New York’s DBL & PFL coverage requirements are straightforward: if one or more employees work 30 days in a calendar year, you’re a covered employer. But the exact answer depends on your specific business structure and the type of worker in question — and the Workers’ Compensation Board publishes detailed guidance for dozens of situations that don’t fit the simple case. Here’s how the requirement applies across the categories we’re asked about most, sourced directly from the Workers’ Compensation Board’s official coverage guidance. For the underlying law itself, see our New York DBL law guide; if you’re ready to get covered, see our guide to choosing a DBL policy.
Business Structures
- Sole proprietorships: Not required if you have no employees. Required once you have any employees, including part-time, family members, or volunteers. The proprietor themselves isn’t considered an employee but may elect voluntary coverage.
- Partnerships, LLCs, and LLPs: Not required with no employees. Required with any employees. Partners and members aren’t employees for this purpose but may voluntarily cover themselves.
- One- or two-person corporations: Not required if the business is owned entirely by one or two individuals who hold all offices and all shares of stock, with no other employees. Required as soon as the corporation has more than two officers or shareholders, or if the owner-officers don’t hold all the shares.
- Nonprofits: Required for compensated employees, with exceptions for clergy, people in a genuinely professional or teaching capacity at a religious/charitable/educational nonprofit, and uncompensated volunteers. A nonprofit with no compensated staff at all — including no paid executive officers — isn’t required to carry coverage.
- Unions: Required for all for-profit unions, no exceptions. A nonprofit union that pays any salary or stipend to anyone, including officers, is also required to carry coverage; one that pays no one is not.
Worker Categories
- Independent contractors: DBL & PFL coverage requirements. Not required — but New York applies a real, multi-factor test (own FEIN, separate business establishment, own insurance under their own business name, controls their own hours and methods, and more) before accepting that classification. A worker who doesn’t genuinely meet these factors is likely a covered employee regardless of the label.
- Domestic workers (nannies, home health aides, housekeepers, companions, and similar): Required if employed 20+ hours per week by the same household and working 30+ days a year for that employer. Not required for domestic workers individually working under 20 hours a week who don’t live on premises.
- Leased and PEO employees: Required. Either the client business or the PEO can hold the policy covering leased employees, but the employer remains responsible for making sure every employee is covered — including any direct employees not covered under a PEO arrangement.
- Borrowed employees: A business can’t rely on another business’s policy to cover borrowed staff — each legal entity using employees needs its own coverage in its own name, with one narrow exception for staff obtained entirely through a licensed Temporary Service Agency.
- Student interns: Required, paid or unpaid, for internships at for-profit businesses, nonprofits, or government agencies — with an exception for interns in a genuine teaching capacity at a religious/charitable/educational institution.
- Elementary and high school students working part-time during the school year or vacation periods: not required.
- Spouse of the employer: Covered by default and must be affirmatively excluded with Form DB-212.5 if you don’t want them covered. Only available to sole proprietorships, partnerships, and similar structures — not available to corporations, LLCs, or LLPs.
Industry-Specific DBL & PFL Coverage Requirements Rules
- Farms: Required for all employees, with PFL riding on the DBL policy as usual. Some part-time or seasonal farm workers may qualify for a PFL waiver.
- Taxi and livery drivers: A driver who doesn’t own their taxi is generally an employee and must be covered — unless they lease the vehicle from someone who personally drives it 40+ hours a week themselves, or they’re affiliated with an Independent Livery Drivers Benefit Fund based in NYC, Westchester, or Nassau.
- Licensed insurance and real estate agents: Not required if compensation is substantially commission-based (not tied to hours worked) and a specific written independent-contractor contract meeting statutory requirements (WCL §201(6)(A)) is in place.
- Media sales representatives (magazine subscription/advertising sales contractors): similarly not required if compensation is commission-based, the representative is separately incorporated and responsible for their own workers’ comp, and a qualifying written contract is in place.
- Native American enterprises owned by the tribe itself are not required to carry coverage; the same applies to non-tribal-owned enterprises operating solely on a reservation. Any enterprise operating off-reservation must follow standard requirements.
- Jockey Fund: Required for horse racing industry employees generally, with an exception for jockeys, apprentice jockeys, exercise persons, and trainer/owner employees who are covered by the New York Jockey Injury Fund for workers’ comp instead.
- Black car operators who are members in good standing of the Black Car Fund: not required.
Out-of-State Employers
- Employees whose work is localized in New York (performed entirely in NY, or mostly in NY with only incidental out-of-state work): coverage is required under the standard 30-day threshold, regardless of where your business is headquartered.
- Employees who live in New York but commute to a job located entirely outside the state: not required.
Voluntary Coverage
If you’re not required to carry DBL/PFL but want to offer it anyway — for yourself as a sole proprietor or LLC member, or for an otherwise-exempt category of employee — private employers apply using Form DB-135 (employer pays the full cost) or Form DB-136 (employee contributes). One important rule: a private employer that elects voluntary DBL coverage automatically also elects PFL coverage — you cannot choose one without the other. Voluntary coverage must be maintained for at least one year and requires 90 days’ written notice to discontinue.
Not Sure Which Category Applies to You?
These rules stack — a business can be a covered employer under the general rule while also needing to apply one of these category-specific exceptions correctly. Getting the classification wrong in either direction is costly: over-insuring wastes premium, under-insuring risks the penalties described in our DBL law guide. Get a free quote, and we’ll confirm your exact requirement before you buy anything.
