NYC Fair Workweek Schedule Change Penalty Calculator (2026)

What Is the NYC Fair Workweek Schedule Change Penalty?

The NYC Fair Workweek schedule change penalty is a premium payment fast food employers must make when they change an employee's schedule without enough advance notice. Under NYC Admin Code §20-1222, fast food workers are entitled to these payments when their employer adds hours, changes shift times, reduces hours, or cancels a shift with less than 14 days' notice.

For fast food workers, the penalty amount depends on three factors:

• The type of change: additional hours or time change vs. reduced hours or cancellation
• The notice period: how many days before the first day on the work schedule you were told of the change
• Whether the shift was a clopening (an additional $100 premium applies)

Penalties for fast food workers range from $10 to $75 per violation, plus a $100 clopening premium if applicable. These are flat dollar amounts — not percentages of wages — so the amount doesn't depend on your pay rate.

For retail workers, the law works differently. Under NYC Admin Code §§20-1251 et seq., retail employers are not required to pay $10–$75 premiums. Instead, they are prohibited from making schedule changes within 72 hours without written employee consent. Violations trigger civil fines paid to the City, and workers may pursue private legal action for damages.

For example, if a fast food worker's 8-hour shift is cancelled with 2 days' notice (less than 7 days, at least 24 hours), the worker is owed $45. If a shift time changes with less than 24 hours' notice but no hours are lost, the premium is $15.

Who Is Covered by the NYC Fair Workweek Law?

The NYC Fair Workweek Law covers three main groups of workers:

Fast food workers — employees at chains with 30 or more locations nationwide. This includes quick-service restaurants, fast-casual dining, and coffee shops. Workers may be employed by the restaurant, the owner, or a third-party contractor providing services at the establishment.

Retail workers — employees at retail employers with 20 or more employees in NYC. This covers department stores, clothing retailers, grocery stores, and other businesses primarily engaged in selling consumer goods. The 20-employee threshold applies to NYC locations — not total company headcount.

Utility safety workers — employees who locate and mark underground facilities or inspect gas pipe fusions and joints in NYC.

High-volume for-hire vehicle (HVFHV) drivers — as of July 28, 2026, Local Law 2026/052 extended Chapter 12 of the Admin Code to add protections for HVFHV drivers, chiefly against wrongful deactivation and for progressive discipline (§§20-1281 et seq.). Those protections concern driver deactivation and discipline — not schedule-change premiums — so this calculator's premium model applies to fast food workers, while retail and HVFHV drivers are protected through prohibition/deactivation frameworks rather than flat-dollar premiums.

Who is NOT covered:

• Salaried employees who are exempt from overtime requirements under New York State law — check your status with the NY overtime exempt salary threshold calculator
• Independent contractors
• Employees covered by certain collective bargaining agreements that address scheduling and waive these rights
• Employees who work in corporate offices (retail)

The law applies regardless of immigration status. If you're unsure whether you're covered, file a complaint with DCWP — they'll determine eligibility during the investigation.

Fast Food vs Retail — Two Very Different Legal Frameworks

Fast food and retail workers are both covered under the NYC Fair Workweek Law, but the legal frameworks are fundamentally different — not just in notice periods, but in the entire penalty mechanic.

Fast food workers (NYC Admin Code §20-1222) receive a tiered premium-pay system: if their employer changes their schedule with less than 14 days' notice, the employer must pay a specific dollar premium — $10 to $75 — directly to the worker, on top of their regular wages. These premiums are owed even if the worker consents to the change in writing.

Retail workers (NYC Admin Code §§20-1251 et seq.) are protected by a prohibition model: retail employers simply cannot cancel shifts, shorten shifts by more than 15 minutes, or add hours within 72 hours without employee consent. There is no tiered $10–$75 premium system for retail workers. When a retail employer violates these rules, they are subject to civil fines paid to the City ($500–$1,000), and affected employees may pursue private legal action for damages.

The key takeaway: if you're a retail worker, your employer cannot make schedule changes within 72 hours without your written consent. If they do, they face civil penalties — but you don't receive the same type of flat-dollar premium that fast food workers get. You should document any violations and contact DCWP or a labor attorney to understand your options for damages.

Clopening Shifts — The $100 Premium (Fast Food Only)

A clopening shift is when a fast food worker works a closing shift followed immediately by an opening shift with less than 11 hours between the two shifts. Under the NYC Fair Workweek Law, employers must pay a $100 premium for clopening shifts — but only if the employee consented in writing before working the shift and actually worked it.

The $100 premium is separate from any schedule change premium. If a clopening shift also involved a last-minute schedule change, you could be owed both premiums: the schedule change premium plus the $100 clopening premium.

