Starting in 2030, most NYC landlords must provide AC if you ask

Starting June 1, 2030, landlords of covered rentals must provide cooling in sleeping rooms that tenants have opted in for. You can file an opt-in request with HPD beginning March 1, 2028. The room becomes covered 60 days after the request, but the landlord’s cooling duty does not start before June 1, 2030. From June 15 through September 15, the system must be capable of keeping the room at 78°F or below. If the landlord controls a central system, it must meet that standard in every sleeping room during the cooling season without an opt-in.

The owner is responsible for providing and maintaining the equipment. The law does not automatically make every tenant pay the electricity bill: leases offered starting March 1, 2028 must say who pays it. In a rent-regulated unit, installation may raise the regulated rent, and the tenant must consent to necessary improvements and charges allowed by state law. Emergency temporary housing is excluded. NYCHA follows a separate rule: it can comply through a cooling plan that targets at least one sleeping room in 25% of its units by June 1, 2030.

Council Member Lincoln Restler introduced the bill in 2024 at the request of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, over opposition from real estate groups. Restler’s office estimated that 850,000 New Yorkers lacked air conditioning, most of them in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The Council passed the bill 40–7, with one abstention, in December 2025. It became law on January 17, 2026 without the mayor’s signature.