New York Court Filing Fees by County

How New York court filing fees are actually set

The number that matters most here is not a dollar figure, it is a structural one: New York's eviction filing fee is fixed entirely by statute, with no local discretion anywhere, but the statute sets two different amounts depending on the type of court, and most counties contain both types at once. We checked the fee actually posted or confirmed at courts in nine counties spanning the state — all five New York City boroughs (New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, and Richmond), Erie (Buffalo City Court), Chemung (Elmira City Court), Nassau (Nassau County District Court), and Suffolk (its District Courts and its Town Courts) — plus the statute that governs the roughly 1,200 Town and Village Justice Courts everywhere else. Every City Court, every District Court, and NYC's Housing Court charge the same $45.00 to open a case, set by whichever of NYC Civil Court Act, Uniform City Court Act, or Uniform District Court Act section 1911 applies. Every Town and Village Justice Court charges $20.00, set by Uniform Justice Court Act section 1911. That is the full observed range: $20.00 to $45.00, and both figures are printed in statute, not chosen by a county or a local court rule. The problem for a site organized by county is that 57 of New York's 62 counties contain courts of more than one type — a city with its own City Court sitting inside a county otherwise covered by a dozen or more Town and Village Justice Courts is the normal case, not the exception. Nassau County is the one place outside New York City where a single court, the Nassau County District Court, genuinely hears every eviction in the county. Everywhere else, including populous counties like Erie, Suffolk, Monroe, and Onondaga, which court you land in, and therefore whether you pay $45 or $20, depends on the exact municipality the rental property sits in, not on the county.

The statutory caps

This is not a schedule keyed to how much money is in dispute, the way Florida's is. It is keyed to which kind of court has the case, and that in turn is keyed to the exact city, town, or village the rental unit sits in — information a county-level page cannot supply on its own.

Source: N.Y. City Civ. Ct. Act § 1911; N.Y. Uniform City Court Act § 1911; N.Y. Uniform Dist. Court Act § 1911; N.Y. Uniform Justice Court Act § 1911, Court fee schedules under New York's four parallel trial-court procedural acts. All four acts were adopted as a package in the 1960s to standardize practice across New York City Civil Court, City Courts, District Courts, and Town/Village Justice Courts, and each has carried its own section 1911 fee schedule ever since.. There is no cap-plus-local-rule arrangement here the way Georgia has one. Section 1911 of the City-Court-family acts (NYC Civil Court Act, Uniform City Court Act, Uniform District Court Act) sets the notice-of-petition fee at a flat $45.00, full stop, and section 1911 of the Uniform Justice Court Act sets the Town/Village figure at a flat $20.00, full stop. No county board, city council, or town justice has authority to raise or lower either number. The clerk in a rural Justice Court and the clerk in a busy City Court are both simply reading a number the Legislature already fixed. Checked July 31, 2026.

New York is the clearest example on this site of a state where the county is not, by itself, a workable unit for publishing an eviction filing fee. Outside New York City, an eviction is filed in whichever City Court, Town Court, Village Court, or District Court the rental property falls inside, and a single county nearly always contains more than one of those. Erie County has Buffalo City Court, which charges $45, and a large number of surrounding Town and Village Justice Courts, which charge $20; Suffolk County has District Courts in its western towns charging $45 and Town Courts in its eastern towns charging $20 — two different correct answers inside one county line. We are only confident giving a single county-wide figure for two kinds of county: New York City's five boroughs, where the Housing Court is one citywide court and the fee is $45 everywhere, and Nassau County, the one place outside the city where a single District Court genuinely hears every eviction filed in the county, also at $45. For the other 56 counties, the county page on this site should show the range, $20 to $45, and explain that the actual number depends on the municipality, because giving one number would be right for part of the county and wrong for the rest.

Both dollar figures are set entirely by the state Legislature, not by any county, city, or town. That is a real difference from Georgia, where each magistrate court sets its own filing deposit under a loose statutory cap. In New York, no local government body has the legal authority to charge more or less than the $45 or $20 that section 1911 of the relevant act specifies, so once you know which type of court has the case, the fee is not in doubt.

Service works the same way statewide, which is some relief from the filing-fee patchwork. Outside New York City the county Sheriff serves papers and carries out the warrant of eviction; inside the city that job belongs to a City Marshal, a different kind of official, but New York City's own guidance confirms Marshals are paid under the identical statute, CPLR 8011, that sets the Sheriff's fees elsewhere: $20 to serve the papers, $75 to execute the warrant. Mileage is added on top and does vary by distance. The $20 service figure is often avoided in practice because state law lets any adult who is not a party serve the initial notice of petition, so many landlords use a private process server instead of paying the officer; the $75 execution figure is not avoidable, because only the Sheriff or Marshal may physically carry out a warrant of eviction.

A fee waiver in New York, under CPLR 1101, can excuse the court's own filing fee in whole or in part — it is not the strict all-or-nothing choice Georgia and Florida offer. What it never reaches is the Sheriff's or Marshal's bill, or a private process server's charge. A tenant or landlord who receives a full court fee waiver can still be billed the $20 and $75 service and execution figures above, and should budget for them separately.

A jury is available in a New York eviction case if either side demands one before the hearing, under RPAPL 745, so this is not a state like Georgia's magistrate court where no jury exists at all. But the fee to demand one follows the exact same court-type split as the filing fee: $70 in NYC Civil Court, City Court, and District Court, $10 in a Town or Village Justice Court. We did not find a statewide add-on fee of the kind Georgia charges for indigent defense ($15) or Ohio charges for legal aid ($26) attached to a civil eviction filing in New York; if one exists, we have not been able to locate it in the statutes we checked.

Common questions