Important rules:

• Written consent is required before the shift — your employer must get your written agreement before scheduling a clopening
• You have the right to decline a clopening shift without any negative consequences
• The $100 premium is in addition to your regular wages for all hours worked
• If your employer requires you to work a clopening without written consent, they owe you the $100 premium plus $500 in damages, plus $500 for failure to obtain consent
• This applies to fast food workers; the clopening premium is not codified the same way for retail workers under the Retail Fair Workweek Law

Example: Your manager schedules you to close at 11 PM and open at 6 AM the next morning. That's 7 hours between shifts — a clopening. You consent in writing and work both shifts. You're owed $100. If the closing shift was also added to your schedule with less than 24 hours' notice, you could also be owed a $15 schedule change premium, for a total of $115 owed to you by your employer.

When Does a Schedule Change NOT Trigger a Premium?

Not every schedule change triggers a premium under the NYC Fair Workweek Law. There are several situations where fast food employers can make changes without paying premiums.

The 15-minute rule: Changes of less than 15 minutes total to the start or end time of a shift do not trigger a premium. However, if total changes to a shift exceed 15 minutes, the full premium is owed. If the end time changes by more than 15 minutes, a premium is owed even if total hours changed by less.

Employee-requested changes: If you requested the schedule change in writing, no premium is owed. The law is designed to protect workers from unilateral changes by employers — not to penalize employers for accommodating employee requests. Note that a general, open-ended statement about availability does not count as a specific request for a given shift.

Voluntary shift swaps: When you and a coworker voluntarily agree to trade shifts and the employer documents the trade in writing, no premium is owed. If your employer asks you to fill in for another worker, that is not a voluntary trade — premiums apply.

The 15% rule — consent threshold, not a premium exemption: Fast food employers can give a worker a weekly work schedule that differs from their regular (baseline) schedule by up to 15% without requiring written consent to the variation. However, this 15% threshold does not create an exemption from premium payment. Schedule change premiums are owed for any change made with less than 14 days' notice, regardless of whether the variation from the regular schedule is above or below 15%. The 15% threshold only governs the separate question of whether written consent to the variation is required before the schedule is posted.

Employer closure exceptions: Premiums are not required when the employer cannot operate due to threats to employee or property safety, public utility failure, shutdown of public transportation, fire, flood, other natural disaster, or a government-declared state of emergency.

Overtime exception: Employers are not required to pay a schedule change premium for adding time to a work schedule when the employer must pay overtime for the changed shift. To see how much you're owed for those hours, use our NY regular rate of pay and bonus overtime calculator.

What to Do If Your Employer Violates the Law

If your employer changes your schedule without proper notice and doesn't pay the required premium (fast food) or makes prohibited schedule changes (retail), you have several options to recover what you're owed.

First, document everything. Keep copies of your schedules before and after the change, note the date you were notified, and save any written communications with your employer about schedule changes. This documentation is critical if you need to file a complaint.

File a complaint with DCWP. The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforces the Fair Workweek Law. You can file a complaint online, by phone (311), or by email at FWW@dcwp.nyc.gov. DCWP will investigate and can order your employer to pay back premiums and civil penalties.

You also have a private right of action. This means you can sue your employer directly in court for unpaid premiums and damages. You don't need to wait for DCWP to act. Note that you cannot have a complaint with DCWP and a court claim active at the same time.

Additional damages for unpaid premiums. If your employer fails to pay a required schedule change premium, you are entitled to the unpaid premium plus an additional $300 for each failure to pay.

Retaliation is illegal. Your employer cannot fire you, reduce your hours, or take any adverse action against you for asserting your rights under the Fair Workweek Law. If they do, that's a separate violation with its own penalties.

Why Accurate Information Matters for This Calculator

Most online resources treat the NYC Fair Workweek Law as a single uniform set of rules — applying the same $10–$75 premium table to both fast food and retail workers. This is legally incorrect and can lead workers to claim amounts they are not entitled to, or miss the actual remedies available to them.

This calculator is built directly from the NYC Admin Code and DCWP's official guidance documents. The fast food premium matrix (§20-1222) and the retail prohibition framework (§§20-1251 et seq.) are fundamentally different legal mechanisms, and this tool correctly applies each one.

For fast food workers, the calculator gives you the specific dollar amount you are owed in premiums for schedule changes, plus the civil fine exposure for your employer. For retail workers, the calculator explains the prohibition model and the civil fine structure — because telling a retail worker they're owed "$20" in premiums when the law doesn't provide for that would be a disservice.

Related NYC Overtime, Wage & Labor Law Calculators

These related calculators cover other New York City and New York State wage protections that may apply to your situation:

• NYC Part-Time Overtime Blended Rate Calculator — blended overtime rate for part-time workers with multiple pay rates
• New York Spread of Hours Calculator — extra hour of pay for shifts spanning more than 10 hours

Explore all tools in the New York Overtime, Wage & Labor Law Calculators hub.