliance behind them.
Security Cameras
IP camera systems designed around identification distance and retention, not camera count.
Property Management
Portfolio work: one vendor, consistent hardware, COIs on file, documented every time.
Co-ops & Condos
Board-vote timelines, shareholder communication, and phased work that doesn't blow the reserve fund.
Ask the awkward question first.
Tell us what the job is and what your building requires of a vendor. You will get an accurate answer about scope, credentials and who else needs to be involved, before anyone books a survey.
Sun to Thu 9am to 5pm · Fri 9am to 12pm · Sat closed